Here’s Ralph Vaughan Williams, looking as miserable as you would imagine, being serenaded by the tuba. The composer wrote the first ever concerto for the instrument in 1954. A late and unusual work, the piece was dedicated to Philip Catelinet, principal tubist of the London Symphony Orchestra. “Glorious John” Barbirolli conducted the premiere. These are the forces heard on the work’s first recording. Listen here, for a tubby start to your Friday.
BONUS! Vaughan Williams’ “Romance for Harmonica,” composed in 1952.
Vaughan Williams seemed often to be in search of unusual timbres in his later years. Rather ironic, since by then he was severely deaf, the result of prolonged exposure to heavy artillery during World War I. But he was a true composer, a master of his craft, who didn’t have to hear what he wrote in order to know the sound. Moreover, as a pupil of Maurice Ravel, he never lost his sense of color.
Take for example the exotic percussion in the outer movements of his Symphony No. 8, composed in 1953-54. (The second movement is scored for brass and the third for strings alone.) It’s heard here in a superb performance from perhaps an unlikely source, given the pervasive claims that the music of this quintessentially English composer does not “travel.” Nobody told Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Or the insinuating saxophones and mysterious harps in the valedictory Symphony No. 9, written in 1956-57. Vaughan Williams died on the eve of the first recording session, with Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Boult’s brief eulogy appears at the beginning of this world premiere recording.
It’s extraordinary that a composer in his 80s would remain so vital and so full of invention. (RVW was 80 back when 80 was REALLY 80!) His symphonies, in particular, are among the greatest of the 20th century. And he never repeated himself. All nine have such a distinctive character, and there’s not a weak link in the bunch. Would that more of our music directors would get to know them.
English music in Princeton this weekend: Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto, with Elina Vähälä, and one of my desert island favorites, Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.” (No Vaughan Williams, sadly.)
The @[100043116381457:2048:Princeton Symphony Orchestra] performs on two concerts at Richardson Auditorium, Saturday evening at 8:00 and Sunday afternoon at 4:00. Tickets and information here: https://princetonsymphony.org/
Interestingly, this is a topic that has been on my mind for the past week or so. Perhaps because, after a conversation with Paul Moon, I was thinking of Vaughan Williams’ “Epithalamion,” the first work VW wrote in collaboration with the poet Ursula Wood. Perhaps because, in flipping through photos of the composer in advance of his birthday, I came across this snapshot from years later, in which he and Ursula, by then his second wife, look affectionate and happy.
Whichever the case, yesterday, on the 150th anniversary of VW’s birth, I discovered a documentary, which I am now very curious to view. You’ll find a link to “The Passions of Vaughan Williams” at the bottom of this post.
In the modern sense, “passion” is frequently used to suggest ardor or enthusiasm. But as you may know, the word itself has its roots in the Latin “passio” and the Greek “pathos,” both of them tied to suffering.
So just how “pastoral” was the world of Ralph Vaughan Williams?
Wood was a young drama student at the Old Vic, when she caught a performance of Vaughan Williams’ masque, “Job.” She was greatly impressed by the piece. So much so, she contacted him to share her own idea for a ballet. But Ralph was not keen on it. Undeterred, she then suggested doing something based on the poetry of Edmund Spenser. This intrigued him and led to their fateful meeting. They got together for lunch in 1938 and fell immediately in love. There was only one problem – well, two actually – they both were already married.
At 24, Vaughan Williams, himself the great-nephew of Charles Darwin, had married Adeline Fisher, a cousin of Virginia Woolf. The marriage was not a passionate one. The couple had no children, Adeline was very much wrapped up in the concerns of her birth family, and after her brother was killed in action during World War I, she determined to wear black for the remainder of her life. In the meantime, she was gradually invalided by crippling arthritis. For her health, the Vaughan Williamses left the vibrant cultural center of London, on which Ralph thrived, to settle in the countryside of Dorking, Surrey.
Ursula’s impediment was the first to be resolved. Michael Wood would die of a heart attack while serving in the army in 1942. She was promptly invited by the Vaughan Williamses to come stay with them at their rural address, and there their lives became further entwined. When Ursula took paid employment in London, Adeline was relieved to know that when Ralph was in town, Ursula would be there to care of him. Ursula’s relationship with Vaughan Williams became an open, though perhaps unspoken secret. After all, Adeline was no fool. For Ralph’s part, he would never abandon his wife.
During a tense night in 1944, the height of Hitler’s “doodlebug” raids, the Vaughan Williamses lay in twin beds, with Ursula on a mattress on the floor between them, all of them listening for V-1 planes as Ursula held their hands. This peculiar ménage continued for 13 years. In a professional capacity, Ursula acted as Vaughan Williams’ assistant and literary advisor. But personally, the two had already developed a very deep bond.
