6th Symphony (Vaughan Williams)

Statue of Ralph Vaughan Williams in Dorking

The 6th Symphony in E minor by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) was premiered in 1948 in London under the direction of Adrian Boult .

Origin and premiere

In 1944, one year after the premiere of his 5th symphony , Ralph Vaughan Williams began work on his 6th symphony. Thematic material originally intended for the British war film The Flemish Farm (1943) flowed into this, but was not used there. In March 1947 the first piano rehearsal took place. Vaughan Williams was so taken with the piano version of the pianist Michael Mullinar that he dedicated the work to him. The 6th Symphony premiered on April 21, 1948 under the direction of Adrian Boult of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London's Royal Albert Hall . In the following two years she saw around 100 performances. In 1950 Vaughan Williams revised the work again.

Cast, playing time and characterization

The score provides for the following scoring : 2 flutes , piccolo flute , 2 oboes , English horn , 2 clarinets , tenor saxophone , bass clarinet , 2 bassoons , contrabassoon , 4 horns , 3 trumpets , 3 trombones , tuba , timpani , percussion ( snare drum , bass drum , Cymbals , xylophone ), harp and strings .

The duration of the symphony is around 33 minutes. After the fifth symphony, which is more pastorally clear, Vaughan Williams in his 6th reverts in some ways to the passionate, dissonant gesture of the 4th symphony . However, this only applies to the first three movements; the fourth opens up a completely different area of ​​expression.

The four sentences that continuously merge into one another are overwritten as follows:

1. Allegro
2. Moderato
3. Scherzo: Allegro vivace
4. Epilogue: Moderato

1 sentence

The keys of E minor and F minor are superimposed in the first movement, which begins violently and - after a period of calming down and a pastoral Tranquillo section - also ends abruptly. Only after 20 bars does a clearly identifiable theme appear.

2nd movement

A three-note motif of trumpets and drums runs through the darkly colored second movement, which looks like a threatening reminiscence of the movement “Mars, the Bringer of War” from the suite The Planets by Gustav Holst . The cor anglais leads to the third movement.

3rd movement

In the wild-excited Scherzo playing tritone interval an important role. In the middle section, the tenor saxophone comes into its own with jazz-like elements. The transition to the finale is in the bass clarinet.

4th movement

The finale is a slow movement to be played pianissimo throughout with the default senza crescendo (i.e. without a crescendo ). His sphere of expression, seemingly untouched by the turbulence of the three preceding movements, in which topics are only vaguely tangible, led critics to suspect that he was painting a picture of the world devastated by a nuclear war. Ralph Vaughan Williams rejected this, however, and named as inspiration a short section from The Storm by Shakespeare : "We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep" ("Wir sind aus Stoff, of which dreams are made; and our life is rounded off in sleep ”).

literature

• CD supplement Chandos CHAN 8740 (V. Williams: 6th symphony, tuba concert; London Symphony Orchestra, Bryden Thomson), text: Max Harrison
• CD supplement ONYX 4184 (V. Williams: 5th / 6th Symphony; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Manze), text: Lewis Foreman

Web links

• Score from Ralph Vaughan Williams' 6th Symphony
• Factory introduction Byron Adams (Engl.)