Symphony Pro Musica

The theme for this concert is the Sea: a subject which, despite covering more than two-thirds of the earth’s surface, today barely registers in most of our daily lives but which takes on more and more importance as we travel back in time. Certainly, for our three principals, Whitman, Vaughan Williams and Ibert, all products of the 19^th century, and born within easy reach of the courses of great ships, the sea would have had a real significance. The two works we present differ considerably in scale and conception. Escales is a “light” work, as indeed were many of Ibert’s more popular compositions. A Sea Symphony is definitely in the heavyweight class, somewhat atypically for Vaughan Williams. Both, however, have a youthful freshness that makes them particularly accessible for new audiences.

Jacques Ibert (1890-1962)

Escales (“Ports of Call”) (1922)

Rome – Palermo; Tunis – Nefta; Valencia

Ibert was born into a musical family in Paris and, at age four, began his own musical education with violin and then piano. While making a living through teaching, as an accompanist and as a movie theater pianist, he set out on his goal becoming a composer. He began to take lessons at the Conservatoire, and it was there that he met members of Les Six, especially his friend Honegger with whom he later collaborated on several works. The war intervened and Ibert was first sent to the front as a nurse and stretcher-bearer and later became a naval officer. After four years away, it was quite remarkable that he should win the Conservatoire’s coveted Prix de Rome at his first attempt in 1919. Now he could begin his career in earnest. His first success came in 1922 with an orchestral piece inspired by Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol. At this time he was working on Escales which, when it was first performed in 1924 with Paul Paray (for many years conductor of the Detroit Symphony) conducting, firmly established Ibert’s reputation. Ibert is a favorite among wind quintet players for his flute concerto and the brilliant quintet: Three Short Pieces.

In contrast to his contemporaries of Les Six, Ibert was actually a follower of Debussy and Ravel, and some of his music is very reminiscent of their impressionist styles, in particular the first and third movements of Escales. The inspiration for this piece was the composer’s own wartime experience as a naval officer, on tour in the Mediterranean. The first movement covers two “ports” each with its own musical impression, ending in a fusion of the two subjects. The first stop, Rome, though not itself a port, is a city that was well known to Ibert (the Prix de Rome is just that: a scholarship to study in Rome for several years). Indeed, it would later become even better known to him as he was for more than twenty years director of the Acadèmie de France at the Villa Medici in Rome. Whether the composer had something particular in mind I do not know, but to me the noble first subject evokes the Roman pines in the stillness of early morning. The second subject is from a tune that Ibert heard in Palermo, the chief city and port of Sicily.

Scored for solo oboe and strings, the second movement takes us 250 miles from Tunis and the ancient Carthage into the interior of Tunisia to Nefta, an oasis town close by the dry salt lake. Our final port, Valencia, the third city of Spain, with its five hundred years of Arab control, is a mix of Moorish and Spanish influences. The vibrancy of this center of industry and learning is evoked perfectly by the somewhat familiar music.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Symphony No. 1 “A Sea Symphony” (1910)

A Song for All Seas, All Ships; On the Beach at Night, Alone; Scherzo – The Waves; The Explorers.

Text by Walt Whitman (1819-1892) from “Leaves of Grass”

