RVW: A London Symphony (1920 version)

[Pabmusic]

Interesting ideas here. And of course RVW famously gave evidence for Michael Tippet when the latter was tried for 'pacifism' in WW2.

But it's important to remember that RVW was not a pacifist himself. He volunteered at 42 - over-age - was a Private in the Medical Corps and eventually took a commission in the Royal Garrison Artillery (heavy artillery, the major cause of casualties in WW1, by far). He undoubtedly experienced terrible things, but also insisted on directing his battery lying down when he was ill and might have been excused. A complex human, like most of us.

He undoubtedly felt the loss of friends - that seems to me to have been his principal reaction to the war. Butterworth was the greatest. Apparently, to the end of his days RVW kept pictures of only two people by his bedside, Butterworth and Holst (another close friend who was no pacifist, just unfit - he had tried hard to enlist).

Given this, I find it hard to see his output in the 20s, 30s and 40s as some sort of purging of the effects of war. He certainly never seems to have hinted at it, neither did Ursula or Michael Kennedy (who knew him well after WW2). His style certainly developed (probably from the Pastoral Symphony onward) and became quite spare (Sancta Civitas, Flo Campi) and discordant (Job, Sym 4) - but that's surely to be expected from someone who'd been composing for 20-30 years and who's long ago written The Solent, In the Fen Country and On Wenlock Edge - all of which contain clues to the later style. Michael Kennedy (tellingly) says in Tony Palmer's flawed bio-documentary of RVW, that the Fourth Symphony is a portrait of the composer raging against his 'imprisonment' in marriage to a crippled wife (Adeline); that the Fifth is Ursula Wood, who brought him out of it (Ursula referred to it as "our" symphony); that Satan's theme in Job came to him at a dinner party. I am sure that the Sixth must contain something of WW2 - how could it not, being written in 1946? - but surely not a vision of post-nuclear destruction written by chance several years before mutual destruction was a real possibility.

All I'm saying here is that it's easy for us to assume causation. We know what was to happen; RVW didn't. Our assumptions are made with hindsight.

Now here's a letter George Butterworth wrote RVW the day after the first performance of the London. There are several interesting things about it, so I'll reproduce it all:

43 Colville Gardens
Bayswater W.

March 28 1914

My dear Ralph

Among all the debauch of last night's congratulations and mutual pattings on the back, I really had nothing much to add, but should now like to tell you how frightfully glad I am that you have at last achieved something worthy of your gifts (I refer to the work & its performance jointly, for after all a work cannot be a fine one until it is finely played - and it is still possible that the Sea Symphony & the Mystical Songs may turn out equally well - but at present they are not in the same class).

I really advise you not to alter a note of the Symph: until after its second performance (which is bound to come soon) - the passages I kicked at didn't bother me at all, because the music as a whole is so definite that a little occasional meandering is pleasant rather than otherwise. As to the scoring, I frankly don't understand how it all comes off so well, but it does all sound right, so there's nothing more to be said.

One practical result is that you have turned the Ellis concerts from a doubtful to a certain success and I hope he will announce another series soon, & perhaps we should start a guarantee fund.

Meanwhile here's to Symph no 2!

Yours

George B.

Firstly, note how GSKB refers to the next symphony as "no 2" - this mirrors RVW's comment I quoted in an earlier post that he had never attempted a symphony. Clearly neither considered A Sea Symphony as being one - at least not a 'proper' one.

Secondly, it seems clear that GSKB did not consider A Sea Symphony and the Five Mystical Songs had yet received good performances. We often forget that people couldn't listen to a recording or a broadcast, but simply had to wait until a new work was performed again and hope it would be more than just adequate.

Thirdly, it's clear that GSKB had discussed certain passages with RVW before the performance and had expressed his disquiet. He still seems to have reservations - I'm not sure just how happy I'd have been with that second paragraph! But RVW treated it as serious criticism, even though he later wrote to Sir Alexander Kaye-Butterworth:

There was one passage which troubled him very much - but I could never get him to say exactly what was wrong with it - All he would say was "It won't do at all".

