Ralph Vaughan Williams, 60 years after his passing
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,150
    Corrected:
    Today One month from today, August 26, marks 60 years since Ralph Vaughan Williams passed away at age 85. His imprint and effect on music, especially English music and not the least on church music, has been enormous. After Anton Bruckner, whom I discovered first as a young teenager, it is the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams that has perhaps influenced me most.

    Here are some of his works that have impacted me the most:

    • Down Ampney ("Come Down, O Love Divine") (1905)

    • Sine Nomine ("For All the Saints") (1905)

    • A Sea Symphony (1903-09)

    • Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910, rev. 1913/19)
    "The work is wonderful because it seems to lift one into some unknown region of musical thought and feeling. Throughout its course one is never sure whether one is listening to something very old or very new".

    • Five Mystical Songs (1911)

    • The Lark Ascending (1914/20)

    • Mass in G minor (1922)

    • Sancta Civitas (1923-25)

    • Kings Weston ("At the Name of Jesus") (1925)

    • Serenade to Music (1938)

    • Symphony No. 5 in D major (1938-43)

    • Sinfonia Antarctica (1949-52)

    • O taste and see (1953)


    Thanked by 8Incardination M. Jackson Osborn tomjaw CCooze Choirparts Paul F. Ford richardUK Casavant Organist
  • Incardination
    Posts: 832
    Requiescat in pace. I too enjoy his music, both secular and sacred. Prayers for his soul on this day.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Charles,

    While I'm a fan of RVW, your post has me confused. Today (as my computer informs me) is July 26. Your post says "Today, August 26" .

    Are you a month early or is this a typo?
    Thanked by 2Incardination Carol
  • Incardination
    Posts: 832
    12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958

    He'll get some extra prayers!
    Thanked by 3tomjaw CHGiffen igneus
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,150
    Oops ... my mind was on August 26th for some reason!!! Oh well, a month to prepare!!
    Sorry about that. I've just corrected it.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,942
    Knowing you, I assumed you'd become a New New Calendarist.
    Thanked by 4Carol eft94530 CHGiffen igneus
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    I'm most familiar with his instrumental works, but appreciate his other works that I have heard.

    Our Symphony chorus just performed his Serenade to Music, this past season.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    Thanks you for this thread, could I add...

    Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus

    and a very kind gift from our former choir director, that has given my family many hours of pleasure...
    https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN 10385
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • ChoirpartsChoirparts
    Posts: 147
    Charles, does that date have any impact on the public domain status of Ralph Vaughan Williams' remaining works ? It seems that some works are yet under copyright ....
  • WillWilkin
    Posts: 29
    From the notes by James Day in the booklet with my Musical Heritage Society CD of A Vaughan Williams Hymnal:

    QUOTE:

    During his time at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was an undergraduate from 1892 until 1895, Ralph Vaughan Williams was known as a convinced atheist; and despite his deep love for the language of the Bible and the Prayer Book, for the great Bach Passions and for visionary religious stories such as those of Job or of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, he remained an atheist or an agnostic his entire life.

    END QUOTE

    Not necessarily relevant to this discussion but still I find it notable in that it shows the great attraction of heartfelt (faithful) traditional music. I suppose that observation is no surprise, but definitely it also applies to me.
    Thanked by 1Carol
  • Marc Cerisier
    Posts: 517
    The Lark Ascending is probably my favorite piece of music ever... Such a fantastic composer.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • davido
    Posts: 873
    I find the Fantasia on a theme of Tallis to be so profound and religious. Look at the text RVW paired it with a few years earlier in the English Hymnal and see what it may have meant to him. It was written for choral festival at the striking Gloucester cathedral
  • PaxMelodious
    Posts: 425
    Charles, does that date have any impact on the public domain status of Ralph Vaughan Williams' remaining works ? It seems that some works are yet under copyright ....



    It depends on the country you're in.

    In Europe ALL of RVW's works are under copyright until I think the end of 2028 (there's something I don't quite remember in the rules about the final year - I think it's the end of the year after the 70th anniversary, but may be slightly wrong.

    In the USA, things depend a lot more on when why were first published in the USA, and what that publiser (or subsequent right owner) did or didn't do to protect their rights.

    In other places ... I don't even know the basics of the implications of the laws anywhere else!



    (Not legal advice, btw. I could be missing some important points here).
    Thanked by 1Choirparts
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    I did a choral arrangement of his 'Come, My Way' back in the 70s
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,150
    I did one in the 80s!
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Could we see them?
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 966
    I think that his works are indeed under copyright here in Europe. Question is, where should one ask for permission to publish a well known tune like SINE NOMINE? (It's a real question, I'm using this tune in a forthcoming publication).
  • PaxMelodious
    Posts: 425
    You need to ask either the church copyright organisation which licences his music in your country (best case, if there is such an organsation) or Oxford University Press who published the book it was first published in.

    Or pretend you're in Amerikay and so it's now PD ....
    Thanked by 1smvanroode
  • redsox1
    Posts: 217
    Te Deum in G! Absolutely glorious!
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    The G-Minor Mass is one of the XXth century's very greatest masterpieces of sacred music. It can stand its ground against any of the XVIth or XVIIth century polyphonists.
    Thanked by 4CHGiffen Paul F. Ford melofluent m_r_taylor
  • Schönbergian
    Posts: 1,063
    The G Minor Mass demonstrates perfectly how idiomatic, polyphonic vocal writing is not at all incompatible with more modern musical language--an example that many modern composers could stand to learn from.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    If you can find it, Roger Wagner's Chorale recorded the G Minor back in the early 1960's or so.
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