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Published on Nov 13, 2016
This episode of Everything Music is called John Williams vs. Gustav Holst or Star Wars vs. the Planets. John Williams was influenced by a number of composers such as Wagner, Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Erich Korngold and especially Gustav Holst. In today’s episode I will show you the melodic and harmonic influences that Holst had on John Williams music of Star Wars.
Gustav Holst (1874-1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher and best known for his orchestral suite The Planets. His distinctive compositional style was the product of many influences like Wagner, Richard Strauss, Ravel, Grieg and Ralph Vaughn Williams.The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst.
John Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. With a career spanning over six decades he has composed some of the most popular and recognizable film scores in cinematic history, to many of the highest-grossing films of all-time, including Jaws, the Star Wars series, Superman, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones series, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, and the first three Harry Potter films.
From their premieres to the present day, both The Planets and Star Wars have been enduringly popular, influential and widely performed and recorded.