Vaughan Williams: 4-8.4.16, 8-12.2.21 & 2-27.5.22

[antongould]

…… This RVW series is shaping up to be the definitive aural essay on the great man. I might be tempted to say “worth the licence fee on its own “ were that not a cliché.

Couldn’t agree more …..

[Nick Armstrong]

Couldn’t agree more …..

Nor could I …

[Serial_Apologist]

Nor could I …

I certainly "got" what the guest on today's programme, Eric Saylor, was saying about Vaughan William's lasting adoption of a modal, some of said neo-archaic musical language as a signifier for a nation's longing for a "return" of values of peace and security in the wake of the unprecedented horrors and human losses of WWI. This way of aesthetic thinking must have been almost a test of faith, denotive of the centuries of pastoral-led life guided by church, simple faith, sacrifice (which Saylor particularly drew attention to) and little in the way of the mould-breaking changes that came with how a more restless music would come to replace the putative eternities of plainsong-derived modal polyphony, reflective of the transition from agrarian to mercantile-led economics in the 17th century. For all that we may view what had preceded as "the dark ages" it would be the expansion of money and, eventually, the coming of the Industrial Revolution, that would at one and the same time come eventually to threaten the natural rhythms of life - notwithstanding the coming advantages of scientific knowledge. In all these aspects RVW was in sympathy with the late Victorian/Edwardian Arts & Crafts movements with their emphasis on locale, on skill, the fulfilment of sustainable locally-resourced work, and antagonism to urban squalor and class inequalities. Yet Vaughan Williams believed in scientific advance and the familial connections with Darwin might have informed his own atheism/agnosticism. Another connection, that with his friend and mutual musical critic Holst, has thus far been under-mentioned - Holst's fascination in alternative faith systems, allied to his (Holst's) socialism.

All these would be conducive to the singularity of the Vaughan Williams aesthetic (which would of course have huge influence among many of his contemporaries and successors) assuming a presence at once both ancient and modern. VW is interesting inasmuch as, had his inner development been deflected from the course it took by Marxism, in the way that Bush's would be, one can't help feeling he would have evolved a more critical stance with regards to the early influences that were to form him and his outlook for life. But would England (or rather its establishment) have championed him?

[richardfinegold]

I certainly "got" what the guest on today's programme, Eric Saylor, was saying about Vaughan William's lasting adoption of a modal, some of said neo-archaic musical language as a signifier for a nation's longing for a "return" of values of peace and security in the wake of the unprecedented horrors and human losses of WWI. This way of aesthetic thinking must have been almost a test of faith, denotive of the centuries of pastoral-led life guided by church, simple faith, sacrifice (which Saylor particularly drew attention to) and little in the way of the mould-breaking changes that came with how a more restless music would come to replace the putative eternities of plainsong-derived modal polyphony, reflective of the transition from agrarian to mercantile-led economics in the 17th century. For all that we may view what had preceded as "the dark ages" it would be the expansion of money and, eventually, the coming of the Industrial Revolution, that would at one and the same time come eventually to threaten the natural rhythms of life - notwithstanding the coming advantages of scientific knowledge. In all these aspects RVW was in sympathy with the late Victorian/Edwardian Arts & Crafts movements with their emphasis on locale, on skill, the fulfilment of sustainable locally-resourced work, and antagonism to urban squalor and class inequalities. Yet Vaughan Williams believed in scientific advance and the familial connections with Darwin might have informed his own atheism/agnosticism. Another connection, that with his friend and mutual musical critic Holst, has thus far been under-mentioned - Holst's fascination in alternative faith systems, allied to his (Holst's) socialism.

All these would be conducive to the singularity of the Vaughan Williams aesthetic (which would of course have huge influence among many of his contemporaries and successors) assuming a presence at once both ancient and modern. VW is interesting inasmuch as, had his inner development been deflected from the course it took by Marxism, in the way that Bush's would be, one can't help feeling he would have evolved a more critical stance with regards to the early influences that were to form him and his outlook for life. But would England (or rather its establishment) have championed him?

Interesting post. I had never heard of the Arts and Crafts Movement before Googling it in response to this post. My wife is a crafter and always dragging me to Folk Art Museums when we travel (she is off to a Quilting Exhibit in Paducah, Kentucky, this weekend) but I never realized that there was an Aesthetic Movement with an Economic and Societal Critique associated with it. It does sound like an alternative to Marxism in In it’s disdain of Capitalism, Industrialization, and Consumerism. Marxism however seemed to gain greater traction with the English Public, particularly after the Great War, and for generations seemed to relegate Artists such as RVW as irrelevant occupants of cow pastures, a status from which his work has been rising from in the last quarter century

[Serial_Apologist]

Interesting post. I had never heard of the Arts and Crafts Movement before Googling it in response to this post. My wife is a crafter and always dragging me to Folk Art Museums when we travel (she is off to a Quilting Exhibit in Paducah, Kentucky, this weekend) but I never realized that there was an Aesthetic Movement with an Economic and Societal Critique associated with it. It does sound like an alternative to Marxism in In it’s disdain of Capitalism, Industrialization, and Consumerism. Marxism however seemed to gain greater traction with the English Public, particularly after the Great War, and for generations seemed to relegate Artists such as RVW as irrelevant occupants of cow pastures, a status from which his work has been rising from in the last quarter century

