Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958): Symphony No. 6 in E minor [1944-47, rev. 1950]
I. Allegro 02:14
II. Moderato 09:21
III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace 18:37
IV. Epilogue: Moderato 24:24
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Andrew Manze, conductor
With the lyrical Symphony No. 5 (1938-1943), many figured that Vaughan Williams-who was, after all, in his early seventies by this time-was in essence saying farewell to the symphonic idiom. So the surprise and interest was that much greater when the Symphony No. 6 was announced in 1947. Beginning with some sketches from the score for the film The Flemish Farm (1943), Vaughan Williams worked on the Symphony No. 6 over the years 1944-1947. It was given its first performance at the Royal Albert Hall on April 21, 1948, by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. The work was received with tremendous acclaim, and in its first year of existence it was performed nearly 100 times.
The unusual tone of the work, particularly the utter desolation of the final movement, has led many commentators to seek out some kind of extra-musical program. Vaughan Williams, as usual, strongly rejected any such interpretations. The first movement, simply marked Allegro, opens tempestuously. After a brief respite, a swaggering, syncopated march-like section breaks out. Its jazzy gait leads into a stately melody, which is presented first by the strings and then, boldly, by the brass, with heavy percussive accents. After further episodes, the stately tune ultimately returns in a more expressive guise, with flowing strings and strumming harp, gradually building into a final return of the stormy opening music. A single held note from the cellos and basses directly leads into the Moderato second movement. It is eerie and menacing, a chilly landscape that builds to a big, monolithic climax, as a martial three-note figure is hammered out over 90 times by trumpet, brass, and percussion, dominating everything around it. As the crescendo spends itself, a lonely English horn solo over wisps of strings leads into the third movement, a Scherzo marked Allegro vivace. This third movement has some of the sardonic quality of Shostakovich as it generates a considerable amount of undirected energy. A surprising and rather sleazy saxophone solo takes over, with the snare drum tapping away behind it. The saxophone melody is transformed into a noisy, stentorian climax that dies away to some woodwind chatter.
That leads into the ghostly Epilogue: Moderato, which drifts about purposelessly for some 10 minutes at a consistently quiet dynamic. Small fragments of melody try to coalesce, but consistently fail. This movement, and to some extent the second, evokes the chilly, featureless landscapes of Vaughan Williams' score for the film Scott of the Antarctic (1948), and the attendant Sinfonia antartica (Symphony No. 7, 1949-1952). The music continues to drift among muted strings and brass, the former bringing the work to an uneasy end as they rock back and forth, almost inaudibly, between E flat major and E minor chords. This movement's evanescent texture and emotional blankness, not to mention its sheer quietness, are very disturbing, and led some commentators to think that Vaughan Williams was imagining some kind of postwar or post-atomic devastation. The composer rejected such literalism; the only clue he provided was a reference to Prospero's famous speech from The Tempest: "We are such stuff/As dreams are made on, and our little life/Is rounded with a sleep." Perhaps coincidentally, in 1951 Vaughan Williams set these very words to music for chorus as one of his Three Shakespearean Songs.
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