Four Last Songs (Vaughan Williams)

Last updated

Ralph Vaughan Williams' Four Last Songs cycle is made up of four songs: "Procris", "Tired", "Hands, Eyes, and Heart", and "Menelaus". All of the songs were composed between 1954 and 1958. [1] The cycle is best suited for mezzo-soprano, although, the original program note from the cycle's 1959 premiere acknowledges that all of the songs may be sung by a baritone, except for "Hands, Eyes, and Heart", "which is a woman's song." [2] It is suggested that the four songs were originally intended to be two separate song cycles with "Menelaus" and "Procris" belonging to one cycle and "Tired" and "Hands, Eyes, and Heart" belonging to another. [3] However, there is debate in the scholarly community about this proposed song cycle grouping. Renée Chérie Clark in her essay, "A Critical Appraisal of Four Last Songs" suggests, citing a letter from the composer to a friend at Cornell University, that Vaughan Williams actually intended for "Menelaus" and "Hands, Eyes, and Heart" to be grouped together. The composer's death in 1958 left both cycles unfinished, and in 1960, they were assembled by the composer's widow, Ursula Vaughan Williams, and published as set by Oxford University Press. [2] The texts of all four songs are poems written by Vaughan Williams' wife Ursula who penned several books of poetry throughout her lifetime as well as a biography of her late husband. "Procris" and "Menelaus" deal with figures from ancient Greek and Roman mythology and epic poetry while "Tired" and "Hands, Eyes, and Heart" depict images of love between a husband and wife.

Contents

I. Procris

Piero di Cosimo's painting A Satyr Mourning Over a Nymph or The Death of Procris stirred Ursula Vaughan Williams to write her poem "Procris." [2] In ancient mythology, Procris, suspecting her husband Cephalus of having a secret lover, sneaks up on him while he hunts in the woods. Startled by noises behind him, he turns and shoots Procris with his bow. The song is written in a duple meter (6
8
) and contains many shifts in tonality. While written in the key of G Major, the two beginning eleven-note descending motifs are more reminiscent of a G minor scale. The song also contains many hemiola rhythms and chromaticisms.

II. Menelaus

One day, after Vaughan Williams and his wife had been reading from T. E. Lawrence's translation of Homer's The Odyssey , Ursula felt compelled to write some verse. The resulting poem and song became the fourth song of the cycle "Menelaus." The character Menelaus appears both in Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey. Menelaus is the King of Sparta whose wife, Helen, was taken from him by Paris to Troy. Together with his brother Agamemnon, fellow ruler Odysseus, and other warriors, Menelaus launched the Trojan War to regain his wife and return her to Sparta. In The Odyssey, Odysseus' son Telemachus visits Menelaus in attempts to obtain news of his father who has not yet returned from the war. The Vaughan Williams' drew inspiration from Menelaus' description to Telemachus of the things Odysseus must do to return home. This is evident in the text of the song in which the phrase "you will come home" returns both as a lyrical and musical refrain. [2]

"Menelaus" is similar to "Procris" in that they both contain many hemiola rhythms and a wavering tonal center.[ citation needed ] "Menelaus" is written in triple meter, but contains many metric changes throughout the piece usually going back and forth between triple and duple meter.[ citation needed ] The opening measure contains three groups of descending and ascending 32nd notes that suggest the playing of a harp or lyre, which evokes an image of ancient story telling and music-making.[ citation needed ] This pattern repeats wherever the words "you will come home" occur as well as the statement, "stretch out your hand" creating a short, refrain-like section.[ citation needed ]

III. Tired

Textually, as well as musically, "Tired" and "Hands, Eyes, and Heart" are the most closely related of the set.[ citation needed ] Both texts describe a state of self-abandonment in favour of a life devoted to another. "Tired" can be divided into an ABA format consisting of a refrain in B minor with a verse section in the dominant minor, F minor. In the A section of "Tired" the singer implores her lover to "Sleep, and I'll be still as another sleeper, holding you in my arms." The singer is content to simply be lying near her beloved "at last". In the F-minor section, emotion builds as the speaker describes how the "sheltering midnight" is the only place where they can be alone together where "no passion or despair or hope" can separate the two from each other.[ citation needed ] At the return of the A section, we return to B minor, and the speaker states the things that she will remember about her beloved "as the fire fell to ashes, and the minutes passed." It is important to note that while the song is entitled "Tired", there is little sleeping going on within the piece as the bass line moves up a fourth and down a fourth, churning the song onward, and the lyrics show little intention of the speaker ever going to sleep.[ citation needed ]

