> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Spiritato's The Planets: A baroque voyage through the heavens - URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/spiritatos-the-planets-a-baroque-voyage-through-the-heavens/ - Published: 2026-10-06T14:39:14.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-06T14:39:14.000Z - Description: A startling slam of chaos gives way to birdsong, bassoon brilliance and a joyful journey from Mars to Neptune. Kinga Ujszászi leads Spiritato with passion, precision and lyrical warmth. Early music at its most inventive: unmissable. - Author: Eric Page - Tags: Culture Some concerts quietly rearrange the furniture of your imagination. [Spiritato's *The Planets*, ](https://www.bremf.org.uk/event/the-planets/?ref=scenemag.co.uk) heard at St Martin's Church on 3 October did that. Led by violinist **Kinga Ujszászi,** the ensemble asks what a planetary suite might have sounded like had it appeared two centuries before Holst, and answers by stitching one together from 17th- and 18th-century gems. The outcome is inventive, sparkling and wonderfully joyful, an evening that sends you back into the Brighton night humming. If you're new to all this: the [Brighton Early Music Festival, ](https://www.bremf.org.uk/whats-on/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)or BREMF, is the city's annual celebration of music from the medieval era through the baroque and into the classical age, played on period instruments such as harpsichords, theorbos and gut-strung violins. It mixes celebrated names with the stars of tomorrow, in venues across the city, and it has a gift for making centuries-old music feel immediate and welcoming. Across the 1600s and 1700s, Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo overturned Europe's picture of the cosmos, yet opera houses kept filling up with gods and heroes from antiquity. Rather than illustrating those deities literally, [Spiritato ](https://www.spiritato.co.uk/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)borrows Holst's trick of tuning in to each planet's astrological character, and lets the old music supply the moods. ![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/2026/10/E8-031026-Spiritato.jpg) Image Credit Spiritato The first half belongs to **Jean-Féry Rebel's** *Les Élémens*, and what an opening it has. Composed in 1737 as a ballet, it paints earth, water, air and fire in musical shorthand that eighteenth-century listeners could read instantly. The "Chaos" that begins the piece is startlingly modern: a slam of noise, with the music audibly struggling to find a way out of the din. It is a thrilling shock, and the gradual emergence of order from it is hugely satisfying. The dances that follow are pure delight. Woodwind duets, lifted by a lively tambourine, were excellent, while the Rossignols and the Tambourins arrived with birdcalls and whistles that filled the church with atmosphere and sheer fun. The lighting may even have been nodding to the four elements, though I forgot to check. ![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/2026/10/Moliere-29.png) ****Catriona McDermid** credit © Matthew Johnson [**Catriona McDermid's** ](https://www.catrionamcdermid.co.uk/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)bassoon was rich, agile and full of character, it was excellent throughout, grounding the ensemble while repeatedly stepping forward to charm. A superb reminder of how winning this often-overlooked instrument can be. [**Louis Moisan's** ](https://www.englishconcert.co.uk/musician/louis-moisan/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)theorbo with it towering long neck and deep, burnished plucked sound give the continuo a warmth and shimmer that bowed strings cannot supply. Moisan's playing was elegantly supple, shaping the harmony beneath the ensemble and lending the whole voyage a quiet, glowing pulse. ![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/2026/10/636560587_1479856990810370_845295507292546282_n.jpg) ****Kinga Ujszászi** (right) Credit Spiritato After the interval, the planets arrive, and here the programming is cleverly judged. Rather than a string of separate pieces, the journey from Mars to Neptune is presented as one continuous sweep, as though a single work were tracing the orbits in turn. Each planet's traditional personality shines through: **Kerll's** battle music for Mars, **Blow's** tender tunes from *Venus and Adonis* for Venus, and so on out to **Rameau's** otherworldly Neptune. Threading it all together is [**Merula's** lullaby,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a%5FtSUhC5CrA&ref=scenemag.co.uk) which returns in different guises so subtly that it works almost subliminally, a gentle gravity holding the system together. Two moments stood out above the rest. **Handel's** overture to *Acis and Galatea*, racing along in scales, made a flash of quicksilver Mercury, and **Herschel's** Presto for Uranus was a joy, all the sweeter because its composer went on to discover that very planet. (A migrant musician who looked sideways at the sky and found a whole new world: the queer reader may feel a flicker of kinship.) Blow's early English opera, with its goddess besotted by a beautiful young man, and **Handel's** pastoral lovers lend the evening a romantic glow, too; early music has always been *a broad church*. Rameau's Neptune brought the voyage to a suitably otherworldly close. ![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/2026/10/833325159_1523567459816860_3015453420619950706_n.png) Photo Credit BREMF [Kinga Ujszászi ](https://www.kingaujszaszi.com/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)was the beating heart of the evening: passionate, precise and lyrical, with solos that flooded St Martin's with joy. Their energy is astonishing and the pulses of power and direction kept the whole voyage moving with purpose and affection, never once feeling like a lecture. Warm congratulations, too, to BREMF Emerging Artists **Andrew Taheny** (violin) and **Billy Hui** (flute), both of whom showed real poise and delivered with impressive confidence alongside seasoned colleagues. The future of early music looks bright. [Spiritato ](https://www.instagram.com/spiritato/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)are an ensemble worth following. They specialise in research-led projects and neglected composers, and the programme proves it: **Castrucci's** jolly Spiritoso for Jupiter, by a pupil of **Corelli** who led Handel's opera orchestra, sits beside **Fischer's** sombre Lamento for Saturn, a string arrangement of a Lutheran chorale about mortality. They make their London Handel Festival debut in November. If you have never been to BREMF, make this the year you go. The festival is one of the jewels of Brighton's cultural calendar, and indeed of the UK's, and the standard of playing is reliably superb. The atmosphere: relaxed, curious and friendly, with audiences of every age and background, and no need to know a thing about baroque style beforehand. So book a ticket, bring a friend (or a date, or the whole chosen family), and let the festival do the rest. [Browse the full programme at bremf.org.uk, ](https://www.bremf.org.uk/whats-on/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)look out for the many other concerts running through the festival. Go for the planets; stay for the bassoon, the birdsong and the sheer, shining joy.