Vaughan Williams, Ralph (EN)

Vaughan Williams Ralph, *12 October 1872 Dawn Ampney (Gloucestershire), †26 August 1958 London, English composer, teacher and researcher of English folklore. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London (1890–92, 1895) under H. Parry, Ch, Wood, A. Gray and Ch. Stanford, and at Trinity College in Cambridge (1892–95). He complemented his studies in Berlin under M. Bruch (1897) and in Paris under M. Ravel (1908). He began collecting English folk songs in 1903, and he started work on an edition of English hymns in 1904 (The English Hymnal, published in 1906, 2^nd edition revised in 1933); his interest in English early and folk music also manifested itself in his writings (e.g. the essays Who Wants the English Composer? and National Music). Vaughan Williams completed his first symphony, A Sea Symphony, in 1909, and his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis was premiered in 1910. After the outbreak of World War I, he was sent to the front, to France and Greece, where he served in the medical corps; he was also involved in organising amateur music among soldiers. After demobilisation in 1919, he took up the position of professor of composition at the Royal College of Music. In 1922, his Symphony No. 3 “Pastoral” was performed in London; since then, Vaughan Williams’s compositions have represented Great Britain at ISCM festivals several times: in 1924, 1925 (twice), 1929, 1931; his works were also performed at the coronations of King George VI (1937) and Queen Elizabeth II (1953). The composer made his first trip to America in 1922 and lectured there again in 1932 and 1954. He also gave lectures in England during the summer schools of the English Folk Dance Society, of which he was an active member and president from 1932. He gave many concerts, conducting performances of his own and other composers’ works. In 1920–28, he was active as conductor of the Bach Choir and from 1905 to 1953 as principal conductor of the Leith Hill Musical Festival. He was a close friend of G. Holst, whom he engaged in a campaign to collect English folklore (the correspondence of both composers was edited and published by U. Vaughan Williams and I. Holst in 1959). Throughout his life, he was extremely active creatively, completing Symphony No. 9 a few months before his death. He died in his sleep of a heart attack, and his ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey in London. He received many awards, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford (1919) and several other English universities, the Cobbett Medal (1930), the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society (1930), the Collard Life Fellowship (1934), the Shakespeare Prize from the University of Hamburg (1937) and the Albert Medal awarded by the Royal Society of Arts. In 1935, he received the Order of Merit – the only state award that he accepted (he had previously rejected, among other things, an offer of a knighthood).

Vaughan Williams significantly contributed to the revival of English music in the 20^th century; his passion for folklore and a keen interest in Old English music gave his works an individual character with a national tinge. Vaughan Williams’s abundant output is an expression of his deep conviction that music should reach all people; hence, his legacy, alongside works of high artistic value, includes compositions written occasionally, such as pieces for a military band or numerous arrangements of psalms and religious texts for church holidays. He composed almost all musical genres – from operas and symphonies to choral pieces for amateurs and professional choirs, solo concerts (including for such unusual instruments as the mouth organ or tuba) and chamber pieces, and he also arranged folk melodies.

Vaughan Williams’s work stems from the late Romantic tradition, enriched with elements of English folk, Renaissance music (influences by studies under M. Ravel), impressionism and neoclassicism. Modernist features are manifest in unusual formal solutions, the use of modal scales and polytonality, modern orchestration with the original timbre of an instrument (e.g. Concerto for bass tube, Romance for harmonica, Sinfonia Antartica), and in treating vocal parts in a colouristic manner as an additional layer of sound in the orchestra (e.g. Flos Campi); the programmatic nature is indicated by the titles of works, e.g. The Lark Ascending, one of Vaughan Williams’s most famous compositions, and the symphonies – Sea, London, and Antarctic. Vaughan Williams’s works are also characterised by rich melodic invention, most often of folk provenance, giving his music a characteristic, pastoral expression. The slowly developed themes, slow tempos and texture are enriched with contrapuntal and polyphonic techniques, while the melodic-harmonic layer is coloured with elements of folk music (modality, pentatonic scale), creating a world that is calm, idyllic and contemplative.

