Joel Hill wrote:

>I am probably the only one on this planet that is not familiar with Holst's
>work.  I sprung for the 2 piano version on Nazox some time ago, but the
>sound was so insistantly LOUD and shrill that I can hardly listen to it.
>I think I have heard it twice.

Though I haven't heard it, I can't imagine the real power and beauty of
this work coming through effectively in a 2-piano version.

>Any other input as to the value/enjoyability of this work? It must have
>something since it is so popular.

Well, it has that whole program music thing going for it, which always
helps on the popularity front.  Program aside - I tend to like the abstract
nature of music - I think it's one of the great cycles of symphonic poems
ever written.  It easily stands with Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade,
Debussy's La Mer, and Smetana's Ma Vlast, for example, as one of the most
evocative symphonic works ever written.  The use of orchestral color is
amazing.

I've heard this so often, I'm always leery of burnout, as Don mentioned.
But I did hear an outstanding recording of this piece recently.  A friend
has put together a state-of-the-art home theater system (including a 120"
projection TV) with some excellent audio electronics (Madrigal, Proceed,
Revel, etc.), fully capable of getting the most out of Dolby Digital (aka
AC-3) or DTS (Digital Theater Sound) encoded CDs or DVDs.  He's not much
of a classical music fan yet (though I continue to try) but I convinced him
to buy the Telarc recording of Joel Levi and the Atlanta Symphony released
by Image Entertainment on CD, and encoded using DTS.  All I can say is:
wow.  A reviewer in Stereophile called this disc the finest orchestral
recording he's ever heard.  I won't go that far, but it is amazingly
lifelike.  DTS is a five channel discrete surround sound system similar
to AC-3, but with a higher sampling rate (and therefore less compression)
in the surround channels.  As anyone familiar with surround sound can
tell you, there are a number of perspectives that engineers can take
when deciding where the listener is with respect to the instruments
of the orchestra.  Some recordings put you right in the middle of the
orchestra.  Some just put instruments as far apart as possible, resulting
in that annoying ping pong effect common with early surround sound.  The
best recordings (IMHO) are those that put you about where the conductor is,
or perhaps a little further back and higher up.  This gives the listener
the orchestral balance and instrumental placement closest to what the
conductor intended.  This recording of The Planets puts you right out in
front of the orchestra, with a very natural side-to-side balance, and
excellent depth to the soundstage.  You can just hear that wordless chorus
float up from the back of the stage when they enter during Uranus.  The
performance is also wonderful, full of exciting and incisive ensemble
playing.  This disc can be found at the Image Entertainment web site
for $25:

    http://www.image-entertainment.com/

Or at most online CD retailers (EveryCD has it for $18.39, for example).
You will need a system capable of handling DTS decoding to get the most
out of it.  The regular CD is also available from Telarc.

Dave
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