Gustav Holst- The Planets - Mars, the Bringer of War (First Listen) 

This is just a perfect composition. Jupiter is holst’s other brilliant piece.

John Williams was hugely influenced by Holst to create his soundtracks for Star Wars. Its reminds me too of the music in Ben Hur (1959), during the battleship.

Man, you truly want him to STAY AWAY from classical music for another decade with all your suggestions. The Rite of Spring to a neophyte?!? Maybe, that's all you know.

Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams is well worth a listen ... or Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by the same composer

If you're going into classical: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring!

Debussy- Afternoon of a faun. Experience the magic 🎩✨

This particular rendition seems just a little rushed, just enough to actually reduce some of the impact of the really powerful parts. As with all classical, finding other renditions of the same piece can often be like listening to something (almost) entirely new.

I would suggest listening to whole suite because you will soon realise that Holst’s music has been hugely influential on pretty much any of the big movie composers like Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams.

Of course it sounds familiar. It's the main inspiration to John William's Imperial March in Star Wars! :)

The entire planet series by Holst is worth a listen!

Mars is the perfect opening to my favourite classical piece of music. The Planets is a sublime masterpiece. The ambience you mention is there in spades later on in the suite, as we journey out to far reaches of the solar system. Holst really nailed it with the titles for the individual parts.

Incredibly powerful piece of music. It's a sign of how used we are to hearing classical music as film scores these days that listening to this again tonight, automatically conjured up images of a big movie battle scene. Have you heard a much more recent epic musical planetary suite? Debuted live in 2012 and released as a studio album in 2017, 'Planetarium' is a collaborative album by Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner of The National, drummer James McAlister and contemporary classical music composer and arranger Nico Muhly. The music is a mix of classical, prog, synth pop / electronica and folk.

Very good choice Just. When you hear Jupiter you will hallucinate.

King Crimson used the composition for their second album "In the Wake of Poseidon" without giving any credits to Holst.

The first King Crimson lineup closed their sets with a version of this that really showed off the eerie (and hard to keep in tune) quality of the mellotron. They reinterpreted it as "The Devil's Triangle" on their second album.

I love the entire Planets suite. I used this particular piece for a cut-out animation film I made in high school in 1973 called “the First Canadian on the Moon”.

Wow, one of my favorite classical pieces of all time! I first heard Tomita's exciting electronic reworking of it and then sought out the original orchestral version way back in the 70s when I was first discovering classical music. This piece has been used in numerous movies and trailers such as "The Right Stuff" and "Greystoke."

The 5/4 time signature gives it a real sense of being off-kilter. Most battle related music uses 4/4 time (like a March). Its interesting that Hans Zimmer used a 3/4 time signature for the battle scenes in Gladiator which is used in waltzes. It has a similar feel to this but is much more flowing.

Beethoven's 7th symphony. Best of the best (pre-1968)...and Mendelssohn's 4th. Wendy Carlos' versions of Bach circa 1968 (Well Tempered Synthesizer)

It's a classical piece that has been covered by King Crimson and Emerson, Lake, and Powell. Love the entire Planets suite.