# Cosmic Music -- Planets, Stars, Space, etc.



## Falstaft

One of the things I think classical music can do really well is suggest huge expanses of space, establishing a kind of "cosmic" sound-world. I've always been partial to music where I can lose myself, as if drifting through some auditory nebula -- I think immediately of John Coolidge Adam's Harmonielehre as a fine modern example. I would really be curious to discover more pieces, especially if they are more explicitly astronomical. I can only come up with a few examples off the top of my head, and most are from the 20th century. Can anyone else think of music explicitly written with the heavens in mind, or perhaps music that is very well suited to stargazing?

Here's some of what I've got.

*Holst: The Planets*. Well, obviously, but I find the second half (after Jupiter) especially suggestive of the outer reaches of human perception.

*Tveitt: Piano Concerto 4 "Aurora Borealis"*. Discovered this work over the summer. I must say the last movement in particular, "Fading away in the bright night of spring" is exceptionally evocative. The use of piano here seems decisive for the a refractive, luminous affect, something I think it shares with the onset of the 2nd movement of Norgard's 3rd symphony. Tveitt is a composer I don't know much about, but I'd be overjoyed to get opinions from people more knowledgeable on his music than I.

*Gorecki: Symphony 2 "Copernican"*: Writing this blog post may have kickstarted my current interest in astral music. Very cool piece!

*Langgaard: Music of the Spheres* and *Ligeti: Atmospheres*. Two very linked pieces, though the first is way less known (and I dare say stranger!).

*Rimsky-Korsakov: Dance of the Comets from "La Nuit de Noel*. Another charming oddity from one of RK's innumerable operas.

I've gotten stuck with composers earlier than that. Wouldn't be surprised if some baroque music was aimed at the stars though.

I imagine there are many art songs and opera arias that evoke the stars and the moon & such as imagery, but are there any explicitly on this topic? Is there a ballet on the life of Edmund Hubble or something like that out there I'm missing?

Further, I feel like certain composers like Messaein and Saariaho who have a sort of glistening approach to timbre would be very likely to use cosmological matters to inspire them. Any pieces in particular? Finally, surely classical the only genre of music well-suited to evoking astronomical. I imagine film, jazz and ambient music tackle it frequently (I'm somewhat predisposed against new age music per se but am open minded if anyone has great examples).


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## Weston

I think for early composers you almost have to stick with sacred works to get the ethereal space effect. So it would be something like Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers which gets quite spacey at times, but not throughout.

There's an interesting passage in Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the sopranos straining up toward dog whistle range and singing about reaching for the stars. It's a cool effect, but doesn't really convey space the way you are meaning.

So let's see. Who else?

Wagner - Das Rheingold overture.

Vaughan-Williams - the wordless soprano segments of Sinfonia Antartica and also one other symphony, is it No. 2, "London?" I forget.

Hovhaness - Symphony No. 2, "Mysteriouis Mountain" and almost his entire output could be considered spacey.

Respighi - oddly enough _Brazillian Impressions_ sounds spacey to me in places.

Debussy - Three Nocturnes. These are archetypal space music, and quite beautiful.

And let's not forget the ultimate space piece, John Cage's _4"33"._


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## TresPicos

Finnish composer Kimmu Hakola recently wrote a piece called "Le nuage d'Oort", about the Oort cloud, one light year from the Solar system, where many comets are believed to originate. Very cosmic-sounding.

And another Finnish composer, Kaija Saariaho, wrote a piece about asteroid 4179 Toutatis.


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## elgar's ghost

Georges Lentz (b. Luxembourg 1965 now living in Oz) has written works under the title of 'Caeli enarrant...' which partly reflects the composer's love of astronomy combined with his beliefs as to how the cosmos was created (I think). Part of these are an a Naxos disc 8.557019. His music is difficult to categorise as it's modern but not what I would call gratuitously 'spacey' - actually it's often quite quirky in its tempo changes so don't expect any trippy Tangerine Dream or Orb-style blowing of the mind.


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## Ukko

I suppose Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra wasn't composed to be spacey, but the movie 2001 - A Space Odyssey has firmly placed the 1st section there there in my mind. If the recording - and the speakers - reproduce that entry of double basses well ...


