Video reaction paper 2 pages

Holtz: The Planets I listened to Holtz, the Planets twice and I am sure I have heard this music many times in movies. I think it is even part of Victory at Sea, which was a television miniseries years ago. I borrowed this from a friend once and was really impressed with the music. However, when I listen to the music I do not see war, but I see creation. The beginning reminds me of a planetarium show I saw about the Big Bang. It is so large that we cannot even imagine it, but Holtz gives this to us in music.
The beginning is like starts exploding and all the matter from the singularity exploding outward into this universe. Then it gets quiet like as when things slowed down a little and planets began to cool. Our sun began to attract its planets and on one planet, after eons, life began. The second part makes me think of plants growing and spreading life all over the earth. Saturn was forming its rings and Venus gather in it clouds. Maybe Mars had a start at life also, but in the music, I can hear it wither away.
Finally, as man came on the scene the angels sang and all the bells rang to mark the beginning of civilization. In this music, I hear heavy horns with loud base and many drums. The drums are the low sounding ones, such as kettledrums and big base drums. The strings are used to mark times that are more tranquil and the small, high-pitched instruments are used to create the sounds of life.
The instruments used in this music seldom sound altogether. They seem to be painting a huge picture or maybe telling a story. Each group of instruments seems to have its own part and only a few times does the whole orchestra play together. I will listen to this again, because it is so complex that I know I cannot even hear it all at one sitting.
The video was really very helpful. I learned about the way the music is created and why. The discussions about theory and different cultures that used different theory explain why some music to me does not sound good. This music comes close a few times to not sounding good, but then it moves back into what I like very soon.
Seeing the orchestra play, this piece was really important for me as I could see the various instruments as they took up their parts. I did not even hear the oboes and I knew nothing about the special big horn used in this symphony. I thought the music was a little like a story or a conversation, so the video showing where this comes from was really interesting. I think if there were a lot of these about classical music then children would become interested in classical music too. I think Holtz wrote music that is really very difficult to stay attentive to for the young. I even found myself drifting a bit, but the video would make you want to watch for the things that are explained in it.
With a piece of music as immense as this is, a documentary video is really very helpful for understanding what was in the composer’s mind at the time when he wrote it. The instrumentation is also nice to see and I never saw a conductor’s score before. That looks very hard to read and understand where the music is. I think I would have to memorize it in order to conduct the orchestra.
The history of the war fits very well with this music, but I think Holtz wrote it before these wars. However, I know that Victory at Sea is a war series, and the music fit that very well. I am not at all certain about the Zodiac, but the parts showing how the music illustrate it is strange. I am not certain I believe that. There are stories all the time about how art is created, but unless we are inside the artist’s mind, we can never know for sure.