In many ways, A Sea Symphony is a very remarkable and indeed unexpected piece of music. Fortunately, it is also a very fine piece of music that, though readily enjoyable at first hearing, will grow and grow as the listener gets to know it better. First of all, we have the fact that it is a large-scale work conceived in 1903 by an inexperienced composer who, although already 31, had made no very great impact on the musical world. Generally speaking composers tend to wait until they are in their compositional prime before undertaking such a magnum opus. Secondly, compositions with a seven-year gestation are often stillborn. The muse tends to favor works written in the white-hot fever of inspiration (or necessity), such as Handel’s Messiah. Thirdly, even the form of the work – a symphony involving large orchestra, chorus and soloists – is quite rare. Beethoven and Mendelssohn each wrote choral symphonies, but in each case the soloists and chorus only appear in the final movement. The one work that immediately springs to mind as being of comparable (actually even greater) scale is Mahler’s Eighth Symphony (“Symphony of a Thousand”). I don’t know whether Vaughan Williams was aware of Mahler’s work by the time of his final preparations (they were premiered within a month of each other) but he certainly could not have known of Mahler’s plans at the time of the Sea Symphony’s conception. Fourthly, it is quite remarkable that the very English Vaughan Williams should have chosen for his text the work of an obscure and controversial American poet, Walt Whitman. Of course, Whitman could hardly be described as obscure or controversial today, but his reputation grew quite slowly after the publication of the first twelve Leaves of Grass in 1855, despite his hard work to develop it. It is indeed remarkable that Leaves had not only reached England, a country with no apparent shortage of poets, but had taken root sufficiently that RVW, as he was known, had understood its significance and wanted to set it to music. Very probably, RVW was aware of the new setting of Sea-Drift by Frederick Delius and was inspired to read some of the other Leaves.

Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in rural Gloucestershire in 1872, the son of a clergyman, himself the son of a very prominent judge. His mother’s great great grandfather was the founder of the Wedgwood pottery and her great uncle was Charles Darwin. Within three years however his father was dead and the family moved to his grandparents’ estate south of London. I can attest to the beauty of this area because as a boy, I would trespass on these woods, having no idea that this was the home, actual and spiritual, of Vaughan Williams! He grew up playing the violin, piano and organ, at which we was tolerably good (enough to accompany the Bach choir which he later founded). But he was no prodigy. His success as a composer is due largely to his own dogged determination, the influences of friends and teachers, and his longevity. He benefited too from having a sufficient private income such that he was not obliged to find a day job. He attended the relatively new Royal College of Music where he was fortunate to come under Hubert Parry’s wing and then went up to Cambridge. After earning his D. Mus. at Cambridge, he returned to the RCM. So pleased was he with his new title that when offered a knighthood (as in Sir Ralph) later in life he turned it down, preferring to remain Dr. Vaughan Williams.

He was well aware of his “amateurish technique” and he felt it most acutely in orchestration. He therefore sought out the best teachers he could find.It was suggested that he should study with Max Bruch in Berlin, an appropriate choice given the wonderful orchestration in the Bruch violin concerto. He even requested lessons with Elgar, the clear leader of the English “school”, but was turned down. Instead, RVW spent hours poring over the scores of the Enigma Variations and the Dream of Gerontius. By his own account, A Sea Symphony benefited greatly from these studies. The influence of the latter piece is very strong in places, particularly in the Scherzo.

It was at about this time that he met Gustav Holst and George Butterworth and together they began their great collection of English folk song and dance. Holst would remain a close friend until his death in 1934 (a few months after Elgar died); Butterworth would be killed in 1916 fighting in the “Great” war. Holst had a natural gift for orchestration (just consider the Planets) and, although two years younger, became perhaps RVW’s most important teacher. There was one more important step on the road to mastery of the orchestra. In 1908, RVW traveled to France to study with Ravel who at 33 was already renowned as one of the greatest orchestrators ever. Many revisions to the nascent Sea Symphony were made as a result. Ravel’s impressionist style does not appear overtly, but can be felt most perhaps in the delicate scoring of On the Beach at Night, Alone. Whether Ravel himself was in turn influenced by A Sea Symphony is hard to say, but there is something in the choral entrance in Daphnis et Chloé (1912) that is reminiscent of the opening of The Explorers.

