Principally because of alluring musical flights of fancy like “The Lark Ascending,” Ralph Vaughan Williams has been somewhat pigeon-holed as the foremost proponent of the “cow-pat school” of English composition. While he certainly did spend a good deal of his life strolling the English countryside, he considered himself first and foremost a Londoner. Join me this afternoon at 1:00 EDT to partake of Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 2, “A London Symphony.”
Vaughan Williams claimed that while the work bore a programmatic subtitle, it was meant to be experienced primarily as “absolute” music. He preferred it be thought of as a symphony by a Londoner, as opposed to an attempt to portray the actual city.
Nonetheless, the symphony contains allusions to street music, barrel organs, the jingle of hansom cabs, and the Westminster Chimes, among other things, and it certainly is tempting to conjure images of the hustle and bustle of Piccadilly Circus and, perhaps, in the slow movement, one of the nocturne paintings of James McNeill Whistler.
It’s one of the featured highlights this afternoon, as the country mouse plays city mouse, from noon to 4 p.m., on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
PHOTO: Vaughan Williams and Foxy: “Did somebody say mouse?”
