Holst: The Planets; Matthews: Pluto; Asteroids

CML call number: CD CLASSICAL Holst
Steve Smith wrote in the New York Times: "The British composer Gustav Holst completed the work in 1916 … with a movement devoted to each of the seven planets then known, excluding Earth. … Another British composer, Colin Matthews, supplied … 'Pluto, the Renewer,' in 2000. … [Conductor Simon] Rattle's two-CD set, with the Berlin Philharmonic, draws particular attention to it, packaging it along with newly commissioned works, called 'Asteroids,' by four prominent contemporary composers. And the release came just in time for the deflating announcement by the International Astronomical Union that Pluto was being demoted to the status of dwarf planet. … Mr. Rattle makes the most persuasive case to date for … Mr. Matthews's 'Pluto.' … Kaija Saariaho's 'Asteroid 4179: Toutatis' magically conjures the unpredictable orbit of its celestial body. Matthias Pintscher's fragmented 'towards Osiris' and Mark-Anthony Turnage's propulsive 'Ceres' offer decidedly personal views of the cosmos. Brett Dean's expressive 'Komarov's Fall' [takes] as its subject … the Russian astronaut … who died during the re-entry of his Soyuz I spacecraft in 1967."