Lest you conclude from the foregoing that RVW was anything but a brilliant, highly regarded composer, let me try to put him in perspective. Despite his slow start, Vaughan Williams became the leading English composer of his day, perhaps of any day, his younger rival Benjamin Britten notwithstanding. His choral writing particularly is simply brilliant, possibly without equal. His music in general is invariably melodic, warm and lyrical. Consider as examples his Five Mystical Songs, the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, The Lark Ascending and the Songs of Travel (especially with the original piano accompaniment). Only in opera was he truly unsuccessful, though that is partly due to his poor choice of librettos. I know from firsthand experience how much fun his operas can be – in 1976 I played in only the second production ever of The Poisoned Kiss, originally produced forty years earlier!

Turning now to Walt Whitman, he also was a slow starter in his chosen occupation. Born in Huntington on Long Island in 1819, to a poor family, he was forced to seek work as a journalist including as far afield as New Orleans. By the time of the publication of the first folio of Leaves of Grass, he was a well-traveled man with a most remarkable gift for observation and understanding. Realizing that he must promote his works to the best of his ability, he sent copies to many of the leading men of letters of the day. Within three weeks Ralph Waldo Emerson had written back in fulsome praise of the poetry and the man. The following year, Whitman was visited by Bronson Alcott and Thoreau. That letter from Emerson was pivotal in Whitman’s career. When he published the next edition of 32 Leaves, he included (without permission) Emerson’s letter. Emerson was however quite upset, especially because he was troubled by the overt sexuality of some of the new poems [the odd thing is that one of the best-known of such poems, I Sing the Body Electric, had appeared in the first edition]. Many editions followed: in all there were finally almost 400 poems, depending on how you count them. The first edition to reach England was published in 1868, basically the fourth edition but without those poems considered by the editor, W. M. Rossetti, to be gross or crude. Some of the later poems are inspired by Whitman’s experiences following the Civil War. Perhaps the most famous is his tribute to Lincoln: O Captain! My Captain!

It would be impossible to classify Whitman’s poems as the range and quality vary tremendously. He styled himself the “Poet of America” and the “Poet of Democracy”. I see him as essentially a humanist who sought to understand what made the world go round and how the brotherhood of man could rise above the petty details of existence (“man elate above death”). Some of his writing is incredibly prescient on the implications of evolution and natural selection. He either was completely up to date regarding the debates leading up to and arising from Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) or else he had an innate understanding.

The free meter used in his poetry actually makes reading quite hard – a passage must typically be read several times aloud before the rhythm really settles. Having the words set to music for us is therefore a great advantage. His range of vocabulary is also quite remarkable, ranging from everyday words that appear, especially at first, utterly banal – to words that, because of their rarity (in some cases quite made up) or their polysyllaby act as magnets to our attention. As an example of the apparently (but not actually) banal: “Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal”. These details seem unimportant until we grasp the significance of this poem which comes at the musical climax of the movement: “But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man one flag above all the rest, A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death”. As an example of magnet words, take the word “clef” (French for key and used in music to fix the pitch of notes on the staff) as in On the Beach: “As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.” Here, the clef is the magic of evolution through the reproduction of organisms or, to put it bluntly, sex.

The poems which Vaughan Williams set in the symphony are: Song of the Exposition (’71), Passage to India (‘71); and (from Sea-Drift) On the Beach At Night Alone (‘56), Song for All Seas, All Ships (‘73), After the Sea-Ship (‘74). The orchestra that he uses is large but normal for the period and, like Mahler in his 8^th, RVW adds one extra special touch: organ.

The opening is a highly effective attention grabber: brass fanfare, followed by the chorus’ “Behold, the sea itself” immediately followed by the entire orchestra playing fortissimo. The baritone soloist sets the stage for the soprano to render the heart of the poem with the passage quoted above. In the second movement, easily the most intimate in its setting, the baritone and chorus deal with some of the largest concepts. Much of the solo part is monotonal – with the melody in the orchestra – thus evoking a sense of the constancy of time. Note the use of one of Whitman’s favorite words “span” – just a short word but embodying a sense of closure and scale that is hard to better. In Scherzo: The Waves, the setting of After the Sea-Ship, itself an almost onomatopoeic description of the ocean, is wonderfully descriptive of the majesty and terror of the ocean. Waves crash to the sound of cymbals, while the voice and harmonies of the chorus mimic the sounds of the wind.