The point is that the idea of revision was 'in the air' from the beginning. When the Carnegie UK Trust agreed in 1917 to publish the London, RVW was insistent that is needed revision before it could be printed:

I fear there is no chance of my being able to revise my symphony for a long time to come. However, I do not think that the revisions will make much difference to the size of the work (if anything it will be shorter)...

In fact, RVW didn't stop tinkering with it. The few performances before 1920 each used a slightly different text. All through the 1920s (after it was published) he made changes - almost for each performance. (The first published version (1920) was actually labelled 'revised edition'.) Then he made the 1933 'revised revised' edition... But he still made more changes before that version was published in 1936.

Sometimes you just can't leave things alone, can you?

[Pabmusic]

my initial impulse is to concur with this. However, when I think of the Pastoral (3) being composed while RVW labored as an ambulance driver amidst the slaughter in Flanders, then seeing 5 as a response to WW Ii begins to make some sense. At the height of madness, perhaps his soul seeks solace in feelings far removed.

The autograph score of the Pastoral is dated 28 June 1921. There is no doubt that RVW began to think about a symphony in 1916 but he doesn't seem to have sketched anything at the time. The famous story about the bugler hitting a 'wrong' note no doubt happened, but RVW wrote it down in 1921.

RVW wrote to Ursula Wood (as she then was) in 1938:

It's really war-time music - a great deal of it incubated when I used to go up night after night with the ambulance waggon at Ecoives and we went up a steep hill and there was a wonderful Corot-like landscape in the sunset - it's not really lambkins frisking at all as most people take for granted.

[richardfinegold]

The autograph score of the Pastoral is dated 28 June 1921. There is no doubt that RVW began to think about a symphony in 1916 but he doesn't seem to have sketched anything at the time. The famous story about the bugler hitting a 'wrong' note no doubt happened, but RVW wrote it down in 1921.

RVW wrote to Ursula Wood (as she then was) in 1938:

It's really war-time music - a great deal of it incubated when I used to go up night after night with the ambulance waggon at Ecoives and we went up a steep hill and there was a wonderful Corot-like landscape in the sunset - it's not really lambkins frisking at all as most people take for granted.

Well, I will defer to your expertise, but I thought that the Composer was quoted as conceiving the work during his Military Service. Perhaps, pace Mozart, it was 'in his head' at that time, and only formally written later. My basic point is still that RVW sought relief from the horrors of war in music that conjured more serene images.

[Pabmusic]

Well, I will defer to your expertise, but I thought that the Composer was quoted as conceiving the work during his Military Service. Perhaps, pace Mozart, it was 'in his head' at that time, and only formally written later. My basic point is still that RVW sought relief from the horrors of war in music that conjured more serene images.

Well, I think the quote from the 1938 letter says much the same as you do about the Pastoral's inception. However, what seems to have exercised RVW was the contrast between the war and the Corot-like landscape. Clearly that was an image he had (or he wanted Ursula to believe he had).

I'm just cautioning about attaching the 'pacifist visionary' label to RVW. He wasn't. His response to the horrors he must have seen at the front was to obtain a commission in the heavy artillery.

[Lat-Literal]

Interesting ideas here. And of course RVW famously gave evidence for Michael Tippet when the latter was tried for 'pacifism' in WW2.

But it's important to remember that RVW was not a pacifist himself. He volunteered at 42 - over-age - was a Private in the Medical Corps and eventually took a commission in the Royal Garrison Artillery (heavy artillery, the major cause of casualties in WW1, by far). He undoubtedly experienced terrible things, but also insisted on directing his battery lying down when he was ill and might have been excused. A complex human, like most of us.

He undoubtedly felt the loss of friends - that seems to me to have been his principal reaction to the war. Butterworth was the greatest. Apparently, to the end of his days RVW kept pictures of only two people by his bedside, Butterworth and Holst (another close friend who was no pacifist, just unfit - he had tried hard to enlist).

