Ralph Vaughan Williams: Music from War

Jaclyn Howerton

London—1943. Amid bombs and air raids, a symphony of peace and tranquility is premiered in the hope of a brighter future. During these troubled times music became a vehicle to express the feelings and emotions suffusing the country, and on the tiny island of England there was no composer better suited for this task than Ralph Vaughan Williams, who served in World War I and lent his support during World War II. This paper will examine the effect of the World Wars and other major historical events on the works of Ralph Vaughan Williams through the analysis of some of his major symphonies. It will explore how Vaughan Williams’ calming Pastoral Symphony and Fifth Symphony unexpectedly became the vessels for his reaction to war and came to represent the musical legacy of twentieth-century England. For decades many musical experts have tried to show how his fourth and sixth symphonies appear to be statements against political strife and both of the wars that ravaged Europe during the first half of the twentieth century. In contrast to these beliefs, I believe there is evidence that the third and fifth symphonies are actually his strongest statements against the world wars, while symphonies four and six actually represent what their titles literally suggest: just music in an absolute form.

Vaughan Williams lived through major world events, which therefore must have impacted his music in some way. He was born in England 1872 and died in 1958. His oeuvre includes orchestral works, film scores, band pieces, songs, operas and many choral pieces (Bruckner 787). He also conducted and taught in schools and universities in addition to composing. Vaughan Williams wrote nine symphonies over his lifetime. With each new symphony came a growth in style and texture as he pushed the boundaries of his compositional skill. Vaughan Williams was constantly changing his works even after they were performed and held a firm belief “that music lived only when it was played” (Kennedy 156). Throughout his life Vaughan Williams resisted the political criticism forced onto his symphonies. According to James Day, “The composer himself always forcefully rejected any such ‘interpretations’ of his music; he thought it must stand or fall on its merits as a musical design” (Day 197). I believe this idea of letting the music speak for itself to be true in the case of Vaughan Williams’ fourth and sixth symphonies.

At the turn of the century composers of western music looked to Germany for the answers. How could countries compete musically with the home of Brahms, Beethoven, Bach and Wagner, to name a few of the great masters? England was deprived of such musical names and had not produced such famous musicians since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It seemed a country stuck in the musical dark ages, while the rest of Europe was enjoying a modern age of music making. But things soon changed as a rising generation of musicians (including Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst and Vaughan Williams), who were full of national pride, sought to bring musical recognition back to England. Vaughan Williams studied music in school with his classmate Holst and there forged a great musical friendship that would last throughout their lives. Together the two men collected folk tunes, with which they hoped to give England its own musical style. Consequently, much of Vaughan Williams’ music came to reflect the modal mixture found in these old folk

songs, many of which dated as far back as the sixteenth century. Vaughan Williams also drew influence from English hymnody and early English composers such as Thomas Tallis and Henry Purcell. He believed that “the English should have, and that he himself did have, something to say to the community that the foreign composer could not say” (Day 84).

In addition to his strong ties to folk songs and hymnody, influences on his works are largely apparent from his past teacher Maurice Ravel. Vaughan Williams studied with Ravel for three months in Paris in 1908, and this exerted a great influence on his orchestration and use of timbre. Later in life Vaughan Williams spoke of his experience with Ravel, saying “he showed me how to orchestrate in points of color rather than in lines” (Heffer 33). Ravel experimented with Asian influences in search of a new musical grammar, just as Vaughan Williams experimented with modes in harmony and melody. He showed Vaughan Williams that the heavy, contrapuntal, Teutonic manner was not necessary, and a change (referring to his compositional style) took place in Vaughan Williams’ music from that point (his meeting with Ravel) onward (Heffer 32). Vaughan Williams also studied briefly with the composer Max Bruch in Germany, but this impact never became as prominent as Ravel’s on his music.

