Uranus, the Magician

This is the sixth piece that Gustav Holst composed to be in his suite the Planets. It is named after the Roman God Uranus - The first God of the Sky. This piece starts of lively and quite forte. The pitch is low and there is a sudden drop in volume from forte to pianissimo. The volume increases in a crescendo an d then drops again. The music is still of a low pitch. The volume rises again but the pitch is high. The notes are short and fast. The music drops again and has piano long low pitched notes. The volume in this piece keeps on jumping up and down and is quite unexpected- just like a magician. Magicians are unexpected and in their shows you don't know what to expect- it is just like this but it is the volume that is unexpected. The music is still piano but the notes are high pitched and fast. Percussion instruments can be heard as well as brass. The music rises in volume and the notes are still fast and short- just like the show has reached its most exciting point. This continues until the volume is forte and then then suddenly the volume drops right down to almost nothing which makes you think that the piece has ended. You can just slightly hear a faint melody. The volume rises again but the notes are long and low again, it goes almost silent again and this continues until he end. This piece jumps around a lot with the pitch, volume and the length of the notes. The piece is almost majestic at the beginning which represents a magicians presence in the room. The piece is very unexpected and can be quite magical in parts.