Pluto was discovered in 1930, four years before Holst’s death, and was hailed by astronomers as the ninth planet. Holst, however, expressed no interest in writing a movement for the new planet. He had become disillusioned by the popularity of the suite, believing that it took too much attention away from his other works. In 2000, the Hallé Orchestra commissioned the English composer Colin Matthews, an authority on Holst, to write a new eighth movement, which he called “Pluto, the Renewer”. Dedicated to the late Imogen Holst, Gustav Holst’s daughter, it was first performed in Manchester on 11 May 2000, with Kent Nagano conducting the Hallé Orchestra. Matthews also changed the ending of “Neptune” slightly so that movement would lead directly into “Pluto”. Six years later, in August 2006, the International Astronomical Union promulgated for the very first time a definition of the term “planet”, which resulted in Pluto’s status being demoted from planet to dwarf planet. Consequently, Holst’s original work is once again a complete representation of all of the extraterrestrial planets in the Solar System. When British composer Colin Matthews was commissioned to “complete” Gustav Holst’s famous The Planets Pluto was still deemed a planet. However, the unfortunate Pluto later had it’s planetary status stripped from it, so Pluto is, in essence, the Lance Armstrong of planetary bodies. Colin Matthews gave his piece the title “Pluto, The Renewer”. The Greco-Roman god Pluto was the …
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04Mar
Posted by Pluto @ 9:36 pm
5 Responses
March 4th, 2013 at 9:36 pm
It’s not that Pluto has enemies, it ‘s because it was recategorized. The reason behind this is simple, the found a lot of other TNOs (Trans-Neptunian Object), but they simply ignored this problem until the found an even bigger “planet” than Pluto, which was Eris. So they recategorized them as the Kuiper Belt. This was done before in history when? they did this with planets like Ceres and other objects they found later; it’s now known as the asteriod belt.
March 4th, 2013 at 9:36 pm
Thank you so much for sharing this!
And thanks for the background information.
I am a? big Pluto fan, actually I wrote the only book about Planet Pluto (!) in German language.
And I don’t get it: Why has Pluto so many enemies? That makes me loving him even more…
March 4th, 2013 at 9:36 pm
“Pluto is, in essence, the Lance Armstrong of planetary bodies. ” Well? put.
About this, what a fucking waste of time. It sounds more like John Williams than Gustav Holst.
March 4th, 2013 at 9:36 pm
2:47 +? 4:40 = Loud
March 4th, 2013 at 9:36 pm
What the hell was Colin Matthews thinking when he wrote this? It just doesn’t do anything. At all. I keep re-listening to this piece, trying to find something salvageable? about it, but it’s just trash. It’s far too quiet, with bursts of sound every so often. There are echoes of Holst’s themes from the main suite, but only echoes. The piece itself has no melody, no form – absolutely nothing to make it stand on its own, let alone stand with the intensely melodic and romantic Planets suite.