Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)

Last updated

Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 3, published as A Pastoral Symphony and not numbered until later, was completed in 1922. Vaughan Williams's 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; [1] this ultimately led to the trumpet cadenza in the second movement.

Contents

The work is among the least performed of Vaughan Williams's symphonies,[ citation needed ] but has gained the reputation of being a subtly beautiful elegy for the dead of World War I and a meditation on the sounds of peace. Like many of the composer's works, the Pastoral Symphony is not programmatic, but its spirit is evocative. None of the movements are particularly fast or upbeat (the composer himself described it as "four movements, all of them slow"), [2] but there are isolated extroverted sections.

It was first performed in London on 16 January 1922 with Adrian Boult conducting. [3]

The symphony was dismissed by Constant Lambert, who wrote that its "creation of a particular type of grey, reflective, English-landscape mood has outweighed the exigencies of symphonic form". [4] Peter Warlock's often-quoted comment that "it is all just a little too much like a cow looking over a gate" was in fact a comment on Vaughan Williams's style in general, and was not aimed specifically at the Pastoral Symphony, which he on the contrary described as "a truly splendid work" and "the best English orchestral music of this century". [5] Vaughan Williams emphasized, however, that the work is "not really Lambkins frisking at all as most people take for granted" [6] (i.e., English pastoral scenery); its reference is to the fields of France during World War I, where the composer served in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Structure

The symphony is in four movements:

  1. Molto moderato
    Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)
    Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)
  2. Lento moderato – Moderato maestoso – the slow movement opens with an F major natural-horn solo above an F minor chord, a theme that is developed by a solo cello.[ citation needed ]
    Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)

    Just as in the first movement, the ideas flow gently from one to the next, ultimately leading to the trumpet cadenza. Here, the instrument is in effect a natural trumpet (a trumpet without valves) in E, since the player is instructed not to use the valves. As a result, the seventh harmonic is played instead of the ordinary minor seventh, and so it sounds slightly out-of-tune with its nearest equivalent in 12-tone equal temperament.
    Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)

    The entire cadenza is played over a pedal note in the strings.[ original research? ] The cadenza material later reappears on the natural horn in F, gently accompanied by a returning theme now played on the cor anglais. [7] The movement ends with a quiet chord in the violins' high register.
  3. Moderato pesante – Vaughan Williams described this movement, the symphony's scherzo function, as a "slow dance".[ This quote needs a citation ]
    Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)

    The trio, introduced by the brass section, has a quicker, brighter quality but retains some of the heaviness of the earlier music.[ original research? ]
    Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)

    After the shortened return of the main material there is a coda with some fugal writing. This is the only time truly fast music appears in the symphony. A theme from the main section of the movement creeps into this fugue. The movement ends in a major chord.
  4. Lento – the final movement returns to the contemplative manner of the first two movements, and functions as a summing-up and coda to the rest of the symphony. [8] It begins with a pentatonic passage for a wordless soprano voice (silent until this point), sung over a soft drumroll.[ original research? ]
    Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)

    The orchestra then begins an elegiac rhapsody. The high point of the symphony comes when the violins all state the opening soprano melody appassionato.[ citation needed ] At the very end of the symphony, the soprano returns to sing the music into silence.

Instrumentation

A typical performance of the symphony lasts about 35 minutes. It is scored for a large orchestra including: 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 3 clarinets (in B and A; 3rd doubling on bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, 4 horns (in F), 3 trumpets (in C, 1 doubling on natural trumpet in E), 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, celesta, harp, and strings, plus a wordless soprano in the 4th movement.

Recordings

YearSoloistConductorOrchestraLabelCatalogue number
1952 Margaret Ritchie Adrian Boult London Philharmonic Orchestra Decca(LP) LXT 2787
1966Valerie Hill Adrian Boult BBC Symphony Orchestra BBC Radio Classics(LP) 15656 91642
1968 Margaret Price Adrian Boult New Philharmonia HMV(LP) ASD 2393
1971 Heather Harper André Previn London Symphony Orchestra RCA(LP) SB 6861
1987 Yvonne Kenny Bryden Thomson London Symphony Orchestra Chandos(CD) CHAN 8594
1988Yelena Dof-Donskaya Gennadi Rozhdestvensky USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra Melodiya (LP) 2170
1991 Alison Barlow Vernon Handley Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra EMI Eminence(CD) CD-EMX 2192
1991 Linda Hohenfeld Leonard Slatkin Philharmonia Orchestra RCA Victor Red Seal (CD) 09026 61194-2
1992 Patricia Rozario Kees Bakels Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Naxos (CD) 8.550733
1996 Patricia Rozario Andrew Davis BBC Symphony Orchestra Teldec (CD) 0630-13139-2
1996 Amanda Roocroft Bernard Haitink London Philharmonic Orchestra EMI Classics(CD) 5 56564 2
1997 Rosa Mannion Roger Norrington London Philharmonic Orchestra Decca(CD) 458 357-2
2002 Rebecca Evans Richard Hickox London Symphony Orchestra Chandos(CD) CHAN 10001
2013 Sarah Fox Mark Elder The Hallé Hallé(CD) CDHLL7540
2016 Andrew Staples Andrew Manze Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Onyx(CD) ONYX 4161
2020 Elizabeth Watts Martyn Brabbins BBC Symphony Orchestra Hyperion (CD) CDA68280

Notes

  1. Kennedy (1964), pp. 170–71.
  2. Kennedy (1980) p. 156
  3. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians , 5th ed., 1954, "Vaughan Williams: Catalogue of Works", Vol. VIII, p. 704
  4. Lambert (1948) p. 107
  5. Smith (1994) pp. 115, 258
  6. Letter to Ursula Wood, 4 October 1938 (Vaughan Williams, Letters, p. 265.)
  7. Howells (1922) p. 128.
  8. Howells (1922) p. 130.

