Symphony No. 5 (Vaughan Williams)

The English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his Symphony No. 5 in D major, 1938-1943. Stylistically, it shows a significant departure from the passionate dissonances of the Fourth Symphony and a Wiederanknüpfen to the romantic style of the earlier Pastoral Symphony. The premiere took place on 24 June 1943. It is dedicated to Jean Sibelius, but " without permission ". Here, Sibelius would have assented safe. He wrote: "I heard Dr. Ralph Vaughan Williams' new symphony in Stockholm under the excellent leadership of Malcolm Sargent ... This symphony is an outstanding work ... The dedication makes me proud and grateful ... I wonder if Dr. Williams an idea of has the joy he has given me so? "

Many of the musical themes of the 5th Symphony date from the time of his unfinished opera The Pilgrim 's Progress. This opera or this " morality play ," as Vaughan Williams prefer to call the work, for decades, was then at work. But the composer had, turned away at that time, as the symphony emerged from it at times. Apart from these origins, the symphony has no programmatic references. Formally, it represents more of an extensive development of musical themes that come from the planned opera than trying to force this material directly in symphonic forms into.

Although nominally in the key of D major, large parts of the symphony are actually written in C major or the same in C and D. For further caused some confusion in this respect, an early piano reduction, which described the work in the key of G.

Sets

The Fifth Symphony is composed in the traditional four-movement form.

1 Preludio. The symphony begins with a distinctive horn-call in the rarely used " Mixolydian mode " in D, a method already used in ancient Greece Key. The rate varies between the use of Mixolydian and Dorian modes on different tones. Several of the musical themes in this set are the first scene of the first act of the planned opera " The Pilgrim's Progress" taken, in particular the opening of dialogue between Pilgrim and evangelist. A "Dresden Amen " theme appears at the end of this sentence.

2 Scherzo. This brief set is characterized by a galloping, dance rhythm with a series of harsh tones of the woodwind and brass instruments as an interruption. It concludes with a feathery motif of rising quarter notes.

3 Romanza. The priority in this set come from the opening of the second scene of the first act of The Pilgrim 's Progress ( "The House Beautiful" ). The opening of the solo playing English horn is practically unchanged. The lyrics to this melody ( " He gave me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death " sung ) was originally used as a leitmotif of the sentence, while the central counter design from the passage " Save me, save me, Lord! My load is greater than I can bear " comes from. Ascending quarter notes reappear as compounds. This sentence could also be regarded as the spiritual core of the symphony.

4 Passacaglia. Although this sentence begins with the repetitive bass line of the passacaglia form, Vaughan Williams leaves them again. The triumphant primary melody of the Passacaglia is from Pilgrims dialogue with artists in the second half of "The House Beautiful " scene, while the fanfare motif reminiscent of " The Arming of the Pilgrim " from the first scene of Act 2. This heralds a return of the themes from the first movement of the symphony, which will be played dissolved in a quiet farewell scene - first by the woodwinds and then by the upper strings. The movement ends with a short epilogue, which takes up the theme of the Passacaglia from the introduction again, very calm and collected. ( The " epilogue " to a symphony were first introduced by Arnold Bax as an extension of classical symphonic and was quite popular in the first half of the XX. Century for British composers. )