If you've never visited this country, visually the influence of the Arts & Crafts movement is evident everywhere in the landscape, particularly throughout our suburbs. It's probably insinuated its way into the collective cultural unconscious in terms of what people have "come to expect" of British, or perhaps more accurately English architecture, than even Elgar's Enigma, Vaughan Williams's Lark Ascending, Delius's First Cuckoo or Walton's Crown Imperial in music, to cite a random selection of national musical tropes - maybe the way Copland has in Americana - or is that hopelessly out-of-date? Canadian visitors marvelled in wonderment at the wide spread of architectural antiquity here just by reference to 1920s and 1930s suburban shopping parades and semi-detached properties bearing what my father would tag "pseudo-Tudo" hallmarks - black and white timber beams and with white plaster rendering - until I explained the fakery involved, to their astonishment! I guess the Arts & Crafts movement had been lying dormant ever since Romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Keats's denunciation of industrialisation and its creeping urban corollary - "we" were first in creating the urban proletariat that gave Marx his class philosophy on a mass-produced plate; yet it was the very existence of this proletariat that the advocates of cottage industry conservation deplored - not blame but the very fact of deskilling and the production line alienation of worker from the fruits of his or her product which where themselves the product of scientific advance, as indeed scientific advance was the product of the new capitalist relations of production and trade.

So we can see how Vaughan Williams's music reflected that contradiction between both the inevitability and advantages of progress in its modernistic side while mourning the vanishing of a past age which, howevermuch it too had been exploitative, had not yet undermined the relationship with/dependence on the land, cycles of nature, etc etc., as expressed in its ancient folklore and supposed eternal verities wrapped up in plainsong and modal polyphony. RVW's successors - the Warlock/Lambert,Walton/Rawsthorne generation - were more indebted to the externals of his art than prepared to admit, freely adapting Stravinsky et al according to the desiderata of generational change. It's instructive how "Establishment" most of them would become in the wake of WW2!

[richardfinegold]

If you've never visited this country, visually the influence of the Arts & Crafts movement is evident everywhere in the landscape, particularly throughout our suburbs. It's probably insinuated its way into the collective cultural unconscious in terms of what people have "come to expect" of British, or perhaps more accurately English architecture, than even Elgar's Enigma, Vaughan Williams's Lark Ascending, Delius's First Cuckoo or Walton's Crown Imperial in music, to cite a random selection of national musical tropes - maybe the way Copland has in Americana - or is that hopelessly out-of-date? Canadian visitors marvelled in wonderment at the wide spread of architectural antiquity here just by reference to 1920s and 1930s suburban shopping parades and semi-detached properties bearing what my father would tag "pseudo-Tudo" hallmarks - black and white timber beams and with white plaster rendering - until I explained the fakery involved, to their astonishment! I guess the Arts & Crafts movement had been lying dormant ever since Romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Keats's denunciation of industrialisation and its creeping urban corollary - "we" were first in creating the urban proletariat that gave Marx his class philosophy on a mass-produced plate; yet it was the very existence of this proletariat that the advocates of cottage industry conservation deplored - not blame but the very fact of deskilling and the production line alienation of worker from the fruits of his or her product which where themselves the product of scientific advance, as indeed scientific advance was the product of the new capitalist relations of production and trade.

So we can see how Vaughan Williams's music reflected that contradiction between both the inevitability and advantages of progress in its modernistic side while mourning the vanishing of a past age which, howevermuch it too had been exploitative, had not yet undermined the relationship with/dependence on the land, cycles of nature, etc etc., as expressed in its ancient folklore and supposed eternal verities wrapped up in plainsong and modal polyphony. RVW's successors - the Warlock/Lambert,Walton/Rawsthorne generation - were more indebted to the externals of his art than prepared to admit, freely adapting Stravinsky et al according to the desiderata of generational change. It's instructive how "Establishment" most of them would become in the wake of WW2!

Been to the UK a few times, but never Suburbia, unless Bath and the Cotswolds are regarded as Suburbia. You didn't quite around to answering my question, and that's ok, but to restate it: If the A&C Movement and Marxism both represent a dissatisfaction with
Modernity, then why is it that Marxism seemed to have become a much more powerful force in the U.K. in the 20th Century? Is is that the latter has more of a stress on Class Conflict, as opposed to individual/personal satisfaction, and therefore a more effective rallying cry?

[Serial_Apologist]

Been to the UK a few times, but never Suburbia, unless Bath and the Cotswolds are regarded as Suburbia. You didn't quite around to answering my question, and that's ok, but to restate it: If the A&C Movement and Marxism both represent a dissatisfaction with
Modernity, then why is it that Marxism seemed to have become a much more powerful force in the U.K. in the 20th Century? Is is that the latter has more of a stress on Class Conflict, as opposed to individual/personal satisfaction, and therefore a more effective rallying cry?