Adeline died in 1951. Ursula and Ralph married in February 1953. It was to be a happy union, as Ursula kept RVW active, expansive, and productive. I should mention, there was a 38-year difference between them. At the time of their wedding, Vaughan Williams was 80 and Ursula was 41. But before you jump to conclusions, there wasn’t anything “ick” about it.
Ursula was an inspiration for Ralph from the day they met. Ralph would set a number of her texts to music, beginning with the Spenser collaboration, the masque “Epithalamion,” composed in 1938-9 (as “The Bridal Day”). With the outbreak of World War II, the work was put away in a trunk, its premiere postponed indefinitely. It was eventually revived and televised on June 5, 1953.
Further, the romantic glow that characterizes so much of Vaughan Williams’ output (as in the “Serenade to Music”) may be attributed to the composer’s ardor. Certainly, Ursula steered his path in a positive direction. It’s hard to imagine that he would have enjoyed the vitality he did in his golden years without her.
Vaughan Williams died in 1958 at the age of 85. He was active to the very end, leaving several ambitious projects (including a cello concerto, an opera, and a Christmas pageant) incomplete at the time of his death. Ursula would outlive him by nearly 50 years.
In 1964, she published “RVW: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams.” She followed that with a candid volume of autobiography, “Paradise Remember,” in 1972, but deferred its publication until 2002. She died in 2007 at the age of 96. Clearly, she loved Ralph and did much in the half century since his passing to ensure and illuminate his legacy.
Ironically, because of the enduring popularity of works like the “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” and “The Lark Ascending,” a stereotype has taken root of Vaughan Williams as a kind of Bilbo Baggins, contentedly smoking his pipe and growing portly in the Shire. But the composer’s achievement transcends what some blithely perceive as a pastoral wallow. There was a great deal of turbulence and passion underlying both his life and music.
The unholy love-child of “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Exorcist,” “The Omen” (1976) proved to be the fulfillment of a prophecy that big-studio mainstream demonic horror was here to stay.
But is the movie particularly scary?
Sure, it’s got atmosphere to burn, with a creepy nanny and a Jerry Goldsmith score replete with mumbo jumbo Latin chorus. But it’s more of a Hitchcock film (perhaps by way of Brian DePalma) than anything that’s going to make you sleep with the light on or haunt your consciousness.
Granted, the big set-pieces are pretty unforgettable. But how many of them make any sense? “The Omen” is puzzlingly devoid of psychological, mythic, or even biblical resonance, despite the characters’ repetition of a passage from the Book of Revelation.
What it did have was enormous success at the box office, which allowed director Richard Donner to make “Superman,” and for that, at least, we are blessed. For 20th Century Fox, this son of a jackal proved to be a lucrative cash cow. Of course, Fox is now a subsidiary of Walt Disney. To contemplate that Disney is now in a position to crank out more “Omen” films is scarier than anything in the movie.
Anyway, it ain’t “The Exorcist,” but the power of friendship compels me… to show up for our discussion of “The Omen.” Unleash your Satanic rottweilers in the comments section. I’ll be feeling every one of the 666 minutes of the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, this Friday evening at 7:30 EDT.
One of England’s greatest composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams looked back to his country’s agrarian roots as a roundabout way of securing the future of its cultural identity. On the 150th anniversary of his birth, I salute him in all his rumpled glory.
As did so many composers who were caught in the wildfire of nationalism that swept across Europe, beginning in the middle of the 19th century, Vaughan Williams rebelled against the prevailing academicism that reached its tendrils from the capitals of German music to choke the “provincial” hinterlands. He emerged from an environment that had produced far too many knock-offs of Mendelssohn and Brahms. Vaughan Williams would revolutionize his compatriots’ perception of art music by embracing the sounds of the English countryside.
However, like Béla Bartók, he was no simplistic, twee purveyor of folk music. On the contrary, the rhythms and inflections of his native land were already part of his DNA. The songs he documented while roaming the fields and fens with his colleague, Gustav Holst, merely brought to the surface what was already innate. What he expressed in his original music was thoroughly digested and deeply personal.
Some of Vaughan Williams’ best loved works are imbued with nostalgia for a faded world, but the composer pushed forward also, through two world wars and into the Great Beyond. He was not a conventionally religious man, but mysticism seems to color a fair amount of his music. He was also unafraid, in works like his Sixth Symphony, to stare desolation unflinchingly in the face. Technically, his lessons with Maurice Ravel made him a thoughtful orchestrator, so that throughout his life he deployed his instrumental forces with considerable craft and creativity. Given the proper attention, there is much to engage on all levels of his music.
While you might not want to take his advice on the best way to tie a tie, musically, with Vaughan Williams, you are always in the hands of a master. Put your faith in Ralph (pronounced “Rafe”) for the Vaughan Williams sesquicentenary.
Thank you, RVW, for a lifetime of enrichment, and happy birthday!