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## Falstaft

Great guys, this is exactly what I'm looking for. Weston, are you thinking of RVW's 3rd symphony (Pastoral)? The 4th movement has a pretty haunting wordless soprano part, though I hear it more as a mournful idyll than an evocation of great spaces. But the Antarctica Symphony for sure! Heck the whole 3rd movement is from another planet!

Thanks TresPicos and elgar's ghosts, I'll have to check out those pieces. I'm especially glad to have a Luxembourger composer to look into (even if now he is in the Land of Oz!).

I thought of another one, Karl Berger Blohmdahl's Space Opera, _Aniara_ -- it's actually pretty good!

And I found this little article has a lot more recommendations of stuff I've never heard of.


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## World Violist

Sibelius' 7th symphony is the first thing I think of (not only in music--anything) when I hear the word "cosmic," whether it's referring to music or not. It's one of the most monumental utterances from Sibelius, and it reaches depths I've rarely heard in anyone's music, and definitely invites the thought "cosmic" very easily. Best part... it's not pretentious once throughout, which is more than I can say for many other pieces that one could describe as "cosmic."

The other big cosmic symphony I can think of is Mahler's 8th, and it is very pretentious but with very good reason; it is, in my opinion, one of Mahler's greatest works. Its predecessor was the second symphony, in which Mahler also ponders the eternal and cosmic, but this symphony, after decades of experience, not only approaches it but embraces it--and makes a point of it, whereas with the Sibelius it's totally a natural thing. Nevertheless, Mahler's 8th always deeply moves me in this embracing of the eternal unknown.

EDIT: Oh, yes, and the finale of Bruckner 4, especially Celibidache's Munich performance.


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## norman bates

dane rudhyar - stars





charles Koechlin - le ciel etoilè


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## norman bates

Falstaft said:


> *Tveitt: Piano Concerto 4 "Aurora Borealis"*. Discovered this work over the summer. I must say the last movement in particular, "Fading away in the bright night of spring" is exceptionally evocative. The use of piano here seems decisive for the a refractive, luminous affect, something I think it shares with the onset of the 2nd movement of Norgard's 3rd symphony. Tveitt is a composer I don't know much about, but I'd be overjoyed to get opinions from people more knowledgeable on his music than I.


there's a movement on youtube and i like it! Now i want to listen the entire work.
Great thread :tiphat:

i was forgetting about this one:
John Foulds - second mantra (mantra of bliss and celestial avataras)
http://www.divshare.com/download/12816389-af4



Falstaft said:


> I imagine film, jazz and ambient music tackle it frequently (I'm somewhat predisposed against new age music per se but am open minded if anyone has great examples).


two jazzy examples:

jane ira bloom - most distant galaxy (if i remember well this music was commissioned by NASA)
http://www.divshare.com/download/12816304-dac

sun ra (the cosmic musician par excellence) - there are other worlds




all of his music has similar theme, this is one of him most accessible

two new age examples:

steve roach, from his album the magnificent void





constance demby - novus magnificat


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## Fsharpmajor

Does music about the sun qualify? Here's *Gong* by Poul Ruders.

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## Chris

Charles Ives - The Unanswered Question


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## Argus

If you like your experimental music, then you might appreciate this piece by the late, great Frank Sidebottom.


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## TresPicos

Falstaft said:


> Thanks TresPicos and elgar's ghosts, I'll have to check out those pieces. I'm especially glad to have a Luxembourger composer to look into (even if now he is in the Land of Oz!).


I knew that Liechtenstein had a composer (Rheinberger), but I didn't know Luxemburg had one too. Cool!


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## Norse

I've always gotten a spacey feeling from large parts of the last movement of Mahler's 9th. Even though it's a rather "sensitive" piece, I get the feeling that it has something almost"superhuman" to it (as if our human world is too "small" for the music) and Mahler is sort of floating around in space 



Falstaft said:


> *Tveitt: Piano Concerto 4 "Aurora Borealis"*. Discovered this work over the summer. I must say the last movement in particular, "Fading away in the bright night of spring" is exceptionally evocative. The use of piano here seems decisive for the a refractive, luminous affect, something I think it shares with the onset of the 2nd movement of Norgard's 3rd symphony. Tveitt is a composer I don't know much about, but I'd be overjoyed to get opinions from people more knowledgeable on his music than I.


