Gustav Holst- The Planets: Saturn
"Bringer of Old Age"
This has been one of my favorite classical pieces of music for a very long time now and now I think I finally understand why. Back when I first heard this piece a couple years ago, I could really visualize the story of the piece. The title is "bringer of old age' and the piece was obviously meant to emulate the death of someone old. It starts slow, tense, foreboding, slowly growing in climax, and getting more dissonant and ominous, presenting a distinct fear of death... before fading away into a beautiful chordal resolution, as the old person is finally serene, at peace in heaven.
Listening to it, really made me visualize Jonghyun's struggle in an auditory way (despite Jonghyun not being at all old).
The first couple minutes of the piece with the strings swelling, and the two same chords being played over and over to provide a sense of dissonance and unease reminds me heavily of Jonghyun's struggle in his last week, as he planned everything out meticulously, knowing how many people he would hurt, but knowing that this was something he was going to have to do.
Then around 2 minutes in, when the pizzicato strings and the somber horns enter, it reminds me of Jonghyun finally making up his mind, and setting out to do what he knew he needed to.
The rest of the piece until the 6:20 mark varies in terms of intensity, but it keeps building overall, and the mood is generally constant; it's tense and uncomfortable, and honestly, kind of hard to listen to. Even though it may sound depressing, I'm visualizing it as Jonghyun's last hours, which I really
really don't want to describe, but this music summarizes the dread, horror, and devastation I feel thinking of how Jonghyun's last hours must've been.
However, at the 6:20 mark, all the dissonance and unease fades away, and the harps and flutes enter, and everything sounds absolutely beautiful; it sounds like what you would picture Heaven to sound like. The rest of the piece sounds absolutely ethereal, the main motif is played again through the cellos but it sounds so much more profound, so much more comforting and serene here, and I want to imagine that this heavenly sound is what Jonghyun was feeling as he was finally able to rest after suffering for so long. This part of the piece always brought me to tears, even moreso now, it's just so utterly beautiful and I think really paints the perfect picture of Jonghyun floating up to the clouds as the angel he is; being finally at peace, finally at ease with himself and his struggles. It was hard to type this all out, but I'm glad I did. It still hurts a lot, but typing this out and listening to the piece on loop for over an hour made me realize that he really is in a better place now and we all have to try our hardest to accept that and come to terms with that.