Vaughan Williams, whose 150th birthday we celebrate this year, has always been in and out of fashion. Many listeners have an “a-ha” moment, whether it’s one of enlightenment or rejection. Mine, the first one, was done listening to his fifth symphony. Written during the dark days of 1942, it left its audience speechless, tearful and grateful for its message of peace and hope. But I knew none of this when, a blank slate teenager, I popped the needle on the LP and within seconds – a low drone on the strings, two visionary horns, some dreamy violins – I was hooked. This won’t make much sense if you haven’t heard it. So, take some time out of your busy day. If you don’t like the first minute of the symphony, listen to the last, a hallelujah without words, which sounds like it at the gates of heaven. If you’re still not enthralled, keep reading. There are many sides to Vaughan Williams, as I quickly discovered. “He witnessed things he was never going to talk about – except perhaps music” … Vaughan Williams serving in the Field Ambulance in 1915. Photo: Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust The course of my love did not run smoothly. I was looking forward to the Pastoral Symphony (no. 3), looking into that cow’s empty eyes, and then I was scared away by the fourth Symphony that hit my tender ears. Now I hear them differently. The Pastoral is a requiem for the young people lost in the first world war, some of whom are friends and students of the composer. He invented the long, quiet evenings in northern France, as the sun set over the battlefields where Vaughan Williams served as an ambulance driver. He saw things, like so many, that he should never talk about, except perhaps in music. The fourth symphony I hear now as a post-war expression of rage, dissonant from first to last, a hellish portal that might draw in my previously unimpressed reader. He confessed that he himself sometimes did not know whether he had composed a piece or just remembered it… Tallis Fantasia sounds as if the musicians are reading not sheet music but runes carved into rock. Vaughn Williams was slow to find his own musical voice. In his student years, England still looked to Germany for its musical models – Mendelssohn and Brahms – such was his harmony teacher’s despair when minuet samples came out modal. (Think Fred Astaire in clogs.) Since his late 30s, however, he’s evolved into a one-man musical institution. He edited the Anglican hymnal The English Hymnal, cycled to country pubs collecting folk songs, was active in the English Folk Dance Society, although something of a galloper himself, and conducted amateur choirs and professional orchestras with passion and the occasional outburst of anger. As the second world war drew to a close, he was the one the authorities turned to for “A Song of Thanksgiving”, to be ready for VE Day. And he was a beloved teacher who supported young composers financially and in other practical ways. Once he had to bring to heel an orchestra that openly laughed at a young, then unknown Benjamin Britten. Perhaps most importantly, he created what is now the RVW Charitable Trust which still distributes its royalties to fund new projects. Since he never had children of his own, these beneficiaries are actually his musical heirs. English, Vaughan Williams was steeped in his country’s literature and art, old and new. He set the words of Housman and Kipling, Shakespeare (try the Serenade to Music from the Merchant of Venice) and Herbert (Five Mystical Songs’s Love bede me welcome – you will thank me!) and there’s an opera about The Pilgrim’s Progress of Bunyan. The closing scene of HG Wells’ Tono-Bungay inspired the atmospheric ending of A London Symphony (“Light after light going down… London passes – England passes”) and this ‘old hat’ ninth symphony was sparked by Tess of the d’ Hardy’s Urbervilles . You can even hear the eight o’clock bells that mark the moment of Tess’s execution. “A low drone on the strings, two visionary horns, some dreamy violins – I was hooked.” Conductor Andrew Manze. Photo: Hiroyuki Ito/Getty Images The script and music of Job, a masque for dancing (not ballet – he disliked “overgrown calves”) was closely based on William Blake’s illustrations in the Book of Job, and the famous Tallis Fantasia is of Gothic architecture in music. Vaughan Williams confessed that he himself sometimes did not know whether he had composed a piece or simply remembered it. He likened the process to seeing Stonehenge, New York or Niagara Falls for the first time: it was as if he already knew them. Tallis Fantasia sounds like the musicians are reading not sheet music but runes carved into rock. For some, however, Vaughan Williams’s very Englishness may be a barrier to appreciation. I have been lucky enough to perform his music outside of the UK and see how it touches and speaks to musicians and audiences who know nothing of its cultural roots. The most common reaction to hearing one of the symphonies is a kind of confused appetite for more: how many of them are there? Why didn’t we already know them? And I owe Vaughn Williams a thank you. Ten years ago, the North German Radio Philharmonic asked me to become their chief conductor as a direct result of the performance of the sixth symphony – a devastating piece completed immediately after the second world war. Listen to its post-apocalyptic ending, 10 minutes of all but silent, static music (and spare a thought for the orchestras playing this overwhelmingly difficult piece). Mining a deep cultural seam… Vaughan Williams, photographed in 1903. Photo: Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust The cultural roots are deep and old. Dig deep enough, as Vaughan Williams did, and you’ll find the music’s roots entwined, shared even with other cultures, in a foundation of pentatonics, ancient modes, hymns, choruses, and folk dance. Perhaps it is for this reason that Vaughan Williams held Sibelius in such high esteem, the great Finnish composer to whom he dedicated this magnificent “unlicensed” fifth symphony. Their music sounds and feels completely different, but both mined the same deep cultural seam. And it is for this reason that I believe the music of Vaughan Williams has held in our estimation and will for so long, though fashions come and go. Calling the Ninth Accord “old hat” was intended as an insult. However, I hear the piece as the sum of a life’s work, tired sounding perhaps but deservedly so after so much rich creativity. Andrew Manze conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Vaughan William’s First Symphony on July 27 at London’s Royal Albert Hall. The music of Vaughan Williams is celebrated throughout this year’s Proms season.
