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Ralph Vaughan Williams

instruments—A harp, celesta, triangle, cymbals, drum the third variation,” from D to E, “the chorus sings
and tabor. And even more immediate in its direct the tune in unison while the piano continues the same
appeal to the senses is the wordless chorus of twenty to sort of writing though with fatter chords.” The fourth
twenty-six voices.” variation, from E to F, “is a fugato for voice without
18 Foss, 158. piano, until it too is given an entry in heavy double
19 Kennedy, The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, 211–212. octaves.” Variation five, from F to G, “is in the style of

Kennedy wrote, as well, that the suite was “a sensuous a cadenza for piano alone.” Then: “In variation six,”
work from [the] composer’s pen, the product of a new from G to H, “the voices are again in unison while the
interest in sonorities combined with a mood expressive orchestra carries the harmonies and the piano, with
of the mingled sexual-mystical ecstasy, derived from hands encompassing the extremes of the keyboard,
physical passion, which the Song of Solomon also plasters it all with great chords.” Finally, from letter
exemplifi es,” 191. H to the end is the seventh and last variation; here
20 Day, 228. He wrote also: “it is expressed with an intensity “the voices sing flowing counterpoint which is largely

that may well have sounded distinctly un-English to the doubled by the orchestra, and the piano silenced . . .

work’s first listeners,” 228. until the final paean.” (p. 182)

21 Ibid, 229. Furthermore, “the voices, however, are treated 28 A. E. F. Dickinson, Vaughan Williams (London: Faber and
as part of the instrumental coloring; and though the Faber, 1963), 427.
chorus part is prominent, it projects, reflects, and stands 29 Dickinson, 427.

over and against the ravishing concertante part for the 30 Ibid., 427.
solo viola,” 228. 31 The Tudor Singers and their conductor Harry Stubbs
22 Dickinson, Vaughan Williams, 234–35. gave the fi rst private performance. Hugh Cobbe,
23 Foss, 157. He goes on to write: “[the work] has a strange Letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams 1895–1958 (Oxford,
concatenation of qualities: universal yet personal in 2008), 428, n. 4. Kennedy qualifies this by indicating

speech, unappealing, it is endearing in its beauty; the participants as Steuart Wilson (speaker), the
personal in the extreme, it is remote; intimate, it stands Tudor Singers, Schwiller String Quartet and Michael
in a lone philosophic attitude of thought.” Mullinar (pianoforte), conducted by RVW. Kennedy, A
24 Kennedy, The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, 213. Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Second
25 Stephen Town, An Imperishable Heritage: British Choral Music Edition (Oxford, 1996), 187.
from Parry to Dyson (Ashgate, 2012), 301. 32 Ursula Vaughan Williams, R.V.W.: A Biography of Ralph
26 Kennedy, Catalogue, 187. Vaughan Williams (Oxford, 1964), 292.
27 Frank Howes, The Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Oxford 33 The reader is referred to the vocal score and to the
University Press, 1954), 181-182. He describes the work orchestral study score published by Oxford University
thusly: “In the first variation to the first verse of the Press in 1952 and 1982, respectively.

Psalm,” occurring from rehearsal letter A to C, “the 34 See A. Dwight Culler, Imaginative Reason: The Poetry of
choir has a version of the tune ornamented with little Matthew Arnold (Yale University Press, 1966), Chapter

four-note flourishes over simple harmonies in quaver Eight: The Use of Elegy, 250.
motion, while the piano plays an even more highly
ornamented version of the tune and the orchestra a
much simpler harmonization.” The second variation
accordingly follows from C to D where “for piano
alone the writing is varied freely from line to line of
the tune, beginning with the romantic type of arpeggio
in the left hand, going on to parallel sixths, thence to
ornamental triplets in the right hand and so on in a
free, quasi-improvisatory manner.” He continues: “In

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