Vaughan Williams’ symphonies show the composer trying to accomplish old techniques in new ways. These symphonies were born from the eighteenth and nineteenth century styles of writing, but still they pushed the boundaries and limitations of symphony writing beyond the scope of other contemporary composers of the time. His Symphony No. 1, the “Sea Symphony”, was first performed in 1910. This symphony was scored for large chorus and solo singers in the manner of Beethoven’s Ninth. Symphony No. 2, “A London Symphony,” was finished in 1914 and published and revised in 1920. This was the first work Vaughan Williams composed exclusively for orchestra. It depicts images of life in the city of London and works as an homage to his homeland and its musical heritage. In fact, the forms of the large scale movements that Vaughan Williams created were based not according to an underlying harmonic structure but instead around the melodic lines of his tunes, which further led to harmonic experiments and key-contrasts not typical of nineteenth century symphonic writing (Day 138). When Vaughan Williams studied with Ravel, he learned that his compositions should not be “against development for its own sake" but that "one should only develop for the sake of arriving at something better” (Ursula Vaughan Williams 80). Indeed his symphonies contain more transitional sections than full-fledged developmental passages. Vaughan Williams believed music had its origins in impassioned and intensified speech. If he was right, then his symphonies are abstract dramas meant to tell a story or express an emotion through inflections of speech and expressive punctuation. According to Elliot Schwartz, “This is perhaps the prime function of music: to render in precise terms those aspects of language, i.e. pitch, duration and volume intensity, which the written word, with its precise meaning, leaves indeterminate” (Schwartz 196). I believe this idea of symphonic writing is what Vaughan Williams had in mind for his symphonies and particularly in the writing of the Fourth and Sixth symphonies.

The third symphony Vaughan Williams composed germinated for years before it actually took shape to become Symphony No. 3, “Pastoral,” in 1921. Despite the title, there are no borrowed folk tunes in the symphony. Many consider it the most

“English sounding” of all his symphonies (Steinberg 654). I feel the strongest evidence that links the Third symphony to the war is that Vaughan Williams also once referred to the “Pastoral” symphony as his “war requiem”, a description which I believe fits the slow pacing of the themes and music within each of the movements. The symphony was premiered January 26, 1922 under the direction of Adrian Boult. A letter from his good friend Holst (No. 39) on Sep 1, 1933 describes the impact of a performance of the symphony:

I went expecting a real treat but I doubt if

I’ve ever been so carried away by it before-which is saying a great deal. And I’m going to repeat myself-it’s the very essence of you. Which is one of the two reasons (the other being that it is a beautiful work of art) why it is such an important event in my life…It reminded me of the first definite idea of life I learnt while still in my cradle. Namely, that music is a nice thing. (Ursula Vaughan Williams 83)

I believe this is the side of Vaughan Williams that critics have failed to

describe over the years: that in relation to all the turmoil and strife, Vaughan Williams was able to bring out the tranquility and peacefulness that can be found in the eye of a storm.

The Pastoral Symphony was incubated in 1917 during Vaughan Williams’ World War I military service, when he was stationed in Northern France for his commission in the Royal Garrison Artillery. The scenery of northern France appeared to him to be similar to southern England, with lots of the babbling brooks and willow trees that, according to later critics, are depicted so vividly in the symphony (Howes 24). Vaughan Williams worked in a field ambulance unit and so saw the wounded and dead coming and going from the trenches of World War I. He hated the war and felt sorrow as many of his young musician friends, including George Butterworth, were killed. In 1920, after the war, Vaughan Williams added a dedication to the “London Symphony” in memory of Butterworth (Johnson). Among the young musicians and friends of Vaughan Williams who died during this conflict were F. B. Ellis and Denis Browne. During the war the casualty lists contained almost daily names of men that Vaughan Williams knew, and as an ambulance driver he knew vividly how each of these men had died (Ursula Vaughan Williams 122). As outwardly pastoral as it may appear, the symphony's underlying context is the battlefields of Flanders in Northern France during World War I (Mellers).