Given this, I find it hard to see his output in the 20s, 30s and 40s as some sort of purging of the effects of war. He certainly never seems to have hinted at it, neither did Ursula or Michael Kennedy (who knew him well after WW2). His style certainly developed (probably from the Pastoral Symphony onward) and became quite spare (Sancta Civitas, Flo Campi) and discordant (Job, Sym 4) - but that's surely to be expected from someone who'd been composing for 20-30 years and who's long ago written The Solent, In the Fen Country and On Wenlock Edge - all of which contain clues to the later style. Michael Kennedy (tellingly) says in Tony Palmer's flawed bio-documentary of RVW, that the Fourth Symphony is a portrait of the composer raging against his 'imprisonment' in marriage to a crippled wife (Adeline); that the Fifth is Ursula Wood, who brought him out of it (Ursula referred to it as "our" symphony); that Satan's theme in Job came to him at a dinner party. I am sure that the Sixth must contain something of WW2 - how could it not, being written in 1946? - but surely not a vision of post-nuclear destruction written by chance several years before mutual destruction was a real possibility.

All I'm saying here is that it's easy for us to assume causation. We know what was to happen; RVW didn't. Our assumptions are made with hindsight.

Now here's a letter George Butterworth wrote RVW the day after the first performance of the London. There are several interesting things about it, so I'll reproduce it all:

43 Colville Gardens
Bayswater W.

March 28 1914

My dear Ralph

Among all the debauch of last night's congratulations and mutual pattings on the back, I really had nothing much to add, but should now like to tell you how frightfully glad I am that you have at last achieved something worthy of your gifts (I refer to the work & its performance jointly, for after all a work cannot be a fine one until it is finely played - and it is still possible that the Sea Symphony & the Mystical Songs may turn out equally well - but at present they are not in the same class).

I really advise you not to alter a note of the Symph: until after its second performance (which is bound to come soon) - the passages I kicked at didn't bother me at all, because the music as a whole is so definite that a little occasional meandering is pleasant rather than otherwise. As to the scoring, I frankly don't understand how it all comes off so well, but it does all sound right, so there's nothing more to be said.

One practical result is that you have turned the Ellis concerts from a doubtful to a certain success and I hope he will announce another series soon, & perhaps we should start a guarantee fund.

Meanwhile here's to Symph no 2!

Yours

George B.

Firstly, note how GSKB refers to the next symphony as "no 2" - this mirrors RVW's comment I quoted in an earlier post that he had never attempted a symphony. Clearly neither considered A Sea Symphony as being one - at least not a 'proper' one.

Secondly, it seems clear that GSKB did not consider A Sea Symphony and the Five Mystical Songs had yet received good performances. We often forget that people couldn't listen to a recording or a broadcast, but simply had to wait until a new work was performed again and hope it would be more than just adequate.

Thirdly, it's clear that GSKB had discussed certain passages with RVW before the performance and had expressed his disquiet. He still seems to have reservations - I'm not sure just how happy I'd have been with that second paragraph! But RVW treated it as serious criticism, even though he later wrote to Sir Alexander Kaye-Butterworth:

There was one passage which troubled him very much - but I could never get him to say exactly what was wrong with it - All he would say was "It won't do at all".

The point is that the idea of revision was 'in the air' from the beginning. When the Carnegie UK Trust agreed in 1917 to publish the London, RVW was insistent that is needed revision before it could be printed:

I fear there is no chance of my being able to revise my symphony for a long time to come. However, I do not think that the revisions will make much difference to the size of the work (if anything it will be shorter)...

In fact, RVW didn't stop tinkering with it. The few performances before 1920 each used a slightly different text. All through the 1920s (after it was published) he made changes - almost for each performance. (The first published version (1920) was actually labelled 'revised edition'.) Then he made the 1933 'revised revised' edition... But he still made more changes before that version was published in 1936.

Sometimes you just can't leave things alone, can you?

A very interesting post.

But I am not sure that I read "meanwhile here's to Symph no 2!" as alluding to a future symphony. The letter starts "among all the debauch of last night's congratulations". That implies drinks etc. I think the way the letter ends is designed to tie in with its start. It is surely a "here's to" raising of a glass to what has just been produced and performed. In other words, it is a "cheers to what we have just achieved with this" - a continuation in writing of the mutual backslapping he refers to at the beginning - rather than an "onwards and upwards to the next"? He does, after all, refer to the Sea Symphony in the letter as the Sea "Symphony". Only that "symphony" could then be regarded as Symphony No 1.