Sources

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<i>The Planets</i> Orchestral suite by Gustav Holst

The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1917. In the last movement the orchestra is joined by a wordless female chorus. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its supposed astrological character.

<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.

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his Symphony No. 5 in D major between 1938 and 1943. In style it represents a shift away from the violent dissonance of his Fourth Symphony, and a return to the gentler style of the earlier Pastoral Symphony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symphony No. 7 (Sibelius)</span> Symphony in one movement by Jean Sibelius

The Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105, is a single-movement work for orchestra written from 1914 to 1924 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.

<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.

Ralph Vaughan Williams dedicated his Symphony No. 4 in F minor to Arnold Bax.

Sinfonia antartica is the Italian title given by Ralph Vaughan Williams to his seventh symphony, first performed in 1953. It drew on incidental music the composer had written for the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symphony No. 8 (Vaughan Williams)</span> Symphony in four movements composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 8 in D minor was composed between 1953 and 1955. Sir John Barbirolli, its dedicatee, conducted the Hallé Orchestra in the premiere at the Kings Hall in Manchester, on 2 May 1956. It is the shortest of the composer's nine symphonies, and is mostly buoyant and optimistic in tone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symphony No. 9 (Vaughan Williams)</span> Musical work, premiered in 1958

The Symphony No. 9 in E minor was the last symphony written by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. He composed it during 1956 and 1957, and it was given its premiere performance in London by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent on 2 April 1958, in the composer's eighty-sixth year. The work was received respectfully but, at first, without great enthusiasm. Its reputation has subsequently grown, and the symphony has entered the repertoire, in the concert hall and on record, with the majority of recordings from the 1990s and the 21st century.

The Concerto in F Minor for Bass Tuba and Orchestra by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was written in 1954 for Philip Catelinet, principal tubist of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), who together gave the premiere on 13 June 1954 with Sir John Barbirolli conducting. The same musicians made the work’s first recording that same year. This concerto was the first concerto written for solo tuba.

<i>Job: A Masque for Dancing</i>

Job: A Masque for Dancing is a one-act ballet produced in 1931. The scenario is by Geoffrey Keynes, the choreography by Ninette de Valois, and the music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The ballet is based on the Book of Job from the Hebrew Bible and was inspired by the illustrated edition by William Blake. The music was first given in concert in 1930 and the ballet had its stage premiere on 5 July 1931. It was the first ballet to be produced by an entirely British creative team. It was taken into the repertoire of the Vic-Wells Ballet and its successors, and has been intermittently revived.

Flos Campi: Suite for Solo Viola, Small Chorus, and Small Orchestra is a composition by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, completed in 1925. Its title is Latin for "flower of the field." It is neither a concerto nor a choral piece, although it prominently features the viola and a wordless choir. The piece is divided into six movements, played without pause, each headed by a verse from the Song of Solomon:

  1. Sicut Lilium inter spinas (Lento)
  2. Jam enim hiems transiit
  3. Quaesivi quem diligit anima mea
  4. En lectulum Salomonis
  5. Revertere, revertere Sulamitis!
  6. Pone me ut signaculum
<i>Sancta Civitas</i> Oratorio by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Sancta Civitas is an oratorio by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Written between 1923 and 1925, it was his first major work since the Mass in G minor two years previously. Vaughan Williams began working on the piece from a rented furnished house in the village of Danbury, Essex, found for him by his former pupil, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs.

The Concerto in A minor for Oboe and Strings was written by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1943–44 for the oboist Léon Goossens, to whom the score is dedicated.

The Concerto in C minor for Piano, Trumpet, and String Orchestra, Op. 35, was completed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1933.

The Symphony No. 3 by Arnold Bax was completed in 1929. It was dedicated to Sir Henry Wood and is perhaps the most performed and most immediately approachable of Bax's symphonies.

The Symphony No. 1 by Arnold Bax was completed in 1922 and dedicated to John Ireland. Its outer movements were based on a Piano Sonata in E♭ that Bax subsequently orchestrated, while the central movement was newly composed for the symphony.

The Piano Concerto in C is a concertante work by Ralph Vaughan Williams written in 1926 and 1930-31. During the intervening years, the composer completed Job: A Masque for Dancing and began work on his Fourth Symphony. The concerto shares some thematic characteristics with these works, as well as some of their drama and turbulence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Violin Concerto (Larsson)</span> Concerto in three movements by Lars-Erik Larsson

The Violin Concerto, Op. 54, is a three-movement concertante composition for violin and orchestra written in 1952 by the Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson. The piece premiered over Swedish Radio on 11 January 1953 in Stockholm, Sweden, with Sten Frykberg conducting the Swedish Radio Orchestra. The soloist was the Hungarian violinist André Gertler, its dedicatee.

Five Tudor Portraits (1935), by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is a work scored for contralto, baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra. It sets several poems, or extracts from poems, by the 15th/16th-century poet John Skelton, portraying five characters with a mixture of satire, compassion, acerbity and earthy humour. Though acclaimed by critics, it has not been so frequently performed as some of Vaughan Williams' other works. In its complete form it lasts about 42 minutes, though the composer also sanctioned the performance of individual movements separately.