In essence, the symphony is a contemplation of the composer’s inner self as he viewed the war; it is as if the listener is physically transported to the fields of Flanders and can feel the history that is steeped into the ground. In this symphony he recreated his memories of that beautiful yet tragic place in sound. Vaughan Williams appears to have been haunted by past war events in the same way as the great writer J.R.R. Tolkien, who some believe wrote The Lord of the Rings in response to his service in World War I. Tolkien’s purported inability to find peace is consistent with accounts of the struggles of the many other men trying to come back to a normal life after a long service in heavy combat areas. The carnage of

battle (especially hand-to-hand combat) puts a strain on a person’s mental health, and many soldiers like Vaughan Williams struggled with what psychologists call “survivor’s guilt”. I agree with this notion of Vaughan Williams suffering from some form of survivor’s guilt and believe the symphony to be his successful attempt to come to terms with the worst war in modern history (prior to World War II) and the wiping out of a generation of men that included family and friends (Heffer 57). As described by Vaughan Williams’ biographer Michael Kennedy, “Beneath the symphony’s tranquility lies its sadness” (Kennedy 155). The Pastoral Symphony is in this way the most war-influenced of all his symphonies.

Adrian Boult, who conducted and premiered many of Vaughan Williams’ symphonies, said that the war changed the nature of music for English listeners: “We now want our music shorter and more terse; we seem to need a sharper difference in style between the dramatic and the symphonic; and our composers usually write for smaller orchestras and on a smaller scale” (Heffer 52). Vaughan Williams gave them the exact opposite. The Pastoral Symphony featured full brass and winds (including doubling instruments such as bass clarinet and English horn), celesta and solo voice. All four movements within the Third Symphony contain passages and themes that interrelate and come back when the listener least expects them (Goddard 368). I find the close relationship between the movements could have to do with the fact that most of the themes are mostly pentatonic or folk-like, giving them the flexibility to fit in any key and thereby transcending the different structures of each of the movements (Goddard 371).

On another note, ever since the Baroque era the double reeds have had a relationship to the pastoral in music (often times representing the shepherds calling to one another amongst their flocks). In his Pastoral Symphony Beethoven added to this relationship by giving the double reeds the role of bird calls. Again, I believe Vaughan Williams explicitly uses the double reeds in the Third Symphony to express themes of the pastoral (just as Beethoven did in his Sixth Symphony), thereby strengthening the relationship between Vaughan Williams’ music and that of past musical giants such as J.S. Bach, Handel and, of course, Beethoven.

In movement one of the Third Symphony, pentatonic themes move in and out of the texture while giving the strong impression of G Mixolydian and outlining intervals of rising fifths. By so doing he creates a wash of color that cascades over the ear in ways that reflect Debussy and Ravel. The continuous consonance between pitches blurs the key center so that it becomes impossible to tell the pitch relations within the tonal center. There are also parallel chord progressions and extensive solo passages that are brought out through the dense orchestration (Schwartz). An example occurs at measure 10, when the oboe imitates the solo violin with this pentatonic melodic figure:

The thick orchestral textures that are marked at a quiet dynamic (such as in the sustained notes in the string sections) give to the first movement the overall impression of a loud and imposing silence that is almost oppressive in its calmness (Heffer 57).

Movement two contains a natural Eb trumpet solo based on a tune Vaughan Williams heard during his time with the Royal Army Medical Corps at Bordon in Hampshire, where the bugler would hit a 7th instead of the intended octave (Howes 25). Following is the figure played by the Eb trumpet (this is a transposed score, as the part would feature no key signature as is typical in transposing instruments like the French horn):

Interestingly, the use of natural brass is further reinforced later in this

movement with a natural horn (an instrument that is also frequently used in pastoral music due to its origins in hunting parties) playing the same theme in measure 112 that the trumpet played earlier (the echoing feel and the similar horn call further recalls the buglers of Vaughan Williams' service in the war).

In this symphony there is also use of block-consecutive-chord techniques or

patterns of the same chords repeatedly formatted in similar ways, which suggests relationships to the music of Debussy (Day 193). Here the dissonances presented throughout this symphony are used in chains of consonant triads (or groupings of stable pitches that don’t necessarily form chords because of a missing interval), which, blended with the dissonant notes of the countermelody, sound together to create the uneasy undercurrent detected at key moments in the work. I find that these chords create the feeling of church bells ringing the death knell across the deserted landscape for the fallen soldiers who will never return home. I believe this musical gesture must have reflected the sorrow that Vaughan Williams would have felt as a fortunate survivor whose many contemporaries would never again compose.

