5th Symphony (Vaughan Williams)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his Symphony No. 5 in D major between 1938 and 1943. Stylistically, it shows a clear departure from the passionate dissonances of the Fourth Symphony and a reconnection with the romantic style of the earlier Pastoral Symphony . The premiere took place on June 24, 1943. It is dedicated to Jean Sibelius , but "without permission". Sibelius would certainly have given his approval. He wrote: “I heard Dr. Ralph Vaughan Williams' new symphony in Stockholm under the excellent direction of Malcolm Sargent ... This symphony is an excellent work ... The dedication makes me proud and grateful ... I wonder if Dr. Williams has any idea how much pleasure he gave me with it? "

Many of the musical themes of the 5th symphony come from the then unfinished opera The Pilgrim's Progress . This opera, or this “moral piece”, as Vaughan Williams preferred to call the work, had been in the works for decades. But the composer had turned away from him for a time at the time the symphony was written. Apart from these origins, the symphony has no programmatic references. Formally, it represents an extensive development of musical themes that come from the planned opera, rather than the attempt to force this material directly into symphonic forms.

Although nominally in the key of D major, large parts of the symphony are actually written in C major or simultaneously in C and D. An early piano reduction describing the work in the key of G caused further confusion in this regard.

sentences

The Fifth Symphony is composed in the traditional four-movement form.

1. Preludio . The symphony begins with a distinctive horn call in the rarely used " Mixolydian mode " in D, a key already used in ancient Greece. The movement fluctuates between the use of Mixolydian and Doric modes on different tones. Several of the musical themes in this movement are taken from the 1st scene of the 1st act of the planned opera "The Pilgrim's Progress", in particular the opening of the dialogue between the pilgrim and the evangelist. A " Dresdner Amen " theme appears towards the end of this sentence.

2. Scherzo . This short movement is characterized by a galloping, dance-like rhythm with a series of rough tones from the woodwind and brass as an interruption. It closes with a feather-light motif of rising quarter notes.

3. Romanza . The main themes in this movement are taken from the opening of scene 2 of act 1 from The Pilgrim's Progress (“The House Beautiful”). The opening of the English horn playing solo is practically unchanged. The text to this melody (“He has sung me the rest of his suffering and life through his death”) was originally used as the leitmotif of the sentence, while the central counter-motive from the text passage “Save me, save me, Lord! My burden is greater than I can take ”. Ascending quarter notes reappear as connections. This sentence could also be seen as the spiritual core of the symphony.

4. Passacaglia . Although this movement begins with the repeating bass line of the Passacaglia form, Vaughan Williams leaves it again. The triumphant primary melody of the Passacaglia comes from Pilgrim's dialogue with performers in the second half of the “The House Beautiful” scene, while the fanfare motif is reminiscent of “The armament of the pilgrims” from the first scene of the second act. This heralds a return of the themes from the first movement of the symphony, which are played loosely in a calm farewell scene - first by the woodwinds and then by the upper strings. The movement ends with a short epilogue, which takes up the theme of the Passacaglia from the introduction again, very calmly and clearly. (The "epilogue" to a symphony was first introduced by Arnold Bax as an extension of the classical symphonic and was particularly popular with British composers in the first half of the 20th century.)

literature

  • James Day: Vaughan Williams . 1961; 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, New York 1998.
  • AE Dickinson: Vaughan Williams . Faber and Faber, London 1963. Reprinted by Scholarly Press, Inc. St. Clair Shores, MI.
  • Hubert Foss: Ralph Vaughan Williams . Oxford University Press, New York 1950.
  • Alain Frogley (Ed.): Vaughan Williams Studies . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996.
  • Michael Kennedy: The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams . Oxford University Press, London 1964.
  • Hugh Ottaway: Vaughan Williams Symphonies . University of Washington Press, Seattle 1972.
  • Hugh Ottaway and Alain Frogley: Vaughan Williams, Ralph. Grove Music Online. ed. L. Macy, http://www.grovemusic.com/ (subscription access)
  • Elliot S. Schwartz: The Symphonies of Ralph Vaughan Williams . The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst 1964.
  • Ursula Vaughan Williams: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams . Oxford University Press, London 1964.
  • Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass , ("Deathbed edition" 1891-92). JM Dent Ltd., London 1993.

further reading

  • FRC Clark: The Structure of Vaughan Williams' 'Sea' Symphony. In: The Music Review . Volume 34, No. 1, February 1973, pp. 58-61.
  • Simon Heffer: Vaughan Williams . Northeastern University Press, Boston 2000.
  • Frank Howes: The Music of Vaughan Williams . Oxford University Press, London 1954.
  • Wilfrid Mellers: Vaughan Williams and the Vision of Albion . Barrie & Jenkins, London 1989. Especially Chapter 1, The Parlor and the Open Sea: Conformity and Nonconformity in Toward the Unknown Region and A Sea Symphony.
  • Ursula Vaughan Williams and Imogen Holst (Eds.): Heirs and Rebels: Letters written to each other and occasional writings on music by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst . Oxford University Press, London 1959.