The Planets: “Venus, the Bringer of Peace”

Main page for Holst’s The Planets

• Rather than depict the planets in order of their distance from the sun, Holst arranged the movements for aesthetic and philosophical reasons. Venus, the Bringer of Peace immediately follows Mars, the Bringer of War. Holst’s daughter and biographer, Imogen Holst, wrote that the function of the Venus movement is “to try and bring the right answer to Mars.”¹

“The whole of this movement … is pervaded by the serenity of a world which nothing seems able to disturb. The mood is unmistakably mystical, and the hero may indeed imagine himself contemplating the twinkling stars at midnight.”

From the program notes to a 1919 performance²

1. Richard Greene, Holst: The Planets (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 48.
2. Ibid.