After the gradual unfolding of the slow and steady first and second movements, the ending of the third movement, the fastest part of the Symphony, gets suddenly pianissimo. Here, at measure 47, a new theme is introduced by the brass:

Movement four displays pentatonic themes based on themes heard in

previous movements. A tenor singer can sing the wordless vocal part or the clarinet can play it as noted, but traditionally a soprano voice has been used. I find the effect of the opening refrain in movement four is of a human figure in the landscape, hearing a distant voice while contemplating views of the countryside (Howes 28). The use of the wordless vocal line, I believe, could again have to do with the past events that happened in the countryside, and Vaughan Williams is adding an eerie human element. It is almost as if spirits of the soldiers who died are still haunting this picturesque landscape, which, although tranquil and pleasant on the surface, is haunted by darkness beneath the surface, in the trenches. Here a triplet figure is used in the melody of the singer (it is interesting to note that this figure is also pentatonic or folk sounding, which, I believe, also adds a more natural and human element to the passage):

The next symphony Vaughan Williams wrote could not have been more

different from the “Pastoral” Symphony. Symphony No. 4 in F minor has been the subject of much debate since its debut. It is the first of Vaughan Williams’ symphonies to be designated by a key and not by a programmatic title (though later it was numbered, at the urging of his publisher), and it seems to have no specific historical or pictorial subject (Schwartz). However, most critics are convinced that this piece was influenced by the events in Europe from 1931-34. Vaughan Williams composed the piece from 1931-32 but it was not performed or published until 1935 after many revisions (Howes 29). For the first time in one of Vaughan Williams’ symphonies there are no harps, celesta or glockenspiel (Day 200). As described by Schwartz, “Emotionally, it conveys an impression of urgency, violence and great power, a power characteristic of the growing political strife of the 1930’s”. It is valid to point out that, although the political tension in Europe was growing, Vaughan Williams first composed the symphony from 1931-32 (before most of the major catalysts of World War II took place). Vaughan Williams is noted for saying about the symphony, “I don’t know whether I like it, but this (the symphony) is what I meant to say.”

Significantly, the symphony doesn’t end with Vaughan Williams’ usual contemplative epilogue but instead with a violent restatement of the main argument of the symphony (R.A.). The first movement starts with two themes of clashing semitones among all the instruments that continue throughout entire symphony (R.A.). The last movement curiously contains fugal qualities often found

in the music of Bach. I find this piece similar to Beethoven’s last symphony in the sense that the symphony’s destination does not become apparent until the finale (Howes 31). Here, at the end, a pattern in Vaughan Williams’ symphonies is introduced that ties everything together in some form of an epilogue. In some cases there seems to be as much rhythmic conflict as there is harmonic throughout the piece (Steinberg 657).

There are two main motives that are elaborated and built on throughout the entire symphony. Motive A is built on major and minor seconds, and Motive B is an ascending pattern of two rising fourths and a minor third. These motifs give the piece its striking dissonances and the major-minor conflict, which is never resolved due to the omitted third at the end of the fourth movement.

Motive A

Motive B

Heavy orchestration in this case also adds to the loudness and brusqueness

of the symphony. Vaughan Williams was constantly working within the self imposed limits and implications of what he originally set out to create (as he stated in the letters he left behind), which accounts for the continued dissonance throughout the symphony with no real release. The first performance was given on April 10, 1935 by Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Despite all the speculation that the Fourth Symphony was written in response to activities in Europe, such as the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy and the stringent anti-Semitic attitudes within these countries, the first German performance took place in Bochum in January 1937 and was conducted by Leopold Reichum, who, according to Michael Steinberg, was the most committed Nazi among German musical leaders at the time and expressed his anti-Semitism in his music. He reportedly committed suicide in April 1945, when Soviet troops entered Vienna (Steinberg 658).

