I can’t find a video of the whole recording, but to get a feel for what this music sounds like, how epic it is, check out Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity below. The influence here is immense: Holst almost invented the modern film score. This incorporates elements of jazz and broadway into a classical composition with a defined sense of movement. It’s very big!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG_xkcpEbEk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlHn90j2Ri4

Here’s the recording from this album. It is supposed to personify the planet Mars, as the Romans did with their god of the same name.

Gustav Holst (1874-1934) was an English composer and music teacher and an early pioneer of recording techniques. Best known for The Planets, he also produced a number of compositions influenced by Indian and British folk music.

The work takes its themes and title from Nietzsche’s book of the same name, meaning simply, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Zarathustra was a real prophet, the founder of the Zoroastrian religion (Zoroaster was his real, non-anglicized name). Nietzsche’s book presents a character based on the real historical figure.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949 was an amazingly talented composer and conductor who wrote some of the greatest pieces of classical music of the twentieth century. His work was modern, and therefore, has a reputation for being a little hard to get into. I’ve never felt that; his work seems very natural to me. It has a visceral, gut-level quality.

The opening scene of that film is what I’m referring to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-QFj59PON4

Just because I want to… I have got to put this slick soul version by the Boston Navy Band, playing in Maine in 1971. Thank me later…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8-0h_tvc9k

Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989) was not universally admired, but even the haters have to concede that he was at least one of the greatest conductors of the twentieth century. By some estimates, he is the greatest-selling classical artist of all time, having sold over 200 million records. He was most closely associated with the Berliner Philharmoniker (Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra).

I couldn’t find one video with all nine symphonies, but did manage to find seven of them separately! Apologize if this lags!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTB4Ckv3lyI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7J4QqoFN-Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDJCTwyI0iA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99pWAC6A07M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDf0rNf9jKQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Soe8aJ3EAJk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5esDtSZ9-Ug

Here’s the exact recording I’m talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H-YsX8Ltfc

I couldn’t find the St. Martin performance that I really dig, but this concert by the Freiburger Barockorchestra (Freiberg Baroque Orchestra) is a pretty solid performance… actually, recommended by my Penguin 1,000 Finest Classical Recordings book, so la-de-da. All jokes aside, it is beautiful: the venue is so perfect!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw2dlZ8V4-0