As suggested in my earlier posts, I completely agree that he was not a pacifist and hence he was not a "pacifist visionary". I also take on board Clive Heath's point that not all of the Bloomsbury Set were against WW1 although that was their broad brush stance. And I agree that the principal impact on Vaughan Williams of that war as with many others was in the loss of close ones including friends. But then I think it is necessary to consider the extent of the friendship which in the case of Butterworth was so considerable that he had, as you describe, a photograph of him beside his bed. He changed scores over time. That was one of his characteristics. Consequently, the reasons behind the changes for No 2 can be overthought or overstated. It isn't as if changes were simply made to that work. Still, there were specific circumstances around that work which involved extensive discussion with Butterworth just prior to the war and a not entirely clear picture of what Butterworth wanted. It seems from your post that he wanted a number of changes before the first performance, didn't win the day on every change, and then having heard it performed felt that maybe it was right as it stood. I suggest that RVW had a strong instinct to revisit it regularly after the war with questions in his mind about how it would best reflect Butterworth, the loss of Butterworth and possibly more broadly others who had died in that war.

To formally revise in the 1920 version implies an attempt at drawing a line under what had happened but given, as you say, he continued to chop and change it throughout the 1920s, that suggests to me the matter had not been resolved in his mind. The significance of the publication of a further revision in the mid 1930s may well be that there was a general sense that war was again on the horizon. My reading of the "revised revised" Symphony No 2, No 5 and No 6 is that none of them are a pacifist statement and all are a contribution to the country and its war effort. They are respectively a before, during and after WW2. None are exactly Corot-like but that concept of light against the darkness runs through them. There is an uplifting among elements if not of tragedy then the sheer bloody business of war including situations emerging in which war is deemed necessary. The continuation of thought in him from the first war to the second - which I suggest is in the time line of No 2 - is reflected in that letter to Ursula in 1938 about Symphony No 3 which had been completed some 16-17 years earlier. No 4 is different. Perhaps a warning is not the right word for it but it is a reflection of the gathering internationally of dark forces.

On his personal living arrangements, I don't disagree. There was a significant strand of those in the music too. But I am inclined to make a tentative link between his marriage to Adeline and the impacts in society of there being so many people war wounded and between his relationship with Ursula and a political situation in which there is no need for battle.

[Pabmusic]

A very interesting post.

But I am not sure that I read "meanwhile here's to Symph no 2!" as alluding to a future symphony...

If you look at post no. 6, you'll see I quote RVW's remembrance of Butterworth's original suggestion for the London:

We were talking together one day when he said in his gruff, abrupt manner: 'You know, you ought to write a symphony'. I answered... that I'd never written a symphony and never intended to... I suppose Butterworth's words stung me and, anyhow, I looked out some sketches I had made for... a symphonic poem about London and decided to throw it into symphonic form... From that moment, the idea of a symphony dominated my mind...

(He had, of course, written A Sea Symphony already.)

Surely this makes it clear that, when GSKB refers to 'Symph no 2' he definitely isn't talking about the London.

[Pabmusic]

...On his personal living arrangements, I don't have any reason to disagree that there wasn't a significant strand of those in the music too. However, I am inclined to make a tentative link between his marriage to Adeline and the impacts in society of there being so many people war wounded and between his relationship with Ursula and a political situation in which there is no need for battle.

RVW never once seems to have suggested that the symphonies we're considering concerned war (except the Pastoral, of course). Not one acquaintance that I know of suggests anything like that, and many (Michael Kennedy and Ursula, for instance, dismiss the idea). RVW specifically said nos. 4 & 6 had nothing to do with war ("Why can't a man just write a piece of music?"). Now, none of this means that you're mistaken - perhaps they really had a "deeper" meaning that he didn't want to share, but I'd suggest you'd need more solid ground before arguing that this is anything but a very personal view (a valid interpretation, maybe. Just unsupported.). But when it comes to the London, to link the revisions to a reaction to WW1 is surely unsupported in ways that even the 4-5-6 hypothesis is not.