The Explorers, based on A Passage to India, one of Whitman’s masterpieces, not only concludes the symphony but also settles the center of gravity firmly within it. Its length is almost equal to the sum of the other movements. To the opening line “O vast Rondure, swimming in space” close your eyes and imagine the myriad photographs we have all seen taken from space. Then consider that this poem was written one hundred years before such images were possible. The orchestra and chorus now gradually increase in intensity up to the beautiful female chorus line: “the manifold grass and waters” until, following the line “with inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention”, comes an orchestral interlude of such overwhelming passion that it lays claim to the spiritual climax of the entire symphony. This is followed by a series of a cappella semi-chorus passages of unsurpassed beauty. If only we could stop right here and hear it again and again – but life moves on. The pace builds up and the nautical theme returns to introduce amidst another climax the words: “Finally shall come the poet worthy that name, The true son of God shall come singing his songs”. Next, we are rejoined by the soloists accompanied by solo passages in the orchestra. Again a climax (though relatively discreet) arises at the words “Bathe me, O God, in thee”. The orchestra and chorus reassert themselves at the words “O thou transcendant”. The remainder of the movement in which the poet contemplates meeting his maker, relentlessly drives via a series of relative climaxes towards the inevitable, but safe, conclusion which awaits all individuals and entities, but not man the species.

Internet Resources

• Jacques Ibert (in French)
• Jacques Ibert (in French)
• Jacques IBERT (in Dutch) (Warning: MIDI sound)

• Welcome to the RVW Society
• The Ralph Vaughan Williams Web Page
• Ralph Vaughan Williams
• Classical Net - Basic Repertoire List - Vaughan Williams
• Ralph Vaughan-Williams (1872-1958) (Genealogical Table)
• BBC - Music - Profiles - Vaughan Williams
• Stainer & Bell: Ralph Vaughan Willaims
• Ralph Vaughan Williams
• Ralph Vaughan Williams (Hymns, etc.)
• BBC Online - Voices From The Archive - Ralph Vaughan Williams (Hear RVW's own voice)
• Musica Classica - Classical Music - Klassische Musik - Karadar Bertoldi Ensemble
• Ralph Vaughan Williams (Take Five Composer Feature)
• Thomas Thü Hürlimann Illustration Web Design Multimedia (in German) will take you to...
• Ecliptic Illustration Graphic Multimedia (Absolutely brilliant animation from the First Movement of A Sea Symphony - a MUST SEE!)

• Walt Whitman Home Page
• Walt Whitman, Long Island's Great Grey Poet
• Poetry of Walt Whitman; full-text poems of Walt Whitman, including Leaves of Grass, at everypoet.com
• The Whitman Project Main Index
• Walt Whitman Circle
• The Walt Whitman Cultural Arts Center
• Walt Whitman - The Academy of American Poets
• Dept. Of English/ UofMn, Engl 1017: Introduction to Modern Poetry: Walt Whitman
• Walt Whitman Circle

• Benjamin BRITTEN: Biographical Outline (1):Introduction and reputation
• George Butterworth Home Page
• Debussy
• Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
• Edward Elgar - Web site of The Elgar Society, Elgar Birthplace and Elgar
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) - Guide to Resources on Transcendentalism
• Classical Net - Basic Repertoire List - Honegger
• (SPM Program Notes on Ibert Flute Concerto)
• Gustav Mahler WWW Pages
• Classical Net - Composers - Parry
• Honouring Maurice Ravel:Home

Recordings

• Chandos: Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony; Bryden Thomson; London Symphony Orchestra
• Mercury Living Presence: Ibert & Ravel; Paul Paray; Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Bibliography

• Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians
• Vaughan Williams; Simon Heffer; Northeastern University Press
• Whitman - Poetry and Prose; The Library of America