Ralph
Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) is another name we can connect with this national
music movement in England at the turn of the twentieth century. He was good
friends with Gustav Holst, whom we talked about last time, and perhaps even
considered more nationalistic in his output.
Vaughan
Williams began his musical studies early with an aunt. Like Holst, Vaughan
Williams endured criticism early on, his elders not confident in his musical
potential. Once he decided to seek success through building on England’s
musical past, his career began to fall into place. Early on in the century,
Vaughan Williams worked as the musical editor for the new English Hymnal.
During this time, he learned about hymnody and some of the successful English
composers several centuries before his time. This sparked his interest in
composing his own hymn tunes, arranging folk songs as hymns, and finding old
hymns that he could add to the new hymnal.
Vaughan
Williams essentially revitalized English composition by reaching back to those
English composers who came before him. A perfect example of this is his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,
which he based on a Tallis hymn found while working on the English Hymnal. He
chose to maintain the hymn’s Phrygian mode and used a fantasia form known for
its thematic development, which was quite popular with early English composers.
This helped establish that folk element, pulling from England’s native past.
You can listen to Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia
on a Theme by Thomas Tallis below. What other of his works do you enjoy?