[Lat-Literal]

RVW never once seems to have suggested that the symphonies we're considering concerned war (except the Pastoral, of course). Not one acquaintance that I know of suggests anything like that, and many (Michael Kennedy and Ursula, for instance, dismiss the idea). RVW specifically said nos. 4 & 6 had nothing to do with war ("Why can't a man just write a piece of music?"). Now, none of this means that you're mistaken - perhaps they really had a "deeper" meaning that he didn't want to share, but I'd suggest you'd need more solid ground before arguing that this is anything but a very personal view (a valid interpretation, maybe. Just unsupported.). But when it comes to the London, to link the revisions to a reaction to WW1 is surely unsupported in ways that even the 4-5-6 hypothesis is not.

Well, in some ways I am happy to detach it from that connotation as it wasn't my starting point. But then to really think about the dates of the changes as they were highlighted in your first post and I believe it was ferney who responded to what I had said with the war reference. It has developed. I feel now that it is almost poppies that are growing upwards on Leith Hill. I do feel that there is something of the British reserve in his statements. "Horrid modern music", "Why can't a man just write a piece of music?".....these are "I'm not sure that I want to answer these questions, they are too emotionally probing and the music should speak for itself" sorts of phrases. I accept too that he may have meant precisely what he said and nothing more. On "Sea", you may well be right Pab but I think there is a question about when it became a "Symphony". That word is used in the letter you cite.

[Pabmusic]

...I think there is a question about when it became a "Symphony". That word is used in the letter you cite.

Oh, it was A Sea Symphony from the beginning. However, RVW doesn't seem to have included it in his canon immediately, it being a choral work in symphonic form. Elgar's The Black Knight is, too ('symphony for chorus and orchestra') although Novellos called it a cantata.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oh, it was A Sea Symphony from the beginning. However, RVW doesn't seem to have included it in his canon immediately, it being a choral work in symphonic form.

Yes - do you know when RVW finally decided it was a "real" Symphony, Pabs? (Obviously by the time he got to #8 - otherwise it would be "#7"!)

[Lat-Literal]

Oh, it was A Sea Symphony from the beginning. However, RVW doesn't seem to have included it in his canon immediately, it being a choral work in symphonic form. Elgar's The Black Knight is, too ('symphony for chorus and orchestra') although Novellos called it a cantata.

OK, fair enough. I think the only point I would want to add - and it is a very personal sort of reflection - is this one. When I attempted to ask my uncles in the 1970s about their experiences of fighting in Burma and going in to Belsen at the end of WW2 to deal with the carnage, neither would speak about them just as they hadn't spoken about them from the 1940s. This was not at all uncommon. I would imagine that it wasn't the done thing either to dwell in public on WW1 experience other than on formal occasions. Music may formally address war via War Requiems and so on but if it isn't written with that overt intention then maybe it wasn't to be expected that someone would speak of undercurrents.

[Pabmusic]

Yes - do you know when RVW finally decided it was a "real" Symphony, Pabs? (Obviously by the time he got to #8 - otherwise it would be "#7"!)

I think you've answered it, Ferney.

The 8th was the first symphony he allowed to have a number. He originally called it Symphony in D (adding 'minor' later) but OUP said it would cause confusion with his Symphony in D - that is No. 5. He reluctantly agreed to number it, so that was presumably the moment of decision. By 1955 A Sea Symphony was well established, so I guess he took that as No. 1. But I don't actually know...

[Pabmusic]

OK, fair enough. I think the only point I would want to add - and it is a very personal sort of reflection - is this one. When I attempted to ask my uncles in the 1970s about their experiences of fighting in Burma and going in to Belsen at the end of WW2 to deal with the carnage, neither would speak about them just as they hadn't spoken about them from the 1940s. This was not at all uncommon. I would imagine that it wasn't the done thing either to dwell in public on WW1 experience other than on formal occasions. Music may formally address war via War Requiems and so on but if it isn't written with that overt intention then maybe it wasn't to be expected that someone would speak of undercurrents.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I know exactly that phenomenon. My father always told told my mother, sister and me that he was in the Navy, attached to Combined Operations (all of which was true). It wasn't until after he died that we found out the whole truth, which was that he was a Commando. He never told even his wife.

[EdgeleyRob]

Belated thanks for the recent fascinating posts here.