I have a pretty ok knowledge of Geirr Tveitt (surprise!), but this particular concerto I haven't actually heard yet. He's kind of like a more modern Grieg (in that he's very folk inspired and "nordic"), but minus all the German romanticism. Being born one year after Grieg's death, he of course goes much further in impressionism, barbarism, etc although atonality was never his thing. His most famous work for Norwegians is his "Folk Tunes from Hardanger", there are 50 for piano solo, opus 150 (all available on a double disc from Naxos, also with Håvard Gimse), and he also made arrangements for orchestra, grouped in a set of suites. These are called "A Hundred Folktunes from Hardanger", although to my knowledge, he never actually did finish a hundred of them. The actual melodies are old folk tunes he gathered, but his arrangements of them are very inventive and "personal".


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## joen_cph

(deleted for editing, see below)


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## joen_cph

Some music with more or less related themes:

1) recommended:
- Scelsi: “Pfhat: Un Eclat … et le Ciel s´Ouvrit !” for Organ & Orchestra (1974), "Aion" for 
Orchestra (1961); "Quattro Pezzi" for Orchestra (1959)
- Dutilleux:"”Timbres - Espace – Mouvement, ou La Nuit Etoilee” for Orchestra (1978; 1991)
- Messiaen:"Des Canyons Aux Etoiles", a marvellous work
- Vaino Raitio:"Moonlight On Jupiter", Symphonic Poem (!)
- Hindemith:"Harmonie der Welt" Symphony (Mravinsky recording highly recommended)
- Langgaard: 6th Symphony, "The Heaven-Storming" & 10th Symphony, "Yon Dwelling Of Thunder", as regards the last-mentioned the Stupel recording especially.

Other works include:
- Colin Matthews:"Pluto - The Renewer" f.Orchestra
- Vierne: "Etoile du Soir" from the 3rd Organ Suite & "Hymne du Soleil" from the 2nd;
- Duparc:"Aux Etoiles" for Orchestra (1870;1911)
- Rangström: 3rd Symphony, "Song Under The Stars" 
- Vyatautas Bacevicius:"6.Symphony, Symphonie Cosmique" (1960)
- Victoria Borissova-Ollas:"1.Symphony, The Triumph Of Heaven" (2001)
- Ives: unfinished "Universe Symphony" (1911-28 ?)
- Erik Norby: Corps Celeste, Symphonic Poem 

Agree with the earlier remarks on the characteristics of Bruckner, Sibelius and Mahler. A couple more like that are: 
- Nielsen 5.Symphony (Bernstein especially) + 3rd Symphony (Chung, for instance) and 4th Symphony (Blomstedt on decca, for instance);
- Scriabin: The orchestral music in general and his "Mysterium" project
- Isang Yun: Symphonies 1-4 (don´t know the 5th, which is vocal. Much more abstract music though)
- Fartein Valen: Sonetto di Michelangelo, for orchestra. (A very stasis-like underlying feeling of immense space, to my ears)


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## Aramis

Argus said:


> If you like your experimental music, then you might appreciate this piece by the late, great Frank Sidebottom.


Is this experimental because some lady that can't play piano pull random keys? Yeah, pure genius.


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## GraemeG

World Violist said:


> EDIT: Oh, yes, and the finale of Bruckner 4, especially Celibidache's Munich performance.


The first movement as well. Were I the owner of a planetarium, I'd construct the 'performance' to compliment either the first or last movements of Bruckner 4, and reckon I'd sell a truckload of CDs in the foyer after every session...
cheers,
G


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## Falstaft

Thanks everyone for the terrific recommendations, these are exactly the kinds of pieces I'm looking for! Thanks especially to joen_cph for your prodigious list, and Argus for that very *out-there* clip! It also sounds like Mahler and Bruckner make good space-travel music!



