Mars: The Bringer of War

The Planets, composed for orchestra in 1915 by Gustav Holst (1874–1934), is a suite of 7 tone poems, each describing symbolically a different planet. The entire suite was first performed for a private audience in 1918 and in the public, without Venus and Neptune, in 1919. "Mars, The Bringer of War" was complete in the composer's mind in the early summer of 1914, when the First World War was but an emerging threat. The work is dominated by the relentless hammering out of a 5/4 rhythm which suggests the relentless destruction of war. The movement was transcribed for band by the composer in 1924. (Source: Boosey and Hawkes, Inc.)