Posted October 31, 2024
Instrumentation: 3 flutes (+ piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 trumpets, 2 cornets (of the trumpet family), 4 horns, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, snare drum, triangle, tam-tam, sleigh bells (often marked as “jingles” in the score), cymbals, glockenspiel, harp, strings
Ralph Vaughan Williams
(Born in Down Ampney, England in 1872; died in London in 1958)
Symphony No. 2, “A London Symphony”
- Lento – Allegro resolute (Originally subtitled “Dawn”)
- Lento (Originally subtitled “Bloomsbury Square on a November afternoon”)
- Scherzo (Originally subtitled “Nocturne: Westminster Embankment”)
- Finale: Andante con moto Maestoso alla marcia – Allegro – Lento – Epilogue
Vaughan Williams was 37 when he composed his first symphony (“A Sea Symphony”), and he disliked the process so much that he foreswore ever doing anything like it again. Nonetheless, only two years later, his close friend and fellow composer, George Butterworth (1885 – 1916), gruffly told Vaughan Williams that he ought to at least “try writing a symphony,” thereby goading Vaughan Williams into the idea. Vaughan Williams resurrected some musical sketches of London scenes that he had made earlier and fleshed them out further into “A London Symphony” (Symphony No. 2) which then premiered in 1914 (revised 1920, and again in 1936 which is the definitive version). The work was later dedicated to Butterworth who died in battle in 1916.
Indeed, the musical riches of London lie at the heart of “A London Symphony.” A slowly meandering, almost haunting introduction begins the Symphony, as though the listener is approaching the great city by boat up the vast River Thames in the brooding quiet before dawn. And there’s no doubt which city it is when, at about two-and-a-half minutes, we hear the famous chimes of Big Ben marking the half-hour, played by the harp. The tempo soon speeds up, Allegro resolute (fast and resolutely), as the bustling London comes alive musically, with a kaleidoscope of quickly changing themes, peeling through the city’s streets toward the movement’s rousing conclusion.
The achingly beautiful second movement, Lento (very slowly), turns its attention to London’s quieter dimensions. Vaughan Williams first captures this in the opening bars with a beautiful English horn solo singing a tender and lonesome song. Then, about five minutes later, we hear a poignant traditional street merchant’s song to sell herbs – the “Lavender song” – first played by a solo viola, and then colorfully pitched against the distant, occasional jangling of sleigh-bells from the city’s horse-drawn “hansom cabs.”
In the third movement Scherzo (Nocturne), Vaughan Williams places us on the “Westminster Embankment [looking across the river towards the lively Southwark area]… with its crowded streets and flaring lights.” London was one of the first modern cities “that never sleeps,” and the frenetic night-long activities of revelers are captured here with a fast-paced theme of tumbling triplets, and musical phrases colliding in a wonderfully chaotic way. About one-and-a-half minutes later, a delightful moment occurs when the strings mimic the wheezing sounds of a late-night busking accordion.
The finale begins with a stern march – the Empire moves forward at any costs, it seems – but is soon lightened by a spirited theme recalling music from the first movement. The music then slows, the rhythms becoming more hypnotic … Big Ben (the harp) strikes its chimes again in the distance, now at the three-quarter hour … we are back on the Thames, and the mighty city of London fades slowly and quietly into the distance in the rather lengthy ending section, marked Andante sostenuto (slowly and sustained), which serves as the Symphony’s Epilogue. Vaughan Williams later explained that this impressionistic ending was inspired by words from H. G. Wells’ novel, Tono-Bungay (1909), which speaks metaphorically of London as a symphony in itself:
“The last great movement in the London Symphony in which the true scheme of the old order is altogether dwarfed and swallowed up… Light after light goes down … Britain and the Empire … sink down upon the horizon… The river passes – London passes, England passes.”