Incidentally, this was the first symphony completed without the help of Holst, who died in 1934 before the work's completion. Holst was always a close confidant and helper in the critiquing of Vaughan Williams’ compositions, and I believe his loss created a void within Vaughan Williams’ working environment that must have been hard to endure.

Vaughan Williams was annoyed by all the speculation that this piece was written in response to war and political actions. His wife and some of his closer friends speculated that the symphony more accurately reflected a darker side of Vaughan Williams’ personality that predated the rise of Fascism and was marked by violent tempers, rages and reflective mood swings (Steinberg 658). So, just as the

Third Symphony was a reflection of Vaughan Williams’ past memories and emotions towards war, the Fourth Symphony seems to reflect his moods and personality traits at a later point. In December 1937 Vaughan Williams wrote in a letter to old friend Bobby Longman, “I wrote it not as a definite picture of anything external- e.g. the state of Europe-but simply because it occurred to me like this---I can’t explain why---I don’t think sitting down and thinking about great things ever produces a great work of art…” (Kennedy 247).

When the Second World War hit Europe, Vaughan Williams was already in his seventies and could no longer serve in the army. However, he was able to help out through composing music for military bands and patriotic films, and bringing music to the people of Britain for morale, comfort, and support of the country. Widely regarded as one of Vaughan Williams’ greatest achievements, the Fifth Symphony was applauded at the time of its premiere and became a rallying point for the people of England during one of the country’s darkest times. A description of the Fifth that I agree with is a comparison that music critic Michael Steinberg made between the Fifth and Fourth symphonies: “The language and the temper are quite different, but the compositional concentration and richness of the Fifth extend the discoveries of the Fourth; also, it was the release of giving way to unbridled vehemence in the Fourth that made possible the profoundly different and, I believe, even greater emotional intensity of the Fifth” (Steinberg 664). Symphony No. 5 in D major was immediately acclaimed and loved by the public, which could be because of its serenity and contrast with the terrible war in progress (Schwartz).

In 1944, while Vaughn Williams was at work on his Fifth Symphony, he decided that a discarded scherzo melody intended for the symphony should be turned into part of an oboe concerto (this piece was also premiered in 1944 and contains an energy and some musical phrases similar to the Fifth Symphony, whether because of its reflective quality or its hopeful nature) (Kennedy 285). I believe that both of these pieces are deeply connected, in that both were born out of wartime and contain passages and motifs that transport the listener to a happier time. During these years, the concert season was forced to start earlier in the year and performances had to be given before nightfall so that people could be home before dark and the air raids. Most of the audience for the first performance that Vaughan Williams conducted himself in London was suffering from fear, sleepless nights and anxiety, yet somehow the symphony gave the people the serenity they had longed for during the troubled times. There was a long breath of silence at the end of the performance before the applause started (Ursula Vaughan Williams CD). Through listening to the suspended strings and lyrical phrases of the symphony, it seems likely that the tension the people dealt with from living during wartime in London added to the strong reaction to this symphony.

Vaughan Williams was 75 at the time that the Fifth was first performed, and many critics at the time believed that the piece was a summary of his life’s work and that the piece would become the crown jewel of all his compositions. They did not know, of course, that four more symphonies would follow (Howes 41). Like the “Pastoral” and Fourth Symphony, the Fifth triggered many powerful reviews, most of which praised the piece. Frank Howes, a music critic at the time, described what many in the audience may have felt during the symphony’s premiere: “In the symphony we have an answer to life’s puzzle and the remedy for its ills; here is the mystical knowledge…that comes by the penetration of the prophetic mind” (Howes

42). I believe the Symphony created the illusion that the tension of everyday life was melting away and offered a greater sense of hope for a better life after the war was over. Howes goes on to say that “[t]he fifth symphony written amid the noise of wars describes the nature of peace” (Howes 42).