IV. Hands, Eyes, and Heart

"Hands, Eyes, and Heart" begins in C minor and ends in the relative major of E-flat major.[ citation needed ] The text is a list of commands. The speaker implores her hands to "give him all the measure of my love", her eyes to "be deep pools of truth", and her heart to "in his keeping, be at rest and live". Thus, the musical structure begins with a simple melody we can call A, then elaborates on it in the next command (A′), and next elaborates on the melody further (A″), and finally concludes on an E major chord.[ citation needed ]

Orchestration

In 2013, Anthony Payne orchestrated all four of the songs; the work premiered on 4 September 2013 for the BBC Proms with Osmo Vänskä conducting, soprano Ruby Hughes and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston. [4]

Sources

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circe</span> Enchantress-goddess in Greek mythology

Circe is an enchantress and a minor goddess in ancient Greek mythology and religion. In most accounts, Circe is described as the daughter of the sun god Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse. Circe was renowned for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs. Through the use of these and a magic wand or staff, she would transform her enemies, or those who offended her, into animals.

<i>Odyssey</i> Epic poem attributed to Homer

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Iliad, the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war, which lasted ten years, his journey from Troy to Ithaca, via Africa and southern Europe, lasted for ten additional years during which time he encountered many perils and all of his crewmates were killed. In his absence, Odysseus was assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus had to contend with a group of unruly suitors who were competing for Penelope's hand in marriage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Odysseus</span> Legendary Greek king of Ithaca

In Greek and Roman mythology, Odysseus, also known by the Latin variant Ulysses, is a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in that same epic cycle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trojan War</span> Legendary war in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology, and it has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably Homer's Iliad. The core of the Iliad describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Troy; the Odyssey describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes. Other parts of the war are described in a cycle of epic poems, which have survived through fragments. Episodes from the war provided material for Greek tragedy and other works of Greek literature, and for Roman poets including Virgil and Ovid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Menelaus</span> King of Sparta, husband of Helen of Troy

In Greek mythology, Menelaus was a Greek king of Mycenaean (pre-Dorian) Sparta. According to the Iliad, Menelaus was a central figure in the Trojan War, leading the Spartan contingent of the Greek army, under his elder brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. Prominent in both the Iliad and Odyssey, Menelaus was also popular in Greek vase painting and Greek tragedy, the latter more as a hero of the Trojan War than as a member of the doomed House of Atreus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penelope</span> Wife of Odysseus in Greek mythology

Penelope is a character in Homer's Odyssey. She was the queen of Ithaca and was the daughter of Spartan king Icarius and Asterodia. Penelope is known for her fidelity to her husband Odysseus, despite the attention of more than a hundred suitors during his absence. In one source, Penelope's original name was Arnacia or Arnaea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telemachus</span> Mythological son of Odysseus

Telemachus, in Greek mythology, is the son of Odysseus and Penelope, who is a central character in Homer's Odyssey. When Telemachus reached manhood, he visited Pylos and Sparta in search of his wandering father. On his return to Ithaca, he found that Odysseus had reached home before him. Then father and son slew the suitors who had gathered around Penelope. According to later tradition, Telemachus married Circe after Odysseus’ death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ralph Vaughan Williams</span> English composer (1872–1958)

Ralph Vaughan Williams was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Procris</span>

In Greek mythology, Procris was an Athenian princess, the third daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens and his wife, Praxithea. Homer mentions her in the Odyssey as one of the many dead spirits Odysseus saw in the Underworld. Sophocles wrote a tragedy called Procris that has been lost, as has a version contained in the Greek Cycle, but at least six different accounts of her story still exist.

<i>Telemachy</i> First part of the Odyssey

The Telemachy is a term traditionally applied to the first four books of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. They are named so because, just as the Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus, they tell the story of Odysseus's son Telemachus as he journeys from home for the first time in search of news about his missing father.

