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      Commissioned by Britten Pears Arts for the 2024 Aldeburgh Festival

      • 2(II:pic).2.2.2/2.2.0.0/timp/str
      • 14 min

      Programme Note

      PLANET is a set of three short orchestral pieces inspired by views of our planet, and galaxy, photographed from outer space. These are:

      (1) "The blue marble"/Apollo 17

      (2) "The pale blue dot"/Voyager 1

      (3)  Cluster NGC 6355 /Hubble Space Telescope

      Musically, the three movements are primarily studies in texture and harmony. (1) explores a wide, almost static set of chords (2) a dark, thin atmosphere, briefly illuminated towards the end by shafts of sound (3) a dense collision of instrumental groups, eventually forming a rich harmonic mass.

      It may seem strange to have explored such a huge, cosmic subject by means of a smallish Mozart-sized orchestra. My inspiration here was a visit to the ingenious Eise Eisinga Planetarium at Franeker in the Netherlands (completed in 1781, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.) Built in the sitting room ceiling of a modestly sized house, and operated by a clockwork-style mechanism in the loft, it accurately represents the changing positions of the earth, sun, moon and five neighbouring planets, in real time.

      Judith Weir

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