A Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)

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The Pastoral Symphony is a symphony written by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1922. Vaughan Williams was inspired to write this symphony after hearing a bugler in World War I accidentally play an interval of a seventh instead of an octave, which led to the trumpet cadenza in the second movement. The symphony is among the least performed out of Vaughan Williams' repertoire, but has gained the reputation of being a subtly beautiful funeral elegy for the dead of World War I. Like many of the composer's works, the Pastoral Symphony is not programmatic, but its moods are so evocative that one has the impression that any appropriate story may be applied to the piece. None of the movements are particularly fast or upbeat, but there are more outgoing sections in this work.

The symphony is in four movements:

Molto moderato - contentedly calm in tone, but with a darker central section, the opening movement contains bitonal harmonies reminiscent of Ravel, one of Vaughan Williams' tutors. The music is lyrical, features solo instruments a lot, and sounds as though it is improvised, so naturally do the ideas flow into one another. Especially memorable is the cor anglais' tune.
Lento moderato - the gloomy slow movement opens with a C Major horn solo above an F Minor chord, a theme which is developed by a solo 'cello. The music becomes very gloomy before the trumpet enters to brighten things up. It is a natural trumpet (a trumpet without valves) in Eb, so the whole cadenza is over a pedal note. The cadenza leads to an emotive climax, immediately followed by a return to the deep gloom which pervades the movement. The tone brightens once more with a duet between a clarinet playing the original horn theme, and the horn playing the trumpet's theme,before the movement ends with a restlessly quiet chord in the violins' high register.
Moderato pesante - a scherzo in all but name, Vaughan Williams described this movement as a "slow dance". The first theme has a sense of wearyness to it (pesante means "heavy") and is followed by an episode that is the closest allusion to the waritme inspiration of the work in the entire symphony. The second theme, for flute, is extremely "pastoral". The trio is a bright and courtly dance introduced by the brass section. This series of themes, minus the warlike episode, is then repeated before the climax of the movement leads to what seems like its weary conclusion. But there is a coda - a quiet, mercurial, and very dreamlike fugue that can only be described as "fairy music", especially as it features a celesta. Very subtly, the theme from the warlike episode creeps into this fugue, so different as to be barely recognisable. The movement ends in a peaceful major chord, all trace of wearyness gone.
Lento - the final movement begins with a wordless modal recitative for a soprano voice, which has been silent until this point, sung over a soft drumroll. The orchestra then begins its elegaic rhapsody. In the central section, frightening quick motives are contrasted with the solo flute's beautiful restatement of the soprano's melody. There is what seems like a triumphant climax before, at the very end of the symphony, the soprano returns to sing the music into silence.

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