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Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-93, Russian): best known as a composer of ballet music (The Nutcracker Suite, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty) but also wrote the wonderfully loud and patriotic 1812 Overture after Napoleon had been forced to retreat from Moscow.

Edward Elgar (1857-1934, English): responsible for the Enigma Variations, including Pomp and Circumstance (“Land of Hope and Glory”).

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924, Italian): another one for the opera buffs—La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Turandot. My reference book says he “lacks the nobility of Verdi” but makes up for it in dramatic flair and skill. And he certainly wrote tunes.

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951, Austrian): wrote only a few tunes but invented a form of music called atonality and, later, serialism, which are bywords for “unlistenable” to many people.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911, Austrian): became widely known after Tom Lehrer wrote a song about his wife, Alma, but he was also a great conductor and wrote some good music, too. This included nine finished symphonies and an unfinished one, all on a grand scale, and a song-symphony called Das Lied von der Erde (“The Song of the Earth”).

Gustav Holst (1874-1934, English): best known for the Planets suite, which has seven parts—Earth was not deemed worthy of inclusion and Pluto was not discovered yet. Which is convenient in light of recent events.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971, Russian): composed the Firebird Suite specifically for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and followed this with Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. His style was always experimental, and he turned to neoclassicism and later to serialism, but he was never in the same league as Schoenberg for making people reach for the “off” button.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953, Russian): included because of Peter and the Wolf, a symphonic fairy tale that I listened to at school and that crops up on TV every so often. The Oxford Dictionary of Music says that it is “delightful in itself and a wonderful way of instructing children (and others) how to identify orchestral instruments.” Oh, and he wrote other things, too, starting when he was about three: symphonies, ballets (Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella), operas, film music (Alexander Nevsky), and more.

The Planets

When I was at school, learning the planets was pretty straightforward. There were nine planets in our solar system. Starting at the Sun and working outward, we learned of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. And there were sundry mnemonics to help you remember, along the lines of My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.

Then they began making new discoveries. Most important, in 2003, they discovered an icy body that was larger than Pluto, which brought the whole definition of a planet into question. After much controversy a conference of the International Astronomical Union in 2006 deemed that Pluto no longer qualified. The icy body became known as Eris—after the Greek goddess of discord, which was very appropo, given all the trouble she had caused.

So there are now officially eight major planets—the first eight on the original list—with Pluto and Eris demoted to the status of minor planets or ice dwarfs.

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