My Planets may be better, may be worse, but their raison d'etre is that they are more suggestive of contemporary astrology than Holst's. Where Holst had melodies suggestive of traditional planetary forces, I have processes that mirror our current understanding of how those forces operate. At the same time, through the advent of minimalism, music itself has become more capable of embodying gradual and transformational process. The ushering in of "free will astrology" by composer-astrologer Dane Rudhyar and others in the mid 20th century has replaced the old view of astrology as implacable fate with a new one of psychological process. My justification for writing my own such piece is this: music has not progressed since Holst, in the sense of having improved, the new superceding the old - but astrology has. Asked, years ago, to write an article about my favorite orchestral warhorse, I picked his The Planets. No one could be more aware than I am of the foolhardiness of competing with Gustav Holst. For flute, oboe, alto saxophone, bassoon, viola, double bass, percussion, and synthesizer
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