The Planets (Mars) - 28K

(6:23). In the summer of 1994, while completing work on my After Dark screensaver "The Planets", I was in need of MIDI music to accompany the screen saver. My first preference was a MIDI arrangement of some or all of Gustav Holst's "The Planets", and so I started a search for any such arrangement that might already exist in the public domain. Fortunately, I very quickly found a MIDI arrangement of MARS from "The Planets" by Jack Hines on the MIDI/Music forum of Compuserve. As soon as I had played it, I new I had found what I needed, and it would just take some resequencing and orchestrating on my part to make Jack's arrangement perfectly suitable for my screensaver.

I contacted Jack by email, and he graciously gave me his permission to modify his arrangement and to include it as part of my screen saver. There actually was more at stake, as I was planning to submit my screensaver to the 1994 Berkeley Systems After Dark screensaver module contest, which if I had won, would have left me $10,000 richer! Well, I did submit the screen saver, but I didn't win, so I didn't have to worry about what Jack's fair share of the winnings would be.

Anyway, I set about resequencing, arranging and orchestrating Jack's work as General MIDI on a Roland JV-35 MIDI synthesizer keyboard using Master Tracks Pro MIDI sequencing software by Passport Designs, Inc. I completed my work on September 5, 1994. and packaged it together with my screensaver and sent it off to Berkeley Systems. The screen saver is now available here on this Web site (see my After Dark screensaver modules page), and here is the music that accompanied it. Enjoy! And thanks again to Gustav Holst and Jack Hines!!