Gustav Holst's "The Planets"

The Planets has been a big discussion topic in our music room this week. The Grade 3 students are embarking on a large "Space" themed music unit where we will be also listening to this wonderful composition by Gustav Holst. We will be analyzing the music and talking about all the italian music terms that can be used to describe music. The Grade Five students are preparing to go the Centennial Concert Hall in March to see the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and one of the pieces they be playing there will be "Mars" from the same composition. We recently watched the video simulation of the Mars Rover landing on Mars while listening to the music of Gustav Holst at the same time. The video is very exciting and I have had a few requests to put it on the blog so the students can watch it again at home. Holst names each of the planets and Mars is called "The Bringer of War". When listening to the music, can you describe how he made his music match the title?