Saturn in Music

Many classical music folks and astronomers know the Saturn movement from The Planets.

Here’s a very obscure astronomy-related piece of music: Saturn by Alan Hovhaness. An abbreviated version is on YouTube here in concert. I see the old Crystal recording is on cd and available–where else?–on Amazon, too.

The concerto’s listed movements:

• 1. Prelude
• 2. Titan, Moon of Saturn
• 3. Orb Mysterious
• 4. Saturn, Celestial Globe
• 5. O Lost Note
• 6. My Hymn
• 7. Giant Globe
• 8. Vision of Saturn
• 9. On Wings of a Soundless Note
• 10. What is Universe?
• 11. Intermezzo
• 12. Harp of Saturn

Hovhaness composed this in 1971. A different feel from Gustav Holst’s astrology-inspired big-forces orchestral version. But the singer, piano, and clarinet give it a feel I think resonates with the sixth planet: cold, lonely, distant, and I think in the future, a place of mystical encounter with God.

If I were composing for an ensemble of musicians, siongers, or both, I think I’d want to explore a bit more than Holst’s “old age” or Hovhaness’s globes. Something like …

• Prelude at Phoebe
• Rings in False Colors
• Shepherd Moons
• Ballooning Above the Lakes of Titan
• The Fountains of Enceladus
• Iapetus
• Passing Mimas into …
• The Golden Clouds of Saturn
• Cold and Blue
• The Last Sun Dogs

Image credit.