Seeking inspiration from the music of the past, Vaughan Williams represented the neoclassical tendencies of his era. He was interested in English musical works of the Renaissance, and he referred to this period many times, including in the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910), widely considered his first masterpiece, and the Mass in G minor, described as the best a cappella mass since W. Byrd, T. Tallis and J. Taverner. The fascination with Bach’s works resulted not only in organ preludes but also in concert pieces, such as the vigorous Concerto accademico or the Concerto for violin and string orchestra, modelled on Bach’s Concerto in D minor for two violins. The influence of baroque music is also visible in the use of concertante technique, counterpoint and polyphonic forms (fugue, toccata, passacaglia). Vaughan Williams, although he considered himself an agnostic, wrote many religious works. He composed original works for the needs of the church (including Te Deum, Magnificat, Mass in G minor, Dona nobis pacem, arrangements of psalms, etc.); he also made arrangements of a huge number of traditional songs (especially folk) and church hymns, as well as many carols (four original collections of carols and several in collected editions).

From the 1940s onwards, Vaughan Williams also composed music for film and radio, and wrote music for the stage, including the very popular music for Aristophanes’s The Wasps (1909) and several of Shakespeare’s plays. This work was unpublished. The music composed for Scott of the Antarctic (1948) was used by Vaughan Williams to write his Symphony No. 7, Sinfonia Antartica (1949–52), and some of the other material was arranged into orchestral suites.

Wanting to save English folklore from oblivion, Vaughan Williams began to record native folk songs and dances in 1903, seeking inspiration for his creative solutions in them – like Bartók, Kodály and Szymanowski. He adapted the style of English folk music to his own idiom to a greater extent than other English composers of his time; he not only wrote his songs in folk style but also incorporated them into the creation of elaborate symphonic structures. In his orchestral works, he generally did not use quotations, relying solely on melodies of a folk character that he had composed; original quotations, however, appear in his operas, e.g. in Hugh the Drover and Sir John in Love. The composer’s early works are dominated by songs (among the best English songs from the turn of the 20^th century) and chamber pieces, e.g. String Quartet in G minor; he reached for larger orchestral forms only after several months of studies with M. Ravel (1908).

The most important part of Vaughan Williams’s oeuvre is his symphonic work. Each of his nine symphonies shows a slightly different approach to the classical four-movement form (only Symphony No. 7 consists of five movements) and creates its own sound world. Symphony No. 1 “Sea” is a vocal-instrumental composition. Initially conceived as a “song of the sea,” it was expanded to the dimensions of a full, four-movement symphony for solo voices (soprano and baritone), mixed choir and orchestra. The words come from poems by W. Whitman, one of the composer’s favourite poets, whose texts Vaughan Williams reached for many times. The choral technique used here refers to the late Romantic English choral music tradition of E. Elgar and H. Parry, while the music has a programmatic character, illustrating moods and images related to the sea. Already in this first symphonic work by Vaughan Williams, we can see elements typical of his later work, for example, the tendency to use an epilogue in which the music dies down until it is completely silent.

Programmatic music is also an important feature of the composer’s Symphony No. 2 – “London”, which depicts the colour and mood of his beloved city. According to the author of the note published in the programme of the first concert, A. Coates, the first movement reflects the energy of London’s crowded streets during the day, the slow movement describes a misty November evening, the scherzo evokes a Saturday night full of fun in the poor districts, and the last movement is a “march of the hungry and unable to work,” ending with an image of the calm Thames. The composer himself did not fully accept the above interpretation, emphasising that the piece must defend itself as a musical work and that any associations are coincidental. Regardless of the interpretation, this is Vaughan Williams’s first symphony intended exclusively for orchestra, maintaining a classical formal pattern: movement I – sonata allegro, movement II – variations based on three themes, movement III – scherzo with trio, movement IV – sonata allegro with a slow epilogue. The composer’s painterly quality and sonic imagination bring to mind the music of Debussy, which is aided by the use of freely shifting chord blocks in the harmonic structure of the work. The impressionistic nature of the symphony is perhaps related to the fact that one of the inspirations for its creation were probably the landscapes of London painted by C. Monet.

The composer himself briefly described Symphony No. 3 “Pastoral” as “four movements, all slow” (Molto moderate, Lento moderate, Moderate pesante, Lento). The serious nature of this composition results from the fact that the idea of ​​writing it was born during Vaughan Williams’s stay at the front of World War I (e.g. the trumpet motif in the 2^nd movement resembles an army, a signal), and the inspiration was the landscapes of France, marked by war destruction. M. Kennedy, an English critic, described the work as a pantheistic requiem for the dead of World War I, conveying the mood of eternal rest; in the last movement, this mood is emphasised by the vocalisation of the soprano (or tenor). In Symphony No. 3, the composer used polytonality, introduced melodic lines based on modal scales and pentatonic scales, and led the chord blocks independently of the harmonic implications of the melody.