On the original manuscript, Vaughan Williams noted that: “some of the themes of this symphony are taken from an unfinished opera, ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’” (based on the allegory by John Bunyan), and indeed the score for the slow movement bears an introductory quotation from the opera: “Upon this place stood a cross, and a little below a sepulchre. Then he said: ‘He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death’” (Schwartz 89). Like the symphony itself, this quotation shows the willingness of the composer and audience alike to believe that something good could come out of violence and death. Vaughan Williams later commented on his symphony: “It is admittedly harder to write good music which is joyful than that which is sad…To my mind, two composers…have been able to write music which is at the same time serious, profound, and cheerful--Bach in ‘Cum Sancto’ of the B minor Mass and Beethoven in the finale of the Chorale Symphony”. (Schwartz 105). I believe Vaughan Williams may have had some difficulty in writing joyful music because he lived in troubled and uncertain times.

Later in life, Vaughan Williams often lamented his inability to achieve clarity of sound in his music, saying he “always put too many ingredients into the pudding.” But in the Fifth, Vaughan Williams seems to have finally gotten all the pieces of the puzzle together in a sublime order. Michael Steinberg commented on the magnificence of the symphony, saying that “cleansed by the violence of the Fourth,” Vaughan Williams achieved serenity in the Fifth, “and achieved it sublimely: clarity of sound and clarity of spirit” (Steinberg 664-665).

From the start of the symphony, Vaughan Williams draws upon the uncertainty of the time by starting the beginning with octave “C’s” (the diminished leading tone of the title key of D Major). In this awkward opening the octave “C’s” are sounded in the strings, while a “D” in the horns creates a dissonant seventh. From these opening pitches, I believe, Vaughan Williams is setting the mood of a tumultuous time that over time moves into the lyrical melodies and consonant chords of the symphony. Over these pedal “C’s” in measure one, the following horn call is heard and starts a rhythmic pattern that remains throughout most of the movement:

I find the effect of this horn call is almost spiritual, in the way it sounds

distantly at first, as if the listener is being called by some higher power out of the darkness of the situation that the people of England were subjected to during the war. In measure three and at measure six the violins answer this horn call with a pentatonic melodic contour, which further serves as harmonic transitional material moving towards the prominent key of the movement:

I suggest that the heavy usage of modal music in this symphony was

intended to increase the relationship to early music, as most early chants were written for prayer purposes. Furthermore, while the key center is D, as the title states, the Symphony starts in a Mixolydian major (hence the opening “C”s) and moves into a Dorian minor (Day 204). The symphony also implies Aeolian mode (prominent in movements one and four) and outlines pentatonic chords, thereby continuing Vaughan Williams’ attraction to modal mixture music (or again, to folk-like music) (Schwartz 91-92). This can be seen in measure 60 of movement one, with the broad melody appearing in the strings:

Here, Vaughan Williams’ frequent use of rising fourths (a connection to the

fourth symphony) appears in the opening of movement two in the strings:

This could be Vaughan Williams’ way of invoking higher powers through

music. Even the canon-like passages between the winds in movement three suggests a relation to choral music, which has religious implications from earlier times in history. Steinberg points out, “None of Vaughan Williams’ symphonies, not even the Pastoral, is more profoundly impregnated than the Fifth with the modal melodic and harmonic world of English folk song (the music of everyday life) and Tudor church music (music used in prayer or formal spiritual occasions)” (Steinberg 665). In fact this symphony makes the most powerful use of contrast between modes and modern (or post-1650) tonality. Vaughan Williams, I believe, could thereby be using this symphony to increase his relationship to England’s great musical heritage and to create hope among his fellow English citizens during their hour of need.

