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Tag: Ralph Vaughan Williams

Vaughan Williams at 150 A Master’s Vision

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!

October 12, 2022
English Documentary Music Vaughan Williams Britten

What has often been regarded in the United States as “hack work,” in England has been accepted as just another aspect of what it means to be a working artist. There is no disgrace in a composer earning a living, and some of the nation’s greatest musicians – including those in the employ of the Royal Family – have contributed finely-crafted scores to its body of cinema.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s an hour of English documentary music. We’ll hear selections by Ralph Vaughan Williams, from “The People’s Land” (1941), Benjamin Britten, from “The King’s Stamp” (1935), William Alwyn, from “The Green Girdle” (1941), and Master of the Queen’s Music, Sir Arthur Bliss, from “The Royal Palaces of Britain” (1966). All four films are patriotic utterances on distinctly English themes.

You may not have seen any of these shorts, but the music is beautiful. I hope you’ll join me for music from English documentaries, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

In the meantime, if you’re having a slow day, why not get a taste of the films themselves?

“The People’s Land,” score by Vaughan Williams:

https://film.britishcouncil.org/resources/film-archive/the-peoples-land?fbclid=IwAR36nQXOBCTJGiE7HS217SKdZeblNZK1vuwUrvwIjJlUXvZO14pJ0IuU064

“The King’s Stamp,” score by Benjamin Britten:

“The Green Girdle,” score by William Alwyn:

PHOTOS: Britten’s stamp and the King’s stamp

September 17, 2022
Alice Mary Smith Vaughan Williams Birthday Finds

Here’s a glimpse at some of my birthday booty from the other day.

The CD of works by Alice Mary Smith was released on Chandos Records in 2005, but somehow I only learned about it this year. Very happy to have it! Smith, who lived from 1839 to 1884, is believed to be the first English woman to compose a symphony. A student of William Sterndale Bennett and George Alexander Macfarran, she wrote two symphonies, six concert overtures, four piano quartets, three string quartets, a clarinet sonata, a respectable collection of sacred choral works and cantatas, and a couple of works for the stage, including an operetta. There is something about her Andante for Clarinet and Orchestra that caught my ear, when I encountered it on the radio. (It’s actually an orchestral version of the slow movement from her sonata.) The first movement of her Symphony in A minor is also impressive; the last movement is memorable and keeps up a good head of steam. If you like Mendelssohn or Arthur Sullivan, with maybe a little Schubert in the orchestration, that’s the kind of musical language you can pretty much expect.

Andante for Clarinet and Orchestra

Symphony in A minor

The other disc contains the world premiere recording of a work by Ralph Vaughan Williams, incidental music for the masque “Pan’s Anniversary” by Ben Jonson. Vaughan Williams and Pan? Come on! I am SO there!! Apparently, RVW was under time constraints when writing the work, so some of the dance arrangements had to be delegated to his good friend, Gustav Holst. The program also includes some other unexpected gems, including an arrangement of one of RVW’s most popular works, the “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,” for voices and string octet.

The CD is issued on Albion Records, the recording branch of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, which has done so much to ferret out and document rare, neglected, and forgotten works by the composer. A nice surprise in RVW’s sesquicentennial year, being celebrated with enthusiasm in the U.K. and seemingly ignored everywhere else.

A preview of the contents of “Pan’s Anniversary” here:

Looking forward to giving this a good listen today!

July 6, 2022
Ina Boyle Irish Composer Rediscovered

Ina Boyle was an Irish composer, born near Enniskerry, County Wicklow, who made regular trips to London to study with Ralph Vaughan Williams. She did receive a number of first performances in England in the 1920s and ‘30s. The music was well-received, but failed to gain any real traction. Family obligations kept her at home, but she continued to compose every day and was active in her correspondence and sending out scores. Yet performances were infrequent, and only one of her works (“Wildgeese”) was programmed twice in her lifetime. She died in 1967 at the age of 78.

Boyle wrote some really lovely stuff, and it’s only comparatively recently that much of it has been recorded. Even so, there’s still plenty that hasn’t made it before the microphones (including two of her three symphonies).

Here’s one of her works that I had never heard before:

Website of the Ina Boyle Society Limited:

https://www.inaboyle.org/

This is highly recommended, if you can find it. If you can’t, some of the pieces have been posted on YouTube.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/May/Boyle_orchestral_CDLX7352.htm

More Ina Boyle, please!

March 17, 2022
Vaughan Williams Library Discards Rare Find

One man’s meat is another man’s poison.

Fresh on the heels of my acquisition of Ursula Vaughan Williams’ biography of her husband, famed English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, as a discard from the Des Moines Public Library, comes this gem, now in the mail. Both books are quite pricey on the secondhand market; hence my snapping them up as library rejects.

Previously, I posted about my stunned reaction to Ursula’s “RVW” being turned loose, given Vaughan Williams’ significance as a composer and the fact that there could be increased interest in his work, given that this is his sesquicentennial year. (He was born on October 12, 1872.) Then I remembered my copy of Vaughan Williams’ “Beethoven’s Choral Symphony and Other Writings” is a discard from Princeton University!

The Des Moines Public Library’s “collection management” policy can be found here, under “Collection Development and Programming.”

https://www.dmpl.org/connect/what-we-do/services-policies

I’m guessing there’s not a great demand for Vaughan Williams in Des Moines.

February 22, 2022

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