Well I have to question whether it in fact has been "a powerful force" in Britain, Richard. The British labour movement, ideologically speaking, has been much more influenced by Methodism than Marxism, many on the Left over here think.

[Edgy 2]

This RVW series is shaping up to be the definitive aural essay on the great man. I might be tempted to say “worth the licence fee on its own “ were that not a cliché.

I've listened to first week of these programmes on catch up and I have to agree with you

[richardfinegold]

Well I have to question whether it in fact has been "a powerful force" in Britain, Richard. The British labour movement, ideologically speaking, has been much more influenced by Methodism than Marxism, many on the Left over here think.

I think Marxism, and Socialism in general, was more of a force in the UK than here, particularly in the 1930s and the immediate post war era. U

[Serial_Apologist]

I think Marxism, and Socialism in general, was more of a force in the UK than here, particularly in the 1930s and the immediate post war era. U

I wonder if anybody else will take up the debate - maybe this not being the right place? The New Deal was an American innovation - over here we had no equivalent until the welfare state in the postwar period.

[Maclintick]

I wonder if anybody else will take up the debate - maybe this not being the right place? The New Deal was an American innovation - over here we had no equivalent until the welfare state in the postwar period.

Verrry interresting...S-A, as those of us who are old enough to remember Arte Johnson might aver. For left-leaning folk of my parents' generation the authors of the New Deal and Marshall Plan for post-war reconstruction in Europe were held in high esteem -- along with Attlee & Bevan, of course. Incidentally, I recall Wedgwood Benn coming out with the aperçu you quote that "the Labour Party owes more to Methodism than to Marx", but contrariwise, religious affiliation may not be as clear-cut an indicator of political allegiance when one remembers that Margaret Thatcher was also a Methodist...

William Morris's emancipatory brand of Arts-&-Crafts socialism, with its emphasis on being rooted in local communities, was bread-&-butter to a clutch of 20th cent. British composers -- RVW in Surrey, Holst at Morley College & Thaxted, where his close friend the rector Conrad Noel preached Marxist fire-&-brimstone from the pulpit, Tippett also at Morley & in the Cleveland (N.Yorks) mining communities, Britten in Aldeburgh.

If one aspect of Morris's legacy are the sprawling Mock Tudor suburbs, I don't think that RVW's music can be considered analogous. His synthesis of Elizabethan polyphony, folk modes & the more advanced harmonic language of his Gallic contemporaries resulted in strikingly original creations -- Tallis Fantasia & Flos Campi, to give just 2 examples, both of which bear out Peter Maxwell-Davies's observation that RVW's music takes you to imaginative realms unvisited by other composers (I paraphrase). With a month's worth of programmes Donald McLeod has had the space to locate this long-lived composer in his era, in the context of terrifying 20th.cent cataclysms -- World Wars, General Strike, Totalitarianism, Depression & Mass Unemployment, nuclear devastation. I'm finding it compulsive listening.

[Serial_Apologist]

Verrry interresting...S-A, as those of us who are old enough to remember Arte Johnson might aver. For left-leaning folk of my parents' generation the authors of the New Deal and Marshall Plan for post-war reconstruction in Europe were held in high esteem -- along with Attlee & Bevan, of course. Incidentally, I recall Wedgwood Benn coming out with the aperçu you quote that "the Labour Party owes more to Methodism than to Marx", but contrariwise, religious affiliation may not be as clear-cut an indicator of political allegiance when one remembers that Margaret Thatcher was also a Methodist...

William Morris's emancipatory brand of Arts-&-Crafts socialism, with its emphasis on being rooted in local communities, was bread-&-butter to a clutch of 20th cent. British composers -- RVW in Surrey, Holst at Morley College & Thaxted, where his close friend the rector Conrad Noel preached Marxist fire-&-brimstone from the pulpit, Tippett also at Morley & in the Cleveland (N.Yorks) mining communities, Britten in Aldeburgh.

If one aspect of Morris's legacy are the sprawling Mock Tudor suburbs, I don't think that RVW's music can be considered analogous. His synthesis of Elizabethan polyphony, folk modes & the more advanced harmonic language of his Gallic contemporaries resulted in strikingly original creations -- Tallis Fantasia & Flos Campi, to give just 2 examples, both of which bear out Peter Maxwell-Davies's observation that RVW's music takes you to imaginative realms unvisited by other composers (I paraphrase). With a month's worth of programmes Donald McLeod has had the space to locate this long-lived composer in his era, in the context of terrifying 20th.cent cataclysms -- World Wars, General Strike, Totalitarianism, Depression & Mass Unemployment, nuclear devastation. I'm finding it compulsive listening.

Indeed so.

[Nick Armstrong]

[cloughie]

Who’d stream eh!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Re the wrong Te Deum .
Believe me this kind of thing that happened in the days of vinyl as well.
It’s also one of those “if you hadn’t fessed up how many would have noticed moments? .”