Spotify doesn’t have the entire Bernard Herrmann Planets (or I just couldn’t find it), so if you want to hear it you’ll have to make do with that YouTube video. Unfortunately, only the first four movements were posted.
I was able to find the complete album and listen to it (I subsequently bought the Eloquence double-CD), but until I can find a way to post the album here without upsetting the copyright police, I guess you’ll have to do with those four movements. Hopefully that’ll give you a decent idea of how Herrmann’s Hermits Planets sound.
Now to these Planets…
“Mars” is lumbering (and the orchestral balance is all wrong). A horn plays a strangulated note at 1:31. (No, that’s not an Alfred Hitchcock-related joke – the note actually does sound like it’s being strangled.) The orchestral playing doesn’t quite pass muster (dig those lazy horns from 1:51-1:59). The playing from 2:00-2:16 is flabby (and with a tenor tuba mistake at 2:03). And that pause at 5:12: What the what? There are so many other problems with this “Mars” (although the ending, from 8:05 onwards, is OK) that I don’t want to go into any more detail because it’d take way too long to mention, and there are the other movements to talk about.
“Venus” doesn’t sound all that peaceful to me. It starts off sounding strained (8:42-9:04 in the YouTube video), and just moves along, being what it is (i.e., not that great).
“Mercury” is slow and sloppy.
“Jupiter” is moderately horrible (the Big Tune, from 26:12-28:25, is a mess). I’d be happy not to hear that “Jupiter” again. Ever.
“Uranus” is slightly better than “Jupiter”, but that’s a relative statement – we’re dealing in degrees of awfulness here.
As for “Neptune”, I’d rather not talk about it.
After hearing what I heard, I have just one question:
Why was this released?
Peter's Planets 
As a big fan of Herrmann’s film music, I got this in the vinyl era. I completely agree with your review; this one’s at the bottom of the barrel. I enjoy John Williams’ film music as well, but his planets isn’t worth a second listening either. I expected enthusiastic conducting, but was disappointed.
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What I heard from Big Bernie was confused conducting. And an orchestra struggling to realise his conception of the work – whatever that was.
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Don’t agree with your analysis. Herrmann’s idiosyncratic conducting, possibly a result of his declining health, suits the work in most cases. Yes, the playing is sloppy in places, but not so much as to detract from overall enjoyment of the work. Everyone likes to hone in on Mars, which is 30-seconds slower than the next slowest {Sir Adrian Bolt’s boring conducting the fault], but everyone misses the point: Herrmann sees Mars for what it truly is: a lumbering war machine, destroying everything in its’ path. Slow as it is, many have reaccessed the interpretation in recent times, finding the tempi just about right; every other conductor, as it were, takes it too fast [Lenny B’s being the most notable]. Yes, I am going against the grain [perhaps, because Benny was a close mate over the decades; I produced several commercial albums featuring his music], but I stand by my comments. Not the finest Planets on disc, but hardly the worst either.
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Thanks, KWMP, for disagreeing and offering your counter-thoughts.
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“I enjoy John Williams’ film music as well, but his planets isn’t worth a second listening either.”
I’m with you there, John. The vibe I got from John The Williams was: “Isn’t this music fun!”.
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I remember going to Sam Goody (THE big US metro record store) to buy this, but they were out of stock. Had to buy the Steinberg, and I never looked back (yes, I’m part of that cult).
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Howdy, Big P.
The Steinberg? Oh no.
At least you avoided having to fork out real money for the horrid Herrmann Planets.
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I felt that “Venus” and “Uranus” came out sounding more like a Herrmann film score than Holst. I guess that just underlines how much Herrmann
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Yep.
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I have not heard the JTW recording. Happily, I have no desire to either.
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Do you think maybe this was a live recording? The orchestra makes all sorts of mistakes which is really weird of the LPO, and the recording quality is awful.
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Hi, Raphael
The recording was made at Kingsway Hall, which was a very popular venue for classical music recordings in England. I don’t think there was an audience. I believe the numerous mistakes were a result of the orchestra being under-rehearsed. They may have only had a day or two to work with Herr Herrmann.
Details of the recording are on Discogs:
https://www.discogs.com/release/6555528-Holst-Bernard-Herrmann-London-Philharmonic-Orchestra-The-Planets
And details about Kingsway Hall are on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsway_Hall
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I love Herrmann. And this is the worst Planets ever recorded. I suspect no rehearsal time at all and limited time to record. Plus the infamous balances of the Phase 4 engineers and their terrible habit of recording in the red – the distortion is horrid on this and most of the Stokowski albums on Phase 4.
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The L.P. was issued when I was in college; and being a Herrmann fan I ordered it as soon as I read about it. Yes, it was a great disappointment. In addition to Mars’ leaden pace it was afflicted with what sounded like a ringing microphone during the loud passages, which was painful to have to listen to (and impossible to ignore once heard). The sound of the whole recording was up close and ugly. Finally, the chorus in the closing passages of Neptune was abruptly sliced off rather than allowed to fade into the L.P. surface noise. It didn’t last long in my collection. That said, I repurchased the album four decades later when I found a clean copy at a charity sale. And more recently I bought the Eloquence reissue. I admit I haven’t listen to either. Just the completist in me, I guess. That said, I prefer it to the sleepy Adrian Leaper on Naxos– one of the few recordings that the label bothered to withdraw and replace. So I have two duds in my collection.
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I bought the 2-CD Eloquence release of the Herrmann Planets, primarily for completism, and secondarily for the novelty value of having a god-awful Planets recording that I can show off to people (“Hey, you won’t believe how bad this is…”).
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Guys…Herrmanns health was not the ‘On Dangerous Ground or White Witch Doctor vigor..he over emphasized each instrument too much where it almost unraveled..but if your a musicologist you’ll find ‘something’
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When I embarked on this Planets survey I simply listened to the music and compared the interpretations. I didn’t take into account the nature or circumstances of the interpreters themselves. I did factor in the sound quality, but that’s about the only non-interpretative aspect of each recording that mattered to me.
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Being a great fan of Bernard Herrmann’s film music (and SOME of the concert recordings he made late in life, when he was already quitr ill), I must admit his account of The Planets mostly sucks. I don’t have a problem with MARS. Yes, it’s slow (and sloppily played like the rest), but it has a menacing quality unmatched by any of the other versions. As for the rest, it’s lead-footed and pedestrian. As I said, Herrmann wasn’t well in the years he finally got to record some of his favourite works, but part of the blame has to be placed at the feet of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, who wanted to make money from records but just didn’t care. During an intermission in recording Joachim Raff’s Symphony No.5 (still the benchmark recording as of 2024, warts and all) with the LPO, Herrmann excitedly asked a member of the orchestra:
“Well, what do you think?” – to which said member replied:
“I think that by this rate, we’ll be done by 5 o’clock”
Just goes to show what cynical bastards professional orchestra players are.
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