Allusions to Pilgrim’s Progress carry throughout the Fifth Symphony, as Vaughan Williams seems almost to be praying for forgiveness and salvation. The violin passage in the opening of the first movement is the “Alleluia” refrain from For All the Saints, one of the four original hymns Vaughan Williams contributed to The English Hymnal in 1906 and by this time a popular English hymn tune (Steinberg

665).There is even a prominent reference to an “Alleluia” theme from ‘Lasst uns erfreuen’ (Let us rejoice) in the fourth movement that is also quoted in the earlier movements (Howes 51). As Beethoven did in his Ninth Symphony with the “Ode to Joy”, Vaughan Williams writes a recurring motif presented in the celli that becomes the rallying point for the final movement of the symphony. This figure can be seen below:

When it is introduced in measure eight by the flutes and first violins, this

melody serves as a countersubject to complement the main idea:

In the fourth movement another “Alleluia” sounds from the hymn "All

Creatures of Our God and King" right before the final note in the horns (Steinberg 667).

Steinberg observes that, “the symphony’s scenario…recapitulates in thirty-some minutes the evolution in the history of Western music from the church modes to major and minor keys” (Steinberg 667). During this time the German Nazi party was trying to bridge past history to the new Third Reich and establish their superiority over other men through acquiring ancient religious artifacts and emphasizing their great musical legacy as represented in the composers Beethoven, Brahms and, especially, Wagner. In his Fifth symphony Vaughan Williams was also attempting to bridge the gap from England’s musical past to the present through creating a relationship between his modern musical style and the early English composers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But instead of showing the superiority of one man over another as the Germans were doing, Vaughan Williams instead uses faith and understanding to spiritually represent all men as equal under God.

In the fourth movement of the Fifth Symphony, the horn call that starts off the symphony is repeated at a softer volume that is heard in counterpoint against another prominent melody, which is based around the dominant instead of the original “C” pedal point, and is shown here before it settles into D major for the final chord:

To me, this effect creates the illusion of the military trumpeter announcing

the morning at the beginning of the symphony and again the evening hours at the end, when darkness falls and all that is left is a reflective silence. This military gesture must have rung all too familiar in the ears of the audience during the premiere of the Fifth Symphony: a generation born out of war into war. The undermined horn calls of the Fifth could also be a link to Vaughan Williams’ Pastoral symphony, with its use of the altered trumpet calls.

As the war came to an end, composers began exploring new ways to express their feelings without reminding themselves of the turmoil of the war years. I believe this same philosophy can be seen in Vaughan Williams when he started work on the Sixth Symphony in 1944. The music critics who trumpeted their praise for his Fifth Symphony were dazed by the curve ball that Vaughan Williams threw at them with the Sixth. As quickly as Vaughan Williams had returned to calm and contemplative music, he departed from it as the violence of the Sixth Symphony took shape. Symphony No. 6 in E minor was premiered in 1948 and quickly reminded the people of England of the troubles that were not that distant of a memory. Like the Fourth Symphony this piece has provoked many discussions over external inspirations (Schwartz 106). The Sixth Symphony is also notably the only symphony where all the movements are performed without any pause between movements (Greenhalgh 12). Vaughan Williams is believed to have started working on it in 1944 and completed it in 1947 (Steinberg 668). It is scored for very large orchestra (triple woodwinds plus tenor sax).

The first three movements are loud, rough and aggressive, and the fourth movement seems to be the only slow movement of the piece, where the phrases, dynamics and every aspect of the piece freeze to create a stagnant music in which nothing seems to happen except for a slow moving violin line. It is this fourth movement particularly that makes it difficult to interpret this symphony (Schwartz 117). From another point of view, which I share, this symphony could be Vaughan Williams’ attempt to create absolute music that tries to dim the awareness of the surroundings he was living in at the time. After all, that is what the younger generation of composers such as Messiaen were doing at the end of the war. It is also interesting to note in Vaughan Williams' Sixth the frequent use of augmented fourths or tritones (a great contrast to his three previous symphonies, which used frequent pentatonic qualities) in the melody, harmony and key relationships between the movements (Day 210). In defiance of its title, Symphony in E minor, the piece begins with a statement in F minor before moving into E minor. Here is the unnerving figure as it appears in the flutes:

Vaughan Williams, however, described the music as rushing “down and up

again through all the keys for which there is time in two bars” (Steinberg 669). Steinberg goes further and states, “the harmony is exceedingly restless and unsettled, and F minor remains an assertive presence. The mood, for the moment at least, is savage” (Steinberg 668).

