A London Symphony

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A London Symphony is the second symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams . It is often officially referred to as “Symphony No. 2”, although the composer never called it that. The four-movement work was premiered in 1914. The score was initially lost, then reconstructed and later modified by the composer.

structure

Vaughan Williams once said that the title suggests a certain program, especially since there are sounds in the music that actually exist in London , such as the famous Westminster chime . Nevertheless, the symphony should be seen as absolute music . In a programmatic declaration in 1920, Vaughan Williams said that it would actually be better to speak of “a Londoner's symphony”.

The symphony consists of four movements.

1st movement: Lento - Allegro risoluto

The symphony begins deliberately quietly and after a few “nocturnal” bars, the Westminster bell can be heard - played by a harp. After a break, the “Allegro risoluto” begins very loudly. The following second theme, performed mainly by the wind and brass players, is energetic and lively. It creates a bank holiday atmosphere in Hampstead Heath . After a contrasting soft interlude of a string sextet together with the harp, the energetic themes return and bring the movement to a lively end.

2nd movement: Lento

Vaughan Williams said the second, slow movement was supposed to convey the Bloomsbury Square atmosphere on a November afternoon. Quiet music motifs, alternatively from English horn , the flute, trumpet and Viola are carried forward and might accompany the gear to a grave result in a passionate phase, after which the rate returns to its initial quiet mood.

3rd movement: Scherzo (Nocturne)

According to the composer: “When the listener imagines standing on the banks of the Thames at night, surrounded by the distant sounds of the Strand (London) with its large hotels on one side and the 'Cut' on the other side of the Thames with its crowded streets and shimmering lights, then this picture may be a good introduction to what is happening in the music ”. In principle, this third movement deals with two scherzo themes, the first as fugato and the second striving forward and alive.

4th movement: Finale - Andante con moto - Maestoso alla marcia - Allegro - Lento - Epilogue

The finale begins with a funeral march punctuated by a lighter Allegro theme. After the return of the march, the main theme of the first movement (allegro) reappears, the Westminster bell can be heard again, followed by a quiet epilogue inspired by the last chapter of HG Wells ' novel Tono-Bungay .

“The last big movement in the London Symphony, in which the true core of the old order is completely faded and swallowed up… one light after the other goes out. England and royalty, Britain and the Empire, the old pride and the old devotion, aft, sinks to the horizon - past - past. The river flows by, London flows by, England flows by. "

History and versions

The symphony was composed from 1912 to 1913. It is dedicated to Vaughan Williams' friend George Butterworth , who was also a composer and was killed by a sniper on the Somme during World War I. Butterworth was the first to encourage Vaughan Williams to write a richly orchestral symphony.

The work premiered on May 27, 1914 at Queen's Hall under the baton of Geoffrey Toye. The performance was a success, but a short time later the score was lost in the mail to the conductor Fritz Busch in Germany at around the same time as the First World War broke out. The composer, or at least that's what Toye, Butterworth and music critic EJ Dent say, reconstructed the score from the surviving instrumental parts, and the reconstruction was performed on February 11, 1915, under the direction of Dan Godfrey.

The symphony went through several other revisions before it found its final form. Vaughan Williams changed it again for a performance in March 1918 and then again between 1919 and 1920. This second revision was the first published and also first recorded on records - in 1941 by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Eugène Aynsley Goossens .

When Vaughan Williams was working on his 4th Symphony in 1933 , he revised the London Symphony again. He considered this version, which was published in 1936, to be the final one, and this version then entered the repertoire of the large orchestras. When Vaughan Williams' widow Ursula gave permission to record the 1914 version on CD for the first time and also to perform it in a concert in 2001, many critics agreed that although the final version is more precise and tighter than the first version, the Composer has also deleted many very interesting passages in the process of making many changes. One comment read: “The 1913 version is more meditative, more shadowy and tragic in tone and is reminiscent of Gustav Mahler's complexity. In 1933, Vaughan Williams' concept of a symphonic architecture developed more towards Jean Sibelius . "

The main differences between the first and last version can be summarized as follows:

  • 1st sentence: no differences. The 1914 version remains unaffected by any changes.
  • 2nd movement: 52 bars of the 1914 version were deleted in 1933/36, mainly from the silent coda.
  • 3rd movement: At the end of the original there is a dark andantino passage, of which no trace remains in the final version.
  • 4th movement, finale: In the 1914 version there is a central E minor sequence that is similar to the final version, but is interrupted by an orchestral "scream of fear" based on the opening theme, after which the Allegro returns. After the end of the Allegro section, the 1914 score provided for a long andantino sequence for strings and woodwinds, which was later cut out again by Vaughan Williams. Finally, the original epilogue was expanded to 105 bars.

The final version is more than 20 minutes shorter than the original, as a comparison of some recordings shows:

1914 version :

1933/36 revision :

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mann, William: liner notes to EMI CD CDM 7 64017 2
  2. ^ Harrison, Max, liner notes to Chandos CD CHAN 2028
  3. ^ Wells, HG: Tono-Bungay , Ch. 14. II
  4. ↑ Kennedy, Michael and Stephen Connock, liner notes to Chandos CD CHAN 9902, 2001
  5. ↑ a b c Tiedman, Richard: Tempo , New Series, No. 218 (October 2001), pp. 58-59, Cambridge University Press
  6. ↑ The Guardian , May 4, 2001 (Andrew Clements)
  7. ↑ March, Ivan (ed): Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music 2008 , London, Penguin Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-14-103336-5 , p. 1440
  8. ↑ Chan 9902
  9. ↑ Dutton CDBP 9707
  10. ↑ EMI CDM 7 64017 2