Symphony No. 4 in F minor is sometimes considered a masterpiece of English musical modernism. It is characterised by a classic arrangement of movements: Allegro, Andante moderato, Scherzo. Allegro molto, Finale con Epilogo fugato. Allegro molto; however, its sound character (sharp dissonances) is decidedly different from the preceding Pastoral. The composer created an extensive symphonic structure from a limited set of two four-note motifs (F-E-G-flat-F and F-B-E-flat-G-flat), on which each subsequent movement of the work is based, which gives it exceptional coherence and uniformity. The development of the symphonic action takes place mainly in the harmonic layer of the work, its culmination appears in the impressive fugue of the last movement. In Symphony No. 5 in D major, Vaughan Williams departed from the innovative musical language of Symphony No. 4, returning largely to the pastoral character of his works from the 1920s. This symphony is a kind of summary of Vaughan Williams’s stylistic idiom from the last 20 years; hence, it reflects the pastoral tone and polytonality of Symphony No. 3, the dissonance and contrapuntal virtuosity of Symphony No. 4, and the “lunar” music of Serenade to Music. The sound material of Symphony No. 5 comes partly from the opera The Pilgrim’s Progress, which at that time was not yet completed. The arrangement of the symphony is traditionally based on four movements, but in an unusual order: Preludio. Moderate, Scherzo. Presto, Romanza Lento, Passacaglia. Moderate.

The language of Symphony No. 6 is derived from the previous symphony, but it is more often characterised by rough sounds, and there is also an element of grotesque, especially in the scherzo and the final movement with a slow fugue. The character of the work is quite gloomy, meditative, which is why this symphony was often referred to as a “war” symphony (completed in 1947). It quickly achieved enormous popularity, and within two years of its premiere, it had 100 performances, right after E. Elgar’s Symphony No. 1. Sinfonia antartica for orchestra, solo soprano and small female choir was based on the music for the film Scott of the Antarctic (1948), which reports on R. Scott’s polar expedition (1911–12). The composer expanded the themes and enriched the palette of orchestral colours, emphasising the programmatic nature of the piece. The unusual orchestral composition, using instruments such as vibraphone, bells, organ, piano, celesta, xylophone, female voices without text, and a machine imitating wind, give the symphony a cold (“Arctic”) tone. The subsequent parts of the work are provided with a verbal motto in the score. This is Vaughan Williams’s only symphony with a five-part arrangement; this, combined with the significantly smaller role of the thematic work than in other symphonies, brings it closer to a suite illustrating the subsequent stages of an Arctic expedition.

Symphony No. 8 has a four-movement structure, but it is completely different from the traditional one: variations without a theme, a scherzo-march for woodwind instruments, a slow cavatina for strings only and a final toccata, in which the composer made extensive use of percussion instruments with a specific pitch; the result is a piece full of joy and vigour, with a surprisingly lyrical cavatina. The last Symphony No. 9 is a contemplative piece with a deep and serious mood. The dark colour and seriousness are most evident in the slow movement, although the following Scherzo is also tinged with sadness and melancholy. In the outer parts, maintained in a slow tempo, dark colours also predominate (low strings, horns, brass instruments).

Vaughan Williams’s concert pieces are also very popular and appreciated, especially the Concerto in A minor for oboe and strings, which is typically pastoral in nature, and the romance The Lark Ascending for violin and small orchestra, inspired by G. Meredith’s poem, in which the solo violin part features effects imitating bird song. On the other hand, the Romance for mouth organ and the Concerto in F minor for bass tuba, both from his late period, show that the composer, despite his old age, was still searching for new sounds (cf. also symphonies, e.g. Antartica). The Concerto for tuba contains two solo cadenzas, in the first and last movement, so this piece, in connection with the concertato technique, comes closer to the concert tradition of Bach’s works (similarly to the much earlier Concerto accademico for violin and strings) than to classical models. The tradition of early music is also referred to in Fantasy on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, in which Vaughan Williams reached for the music of an outstanding composer from the Tudor era. The 16^th-century theme Why Fumeth in Fight was entrusted to a string orchestra and subjected to numerous transformations, gaining a new face. Vaughan Williams wrote this composition with the acoustics of Gloucester Cathedral in mind, where the first performance took place, hence the division of the orchestra into three independent ensembles: a large one, a smaller nine-person one and a string quartet. This procedure allowed for very intimate and richly textured playing allowed the use of a concertato technique similar to the Baroque concertato and also gave the piece a sense of spaciousness.

