CHANDOS :: intro CHAN 2028 an introduction to Ralph Vaughan Williams :: 13 CCHANHAN 22028028 BBook.inddook.indd 112-132-13 330/7/060/7/06 113:25:113:25:11 Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) 1 Overture to ‘The Wasps’* 10:16 from the ‘Aristophanic Suite’ of incidental music to the play Classical music is inaccessible and diffi cult. It’s surprising how many people still believe 2 Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves’† 4:34 the above statement to be true, so this new series Arranged by Ralph Greaves (d. 1966) from Chandos is not only welcome, it’s also very necessary. 3 The Lark Ascending‡ 15:36 I was lucky enough to stumble upon the Romance for Violin and Orchestra wonderful world of the classics when I was a Michael Davis solo violin child, and I’ve often contemplated how much poorer my life would have been had I not done A London Symphony§ 47:41 so. As you have taken the fi rst step by buying this (Symphony No. 2) CD, I guarantee that you will share the delights 4 I Lento – Allegro risoluto 14:49 of this epic journey of discovery. Each CD in the 5 II Lento 11:11 series features the orchestral music of a specifi c composer, with a selection of his ‘greatest hits’ 6 III Scherzo (Nocturne) – Allegro vivace 8:21 CHANDOS played by top quality performers. It will give you 7 IV Andante con moto – Allegro – Epilouge 13:19 a good fl avour of the composer’s style, but you Total time 78:09 won’t fi nd any nasty surprises – all the music is instantly accessible and appealing. The discs are London Philharmonic Orchestra* beautifully presented, and very good value for London Symphony Orchestra†‡§ money, too. Ashley Arbuckle† • Lennox Mackenzie§ :: leaders I sincerely hope this CD marks the start of * intro Vernon Handley your own lifelong passion for classical music. Bryden Thomson†‡§ © 2006 John Brunning Classic FM presenter :: 2 3 CCHANHAN 22028028 BBook.inddook.indd 22-3-3 330/7/060/7/06 113:25:083:25:08 overture to ‘the wasps’ the angry buzzing of wasps, the sound of which becomes more Unlike the music of a great number of his contemporaries, that of ludicrous with the various changes of orchestral colour, before Ralph Vaughan Williams has found a place in the hearts of both the overture ‘kicks off’ with a jaunty tune punctuated by comic concert goers and musicians. It speaks directly to the emotions, ejaculations from cymbals and bass drum. The progress of the and the composer was not afraid to depict, musically, his music is straightforward, and after a dreamy middle section innermost yearnings. He was a poet of nature, but his approach Vaughan Williams combines all his ideas to create a rollicking an introduction to an introduction was highly individual: he was a symphonist, and nearly all his mood that prevails to the end. works are laid out in a recognisably symphonic style; relying on © Robert Anthony Briggs accepted classical forms, he would rarely allow himself simply to follow his musical heart wherever it would lead him. Vaughan Williams was born in 1872. His father was a Gloucestershire village rector and his mother a member of the fantasia on ‘greensleeves’ Wedgwood family who were famed for their pottery. He spent his The Fantasia on the traditional melody ‘Greensleeves’ originated childhood mostly in the Home Counties and London, with later in Vaughan Williams’s opera Sir John in Love; although probably periods of study at the Royal College of Music and Cambridge the most familiar piece of music associated with the composer’s Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan University. He was drawn, early on, to composition, and developed an name, it was arranged in its present form, for strings, harp and abiding interest in English folksong, which led him to tour the country fl utes, by Ralph Greaves and fi rst heard on 27 September 1934 collecting traditional melodies. Although he travelled to Paris for with Vaughan Williams conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. lessons with Ravel, in order to acquire some ‘French polish’, as he put © Max Harrison it, he spent almost the whole of his long life in his home celebrating and enriching English cultural life. By the time he was asked by the Greek Play Committee at Cambridge to write the incidental music for a performance of the lark ascending Aristophanes’s comedy The Wasps, in 1909, he had already Vaughan Williams wrote The Lark Ascending in August 1914 but composed a signifi cant body of work, including the song cycles revised it in 1920, then again before publication of the full score in On Wenlock Edge and