The Music Plays On —Vaughan Williams Symphony №5
We celebrated the birthday a few days ago of one of my favorite composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams. And while I love all of his symphonies, I most often come back to his Symphony №5.
Vaughan Williams spent the majority of WWII working on this symphony, beginning in 1938 and finishing it in 1943. It is a ‘war symphony’ unlike any other. Compared to the two other fifth symphonies written during WWII — Prokofiev’s and Shostakovich’s — it’s character and content is dramatically different. It is music of serenity, solemnity, and fortitude. If the British motto from the same era were made manifest in music, Vaughan Williams’ Symphony №5 would be what was heard.
Vaughan Williams dedicated the symphony to Jean Sibelius, whom he greatly admired. Sibelius showed nothing but gratitude and wrote in a letter to Adrian Boult,
I heard Dr. Ralph Vaughan Williams’ new Symphony from Stockholm under the excellent leadership of Malcolm Sargent … This Symphony is a marvellous work … the dedication made me feel proud and grateful … I wonder if Dr. Williams has any idea of the pleasure he has given me?
The symphony has four movements and from the very beginning, one can hear not only the expansiveness and harmonic fingerprint of Sibelius, but also Vaughan Williams’ love of English folk music, which is often based on the pentatonic scale. As the name implies, it is a scale based on just five notes.
The pentatonic scale can be found throughout the world, regardless of culture, and is found throughout this symphony. Here’s an amazing example of how the pentatonic scale is in our DNA.
