Wonders of the Solar System 31 March 2011, the series won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in documentary film-making. The first episode illustrates how the formation and behaviour of the Sun affects each planet in the Solar System. During this episode, Cox visits India to view and explain the workings of a total solar eclipse and the partial eclipses that occur on other planets. He travels to the Iguazu Falls to relate the causality between river levels, and sunspot fluctuations. An explanation of the Earth's exposure to the power of the Sun occurs in Death Valley, California, US, with an experiment inspired
Gustav Holst he and other younger English composers had adopted Holst's economy of style: "With what enthusiasm did we pare down our music to the very bone". Short cites other English composers who are in debt to Holst, in particular William Walton and Benjamin Britten, and suggests that Holst's influence may have been felt further afield. Above all, Short recognises Holst as a composer for the people, who believed it was a composer's duty to provide music for practical purposes—festivals, celebrations, ceremonies, Christmas carols or simple hymn tunes. Thus, says Short, "many people who may never have heard any of [Holst's] major