<i>A Sea Symphony</i> Symphony composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams

A Sea Symphony is an hour-long work for soprano, baritone, chorus and large orchestra written by Ralph Vaughan Williams between 1903 and 1909. The first and longest of his nine symphonies, it was first performed at the Leeds Festival in 1910 with the composer conducting, and its maturity belies the relatively young age — 30 — when he began sketching it. Moreover it is one of the first symphonies in which a chorus is used throughout as an integral part of the texture and it helped set the stage for a new era of symphonic and choral music in Britain during the first half of the 20th century. It was never numbered.

The Telegony is a lost ancient Greek epic poem about Telegonus, son of Odysseus by Circe. His name is indicative of his birth on Aeaea, far from Odysseus' home of Ithaca. It was part of the Epic Cycle of poems that recounted the myths of the Trojan War as well as the events that led up to and followed it. The story of the Telegony comes chronologically after that of the Odyssey and is the final episode in the Epic Cycle. The poem was sometimes attributed in antiquity to Cinaethon of Sparta, but in one source it is said to have been stolen from Musaeus by Eugamon or Eugammon of Cyrene. The poem comprised two books of verse in dactylic hexameter.

In the Epic Cycle, Antinous or Antinoös, was the Ithacan son of Eupeithes, best known for his role in Homer's Odyssey.

Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 3, published as Pastoral Symphony and not numbered until later, was completed in 1922. Vaughan Williams's initial inspiration to write this symphony came during World War I after hearing a bugler practising and accidentally playing an interval of a seventh instead of an octave; this ultimately led to the trumpet cadenza in the second movement.

<i>The Penelopiad</i> 2005 novella by Margaret Atwood

The Penelopiad is a novella by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It was published in 2005 as part of the first set of books in the Canongate Myth Series where contemporary authors rewrite ancient myths. In The Penelopiad, Penelope reminisces on the events of the Odyssey, life in Hades, Odysseus, Helen of Troy, and her relationships with her parents. A Greek chorus of the twelve maids, who Odysseus believed were disloyal and whom Telemachus hanged, interrupt Penelope's narrative to express their view on events. The maids' interludes use a new genre each time, including a jump-rope rhyme, a lament, an idyll, a ballad, a lecture, a court trial and several types of songs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Returns from Troy</span> Greek myths about the warriors voyages home

The Returns from Troy are the stories of how the Greek leaders returned after their victory in the Trojan War. Many Achaean heroes did not return to their homes, but died or founded colonies outside the Greek mainland. The most famous returns are those of Odysseus, whose wanderings are narrated in the Odyssey, and Agamemnon, whose murder at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra was portrayed in Greek tragedy.

The Second Suite in F for Military Band is Gustav Holst's second of his two suites for concert band. Although performed less frequently than the First Suite in E, it is still a staple of the band repertoire. The Second Suite, written in 1911 and first published in 1922, dedicated to James Causley Windram, is longer and considered more difficult to play than its sister suite.

<i>Three Shakespeare Songs</i> 1951 classical choral music by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Three Shakespeare Songs is a piece of classical choral music written for an a cappella SATB choir. It was written in 1951 by the British classical composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. The work comprises three short pieces which are settings of text from two plays by the English playwright William Shakespeare. It is published by Oxford University Press.

In music, a cross-beat or cross-rhythm is a specific form of polyrhythm. The term cross rhythm was introduced in 1934 by the musicologist Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980). It refers to a situation where the rhythmic conflict found in polyrhythms is the basis of an entire musical piece.

References

  1. Vaughan Williams Collected Songs in Three Volumes: Vol. 1 Oxford University Press, Great Britain. 1993.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Adams, Byron and Robin Wells, eds. Vaughan Williams Essays Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, 2003. pp. 157–171.
  3. 'Ralph Vaughan Williams', Grove Music Online (subscription required) Archived 16 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine ed. L. Macy (Accessed 12 February 2008),
  4. "Vaughan Williams/Payne: Four Last Songs". anthonypayne.org.uk. Retrieved 17 July 2021.