In this symphony, Vaughan Williams seems to have blended his style with some jazzy syncopation (emphasized especially in the tenor sax solos, although it is also prominent in the first movement in the winds). An example of this begins at measure twenty in the first movement:

The effect of this passage is an increasing dissociation with the downbeat

pulse of the movement, thereby adding to the disillusionment Vaughan Williams was creating with his surroundings. Dissonance is further added with augmented fourths in the melody, which appear in measure eighty-two of the first movement in the high winds and violins:

After the first public reception to this symphony, Vaughan Williams,

responding to the music critic Frank Howes, called the Sixth symphony the “War Symphony” and said that he “conceded that any writer was at liberty to make such an attribution or to interpret the music in relation to events, but he refused to lend countenance to the idea that he himself had given, or would give, the smallest warrant for such a name or for that interpretation” (Howes 53). However, Vaughan Williams had also remarked that “there is a good deal of anger in this symphony” (Howes 61). His statement does not specify war as a cause for that anger. It might also be concluded that the symphony’s emotional impact cannot be tied to any one theme or element, but rather to the symphony in its entirety (Schwartz 120).

Later in life, in response to the opinions about the Sixth Symphony’s possible outside influences, Vaughan Williams said, “It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music” (Steinberg 671). Vaughan Williams once hinted that Prospero’s farewell at the end of Shakespeare’s The Tempest might provide a clue to his intentions within the music (Steinberg 671). I believe the possible reference to Shakespeare could also be another attempt by Vaughan Williams to establish a relationship between his compositions and England’s great achievements in music and art during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The fourth movement of the symphony, titled “Epilogue”, appears to function as a ghost of the previous movements, as it is organized like a fugue and is essentially “soft and unhurried” (Howes 61). I believe this may also coincide with the Fourth symphony (also believed to be about war), which contains an “Epilogo Fugato” (as noted by Vaughan Williams) as its final movement, creating, as fugues can do, a sense of struggle. Indeed, English critic Stephen Johnson pointed out that the harmonies at the end of the fourth movement are the same as those heard in Vaughan Williams’ 1951 setting for an a cappella chorus of Prospero’s speech (Steinberg 671). While working on the Sixth Symphony Vaughan Williams was simultaneously working on the music for the film Scott of the Antarctic, which he would later, in 1947, turn into Sinfonia Antartica.

Symphony No. 7 “Sinfonia Antartica” was written and performed from 1949-52. The symphony describes the “tragic hero” Scott whose failed mission is seen to glorify England nonetheless. Symphony No. 8 in D minor was composed in 1956. It is relatively short and contains a large percussion section but otherwise employs only a small orchestra. Symphony No. 9 in E minor was composed from 1956-57. It was finished in 1957, and in 1958, the day before it was to be recorded, Vaughan Williams passed away in his sleep. In this symphony, there are no folk songs and it also called for a large orchestra including saxophones and a flugelhorn.

After the sixth and seventh symphonies, Vaughan Williams seemed to have gotten over the disquieting feelings of the two symphonies and returned to his consonant folk-like melodies. The music composed during this dark time in history creates a time capsule for the modern world. I believe Ralph Vaughan Williams teaches listeners through his own experiences of the time in which he lived. Vaughan Williams looked to the distant past of his native country and saw the history and musical greatness in folk songs and gave them new life within the twentieth century. He worked until his final days and eventually composed more music in the second half of his life than he did in the first. After living through all the political turmoil and war that plagued the first half of the century, Vaughan Williams showed the world that, despite dissonance and pain beneath the surface, beauty and tranquility can still be found through harmony. A reflective man, Vaughan Williams gave the advice to young composers to “Look around you for your inspiration” (Howes 2). Undoubtedly he spoke from his own life experiences and humble beginnings as a young composer. Vaughan Williams looked around himself, and somewhere, between the sea, London, the English countryside and the military, he found the inspiration he needed to create his musical masterpieces.

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