Among Vaughan Williams’s operas, the most important is the last one: The Pilgrim’s Progress, one of the composer’s most outstanding works and the result of almost 40 years of his work (completed in 1949). It is a four-act morality play, based around the allegory of the 17^th-century Christian poet and thinker J. Bunyan. It is sometimes seen as a key work for Vaughan Williams, both in terms of his spiritual attitude and musical language. It is here that the musical ideas that appear in all of his previous works – from the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, through Sancta Civitas, Pastoral Symphony, The English Hymnal, to Symphony No. 4 and No. 6, as well as songs to English poets’ texts – are given their fullest form. The composer’s interest in mysticism and Christian vision is also evident in other works, including the ballet Job and 10 Songs to Blake’s Words. An important place in Vaughan William’s work is occupied by choral music, including religious works, e.g. Sancta Civitas, Dona nobis pacem, Mass in G minor, Te Deum and choral songs a cappella or with orchestral accompaniment, e.g. Towards the Unknown Region, 5 Mystical Songs, and Serenade to Music. Religious works are dominated by simple melodics and modal harmony, clearly referring to Renaissance models (Mass in G minor); secular choral songs fit into the style of late Romanticism, with dense texture and harmony, broad melodic phrases and a wealth of instrumental colours (in songs with orchestra). The composer also reaches for folk and popular music (e.g. Folksongs of the Four Seasons, arrangements of Christmas carols, etc.). Vaughan Williams’s choral work is very diverse, both in terms of cast (a cappella choir with organ or piano accompaniment, with solo voices and symphony orchestra accompaniment) and artistic rank – from simple arrangements of hymns and psalms intended for liturgical use (settings for church feasts) to elaborate oratorios and cantatas (Sancta Civitas, Dona nobis pacem). The most valued solo songs include the cycles: Songs of Travel, The House of Life, On Wenlock Edge, Along the Field, and others; most of the songs were written to words by outstanding English poets, strong influences of English folk music are visible in the melodic line and harmonic phrases. Vaughan Williams played a significant role in the history of English music, and his music is perceived as a natural link between the musical worlds of E. Elgar and B. Britten; he contributed significantly to the stylistic renewal of English symphony and to giving it typically national features by drawing on native folk music and the best traditions of old English music. While during the period of dominance of avant-garde tendencies, Vaughan Williams’s music was considered old-fashioned, the turn of the 20^th and 21^st centuries brought a renaissance of the composer’s popularity. In 2008, on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the composer’s death, a number of initiatives were undertaken to commemorate Vaughan Williams in Great Britain; two documentaries were made at that time: O Thou Transcendent: The Life of Vaughan Williams directed by T. Palmer and The Passions of Vaughan Williams directed by J. Birdcut. In 2013, Cambridge University Press published a multi-author academic work presenting Vaughan Williams’s work in a comprehensive manner – The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams.

Literature: M. Kennedy A Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, London 1982, revised 2^nd ed. 1996; S. Connock Ralph Vaughan Williams. Full Discography, Aldeburgh 1995; A.E.F. Dickinson An Introduction to the Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, London 1928; F. Howes The Dramatic Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, London 1937; H. Foss Ralph Vaughan Williams. A Study, London 1950, reprint Westport (Connecticut) 1974; Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. Heirs and Rebels, ed. U. Vaughan Williams and I. Holst, London 1959 and Westport (Connecticut) 1980 (includes correspondence with Holst and early articles by Vaughan Williams); A.E.F. Dickinson Vaughan Williams, London 1963; U. Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams. A Biography, London 1964, extended 1992; E.S. Schwartz The Symphonies of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Amherst (Massachusetts) 1964; M. Kennedy The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, London 1964, revised 1980, reprint 2002; M. Hurd Vaughan Williams, London 1970; R. Douglas, Working with Ralph Vaughan Williams, London 1972, reprint 1988; H. Ottaway Vaughan Williams. Symphonies, London 1972, reprint 1977, 1980, 1987; L.-W. Hesse Studien zum Schajfen des Komponisten Ralph Vaughan Williams, Regensburg 1983; W. Mellers Vaughan Williams and The Vision of Albion, London 1989; J. Northrop Moore Vaughan Williams. A Life in Photographs, London 1992; Vaughan Williams. Studies, ed. A. Frogley, Cambridge 1996; P. Holmes Vaughan Williams. His Life and Times, London 1997; S. Heffer Vaughan Williams, Boston 2001; A. Frogley Vaughan Williams’s Ninth Symphony, Oxford 2001; D. Manning Vaughan Williams on Music, Oxford–New York 2008; O. Neighbour Ralph, Adeline, and Ursula Vaughan Williams: Some Facts and Speculation, “Music & Letters” no. 89, 2008; A. Frogley A. J. Thomson, The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams, Cambridge 2013.