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Lesser-Known or Infrequently-Performed Choral Works of

minor, volubly but simply accompanied.” Then “this sures (6/8 and Lento), the fi rst motif (a) consists of two

last verse overflows into a brief phrase of ecstatic po- phrases, rhythmically asymmetrical, each made up of

lyphony, balancing the first with the fourth phrase in D an embellished descending major sixth followed by
major and minor, but inevitably … reaching the major a descending minor second and an ascending minor
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for the close.” 30 third (that is, A-G-A-C-B-D and G-F-G-B -A-C).
Vaughan Williams’s chamber work (25 minutes) for The second motif (b) features three statements of an
speaker, small mixed chorus and small orchestra, ti- ascending perfect fourth succeeded by an ascending

tled An Oxford Elegy (1949), received its first public per- minor second and a descending minor second (D-G-
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formance at the Queen’s College, Oxford University, A -G, D-G-A -G, and G-C-D -C). Introduced by the
on June 19, 1952. The success of the premiere was chorus, the third motif (c) is identified by its repetition

preceded by, and the result of, the first private perfor- of a single note, A, reached initially by an ascending
mance at The White Gates on November 20, 1949. 31 minor third and major second (D-F-G-A) and fol-
This was a run-through that the composer arranged lowed by a descending minor second and augment-

to pre-audition the work he had started to sketch two ed second (G -F-A) or an ascending minor third and
years earlier using portions of The Scholar-Gipsy and descending minor second (C-B-A). While the repeti-
Thyrsis, two long poems by Matthew Arnold. Ursu- tion of the single note and of the sinuous chromat-
la recounts: “There were a good many discussions ic structure of the third motif (c) contributes to the
about it during the summer [of 1949]. … After using languorously intoxicating effect of the composition,

a speaker for his Thanksgiving for Victory he thought it all three motifs are characterized by their propensity
would be interesting to try this again, but in a much for elaboration, fragmentation or variation, as they
smaller, almost chamber, work. He cut and re-cut the are concatenated in the music throughout the work.
poems, ‘cheating’ he said, so that all his favorite lines An integral distillation of thought is embodied in
should be in—and I re-typed the script almost every a single simultaneity, D-flat minor in second inver-

week.” The result was a composite text of 490 lines sion (three after letter T) (vocal score, page 16; study
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(250 from The Scholar-Gipsy and 240 from Thyrsis). score, page 38), against which the narrator articulates
Vaughan Williams outlines the overall structure of without pause lines 141, 171 and 180. It is here that

The Scholar-Gipsy, but only four of the five sections, with Vaughan Williams fuses the end of his reading of The
a sensuously evocative harmonic language. The mu- Scholar-Gipsy with the beginning of Thyrsis, a compo-
sic from the commencement of the work to letter M sitional solution that reflects the creation of the two

corresponds to the first section of the poem, whereas poems. Arnold composed the latter poem—which is

the music from letter M to five measures after letter about his loss of creative power—fifteen years after the
S represents the second section, and from that point former, and although “they employ the same locale
to three measures after letter T, the third section. The and are written in the same stanza and the same pasto-
music from three measures after letter T to seven mea- ral mode,” writes Culler, they are diff erent. The Schol-
sures after letter V, underscores a fourth section heav- ar-Gipsy “is primarily a Romantic dream-vision which

ily abbreviated (the fifth section is omitted completely creates an ideal figure who lives outside of time” (that

by the composer), which is fused immediately and pur- is, the Scholar-Gipsy), “whereas [Thyrsis] “is an ele-
posively with the beginning of the companion poem, gy about a human [being] who lived in time and was
Thyrsis. 33 thereby destroyed” (that is, Arnold’s friend, Arthur
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The work opens with music for orchestra and Clough). Both poems are about the contest between
wordless chorus that exudes the chromatic exoticism permanence and change: the alteration of the image
of that earlier and daring work of 1925, Flos cam- of the Scholar-Gipsy in the former, the impermanence
pi. In point of fact, the music that initiates the work of place and persons in the latter.
contains several motifs upon which it is entirely con- To illuminate his interpretation of the fi rst poem
structed. Emerging from the quiescent opening mea- and the transition to the second, Vaughan Williams

40 CHORAL JOURNAL October 2022 Volume 63 Number 3