Planetary Influences

Can the planets influence our lives? For centuries, many have believed so. In 1489 the Florentine philosopher Marsilio Ficino even recommended singing songs that draw down the healing power of the sun and the planets: music as magic to restore the balance.

Gustav Holst fell under the spell of astrology around 1913. Not in order to predict the future: what gripped him was the character that astrologers ascribe to each planet. In The Planets he portrays Mars as the bringer of war, Venus as the bringer of peace, Jupiter as the bringer of jollity and Saturn as the bringer of old age. He first wrote his masterpiece for two pianos and only later made the famous orchestral version. Piano Duo Scholtes & Janssens plays the original version. Lestari Scholtes and Gwylim Janssens have been a duo since 2003, have performed in more than thirty countries and run their own Pianoduo Festival Amsterdam.

In 1825 Ludwig van Beethoven fell ill. After his recovery he wrote his String Quartet Op. 132, with a “holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode”. That ancient church mode gives the music a floating, timeless quality. Between the hushed chorale melodies, exuberant passages break through, in which Beethoven voiced his sense of “new strength”. The Animato Quartet, winner of the 2023 Kersjes Prize, plays this richly varied masterpiece, regarded as one of the summits of the quartet repertoire.