The Songs of Vaughn Williams

The past week’s readings on Vaughan Williams were for one, extremely enlightening, and two, rather comical. I got the biggest kick out of his writing style. I thought he was very direct in his thoughts, but had this very entertaining way of throwing in little sarcastic jabs here and there. I feel like so often when learning about composers I think of them as stiff and lacking any sort of sense of humor, it’s just rare that I’ve read anything by a composer that I feel really shows light hearted aspects of their personalities.

With that said, I also found the readings themselves fascinating. Up until this point much of the readings for class have discussed the lack music in England, or rather, the lack of English music in England. But here we have Vaughn Williams who revived what he felt was England’s national sound, the sound of English folk song. I absolutely loved this about the Sir John in Love and clips of Hugh the Drover.

It’s difficult to really have an opinion about Hugh the Drover because like I said, I could only find little clips of the work. But I thought Sir John in Love was beautiful! Even though his use of folk song was at times rather subtle, it added so much to work. I felt like I could really see where these characters were, it added so much to the setting and over all atmosphere of the opera. I agree with Vaughn Williams’ belief that there is an elegance to their simplicity.

When listening to this music I was reminded a great deal of American folk songs, which are probably inspired by the folk songs Vaughn Williams sought to preserve and incorporated into his works. I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t been so driven to locate and compose music that either uses or was influenced by folk song. What would the music of Aaron Copland sound like, would Rodeo and Appalachian Spring have the folk like quality, that American sound that is so closely associated with his compositions, or would they have never been written at all? It would be interesting to explore and trace the influence Vaughn Williams had on composers that followed him.