Norse said:


> I have a pretty ok knowledge of Geirr Tveitt (surprise!), but this particular concerto I haven't actually heard yet. He's kind of like a more modern Grieg (in that he's very folk inspired and "nordic"), but minus all the German romanticism. Being born one year after Grieg's death, he of course goes much further in impressionism, barbarism, etc although atonality was never his thing.


Thanks for this info Norse! Tveitt sounds like a fascinating, tragic figure. 4/5ths of his entire musical output were lost in a fire! I found his harp concerto on youtube, and I think it is similar in tone to the 4th piano concerto, worth checking out. 




And, how could I forget, Schoenberg's Second String Quartet, last movement "Entrückung" -- atonality is the "air of other planets"!


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## Argus

Aramis said:


> Is this experimental because some lady that can't play piano pull random keys? Yeah, pure genius.


Can you take me to this piano where you 'pull' the keys?:tiphat:

As for it being experimental, find me a clip of Fischer-Dieskau singing Mahler's Song of the Earth whilst wearing a papier-mache head, then we'll talk.

Not that it's particularly relevant but the guitarist in that clip is from I Am Kloot, who were recently nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.


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## demiangel

I'm hesitant to post it because it's not technically "classical" but a lot of stuff by Tangerine Dream has much to do with outer-space and is pretty highminded.

Personally I think Outer Space is best represented more by studio effects applied to non-musical drones occasionally pierced by synthesizers, which sounds like the deep void of space occasionally pierced by light from stars. That's how I did it when I first discovered this kind of way of making ambient music, made a lot of spacey things to listen to with the lights out at night.


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## World Violist

Argus said:


> Can you take me to this piano where you 'pull' the keys?:tiphat:


It's not a piano, it's Glenn Gould!:tiphat:


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## norman bates

i've discovered a beautiful little gem, Otto Luening's "Moonflight", very atmospheric and oneiric.


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## starry

demiangel said:


> I'm hesitant to post it because it's not technically "classical" but a lot of stuff by Tangerine Dream has much to do with outer-space and is pretty highminded.
> 
> Personally I think Outer Space is best represented more by studio effects applied to non-musical drones occasionally pierced by synthesizers, which sounds like the deep void of space occasionally pierced by light from stars. That's how I did it when I first discovered this kind of way of making ambient music, made a lot of spacey things to listen to with the lights out at night.


Progressive music and in relation to that AMBIENT music can be cosmic in theme certainly. As you say not really to do with this section of the forum but related to the topic. Plenty of modern classical pieces relate to stars and other cosmic features, for example Vision of a Starry Night by Alan Hovhaness.


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## Xaltotun

Sibelius' 5th symphony is pretty cosmic to me. I find myself thinking of nature, space, humanity in general. It's also sort of inhumane and cold, devoid of any personal emotions. Impersonal and neutral, but awe-inspiring.


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## LordBlackudder




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## Art Rock

FWIW, Nielsen's clarinet concerto has been described as being from another planet.

The (excellent)　Robert Simpson symphonies series on Hyperion had space-derived CD covers that I think matched the music pretty well.


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## Ravellian

I can't believe no one has mentioned George Crumb yet! Anyone interested in celestial music should check out the 4 volumes of _Makrokosmos_, each of which contains pieces based off of the zodiac signs.


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## harmony

So various classical works are recommended as cosmic music.
How is great the Human-Being's ability of imagination!


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## Aksel

Speaking of George Crumb, he has written a piece called The Night of the Four Moons, or something like that. It's a wonderful piece.


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## norman bates

the space opera Aniara, of Karl-Birger Blomdahl

http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2008/01/beam_me_up.html


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## DeepR

This is where Steve Roach comes in and takes over.


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## Jeremy Marchant

Stockhausen's _Outer space_






Unfortunatekly the person who posted this on Youtube didn't post the other half! However, this is part 1 - 68 mins.


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## Operadowney

Not to get too weird here, but the Gusty Garden Galaxy theme from Super Mario Galaxy by Koji Kondo is pretty good, and suggests space exploration, much like most of the score for the video game.


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