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The Unknown Vaughan Williams

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1972

Michael Kennedy
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Extract

Vaughan Williams's music divides fairly easily into three Beethovenian periods: the works written up to 1914, which include several of his most deservedly popular and lyrical works; those written between the two wars, when he was striking out in several new directions; and the final period, from the Second World War to his death in 1958, during which he became even more prolific. His reputation rests on the nine symphonies, on the ballet Job, which like Elgar's Falstaff is of symphonic stature, on his operas and on a number of large-scale choral works. Also, of course, on the delightful songs which first made his name a household word.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 99 , 1972 , pp. 31 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 Ralph Vaughan Williams, National Music and other Essays, London, 1963, p. 6.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 122.Google Scholar

3 Ursula Vaughan Williams, R.V.W.: a Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams, London, 1964, p. 171.Google Scholar

4 See Kennedy, Michael, The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, London, 1964, pp. 200–203.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 42.Google Scholar

6 ‘Palestrina and Beethoven’, The Vocalist, i/2 (May 1902), 36–37.Google Scholar

7 Kennedy, op. cit., p. 302.Google Scholar

8 Young, Percy M., Elgar O.M., London, 1955, p. 260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 The theme from the Fantasia, slightly varied, is heard in the Prologue just after the hymn-tune ‘York’ (another survival from the 1906 music).Google Scholar

10 Kennedy, Vaughan Williams, p. 316.Google Scholar

11 ‘Film Music’, RCM Magazine, xl/1 (February 1944), 5–9; reprinted as ‘Composing for the Films’, National Music and other Essays, pp. 160–65.Google Scholar

12 The passage of time has rather turned the tables on one of his jokes in this essay: ‘a film producer’, he said, ‘would make short work of Mahler's interminable codas’—but he never lived to see Visconti's Death in Venice.Google Scholar

13 See Kennedy, Vaughan Williams, p. 286.Google Scholar

14 Another viewing of 49th Parallel since this paper was written has revealed distinct ‘pre-echoes’ of the Sixth Symphony in that film too.Google Scholar