Luft von anderem Planeten
Program note
Luft von anderem Planeten (Air from Another Planet) is an 19-minute orchestral work that blends inspiration from Holst, Ravel, John Williams, Johann Strauss II, and Stravinsky into a single, eclectic journey through musical space. Much like the title—borrowed (perhaps misappropriated) from Schoenberg’s 2nd String Quartet—the piece doesn’t follow a clear-cut structure. Instead, it drifts through a sequence of atmospheres, colors, and impressions, loosely strung together like a dream of the cosmos.
It begins ominously, channeling the mysterious aura of Holst’s Neptune and the dissonant intensity of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. A gentle dawn follows, in a section inspired by Lever du jour from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, leading into the statement of the main theme—an homage to the iconic motifs of John Williams’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The mood then shifts again into a Straussian waltz, a moment I’ve long wanted to attempt. Think Blue Danube meets Ravel’s La valse—lush, swirling, and just a little unhinged.
Eventually, the space theme and dawn music return, with the piece closing in a tranquil, reflective manner.
Although the tonality orbits around B major, it doesn’t stay anchored for long. Key centers drift fluidly, and there are stretches of unapologetic atonality. The structure is deliberately loose—more of a constellation of musical moments than a single trajectory.
The title came not from the original poem (which I haven’t read and frankly don’t care much about), but from Schoenberg’s usage of the phrase—“air from another planet”—which marked a musical departure into uncharted territory. In my case, I took the phrase literally, imagining an expedition into deep space. Some sections are distant and cold, others strangely familiar. Perhaps there are universal musical laws we’ll discover out there. Perhaps not. I’ll leave that to the theorists.