Mercury, the Winged Messenger

This is the third piece in the planets suite composed by gustav holst. This piece is named after Mercury, the Roman God of messages. The start of this piece is sudden and quick. It bounces into a jumpy jolly rhythm and is mezzo forte. There is lots of jumping around with the dynamics then it has a large crescendo and the jumping around ceases a little. There is diminuendo almost suddenly after the crescendo and the music goes pianissimo. The music starts jumping around again and goes up and down a lot.There is another crescendo, then a sudden drop. The music goes quite smooth for a few bars leading up to the end and then there is slight crescendo up to a mezzo forte jumpy end. The end was quite sudden and unexpected.The main instruments in this piece are piano and flute. I would describe this piece of music as fun, jolly, fast, jumpy and exciting.