Songs of Travel. Contenting himself 1926. Hence it should be considered part of his post-World War with displaying the immense humour of the play, in his own very I output. It is described as a ‘Romance for Violin and Orchestra’ down-to-earth terms, Vaughan Williams created music which is but there are also reductions for chamber orchestra and for violin at one with the play. Whilst today we seldom hear the complete and piano, and it was in this last form that the piece was fi rst heard incidental music or the ‘Aristophanic Suite’ that the composer in public, from Marie Hall, the dedicatee, and George Mendham drew from it, the Overture to The Wasps has always proved a at Shirehampton Public Hall on 15 December 1920. The premiere winning curtain raiser in the concert hall. It commences with of the orchestral version was given in the Queen’s Hall, London on 4 5 CCHANHAN 22028028 BBook.inddook.indd 44-5-5 330/7/060/7/06 113:25:103:25:10 14 June 1921 by Marie Hall with the British Symphony Orchestra has no parallel either. The mood of the piece as a whole fi nds under Adrian Boult. an echo in Merciless Beauty, settings of words attributed to The work begins magically, with the orchestra sustaining a Chaucer, also fi rst heard in 1921, and The Lark Ascending points soft ninth chord as the soloist essays phrases that are indeed clearly to the three major works that soon followed, the Pastoral like birdsong and grow into the main theme. This melody seems Symphony, The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains and the capable of infi nite extension, there being no apparent limit to the Mass in G minor. variants on its basic four-note idea. An agitated central section © Max Harrison and a folk-like tune for full orchestra follow, then the violinist gathers everything together in what becomes a fi nal rapturous fl i g h t . The score is prefaced by some lines from The Lark Ascending a london symphony by George Meredith (1828–1909), and although the music was Like the opera Hugh the Drover, on which Vaughan Williams inspired by the poetry, the poetry could just as easily have been a worked at the same time, A London Symphony expresses his response to the music: pre-World War I nationalism and his desire, set forth in 1912 in He rises and begins to round, his article ‘Who wants the English Composer?’, to make music He drops the silver chain of sound, out of materials immediately to hand. He wrote: Of many links without a break, Have we not about us forms of musical expression which we can purify In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake. and raise to the level of great art? For instance, the lilt of the chorus at a music-hall joining in a popular song, the children dancing to a For singing till his heaven fi lls, barrel-organ… ’Tis love of earth that he instils, He earlier had sketched a symphonic poem about London, And ever winging up and up, which apparently was subsumed in this far more ambitious Our valley is his golden cup, symphony, on which he began working in 1912. It was the largest And he the wine which overfl ows purely orchestral work that Vaughan Williams had undertaken To lift us with him as he goes… thus far and, along with the opera, marked the end of one phase of his development. The fi rst performance was at the Queen’s Till lost on his aerial rings Hall, London on 27 March 1914 with the Queen’s Hall Orchestra In light, and then the fancy sings. conducted by Geoffrey Toye. There were later ‘premieres’ in 1918, In its birdlike quality, and even coolness, the solo part really does 1920 and 1934 because this was a work revised several times. But suggest the detachment of an observer high above land, and the already in 1914 it was recognised as an important and extremely violin writing is unique in Vaughan Williams’s output. Among individual piece, and in that more civilised age, when newspapers other works for violin and orchestra the sustained, rapt meditation gave more space to the arts, it was much discussed in the press. 6 7 CCHANHAN 22028028 BBook.inddook.indd 66-7-7 330/7/060/7/06 113:25:103:25:10 It is a programmatic symphony, yet like all good programme reappearance of the main Allegro theme of the fi rst movement. A works it stands perfectly well as absolute music. The London clock chiming the third quarter signals the Epilogue, which was landmarks to which it refers were described by Vaughan Williams prompted by the novel Tono Bungay by H.G. Wells, in which the as ‘accidentals, not essentials’, and though it is called A London narrator sails down the Thames at night to the open sea.