Vaughan Williams Flashcards
What was Vaughan Williams influenced by?
English folk music, Tudor music and Impressionistic (Debussy and Ravel)
What are the folk influences?
Vocal melodies resemble folk
Use of modes
What impressionist influences are there?
False relations and parallel movement
What are the lyrics based on?
Six poems from ‘A Shropshire Lad’ by A.E Housman
What is a song cycle?
Collection of songs in the Western Classical tradition that share similar subject matter or have texts by the same poet
What is Wenlock Edge?
Limestone escarpment in the Shropshire Hills area of outstanding natural beauty
What’s the story behind ‘On Wenlock Edge’?
Wild storm lashing out at young trees
The poet realises that Romans experiences the storms
Romans faced the same struggles
Storm is brief so sufferings will soon be over
What’s the story behind ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’
Dialogue between a ghost and a young man (friend)
Friend stolen the dead means girlfriend
What’s the story behind ‘Bredon Hill’?
Young love defeated by death
Bells calling people to church - the couple say they’ll go on their wedding day
Girl dies - bells are tolled
What instruments is On Wenlock Edge composed for?
Tenor
String quartet
Piano
Describe the piano part
Not hard but not virtuosic
Describe the special effects in ‘On Wenlock Edge’
Quiet demisemiquaver flourishes
ppp echoes
extended trills
tremolos
Describe the full textures in ‘Bredon Hill’
Large chords together with chains of parallel 4ths
R.H melody doubled at the 4th and octave above, L.H block chords in piano
Describe the string quartet in ‘On Wenlock Edge’
Tremolo
Long Trills
Sul Ponticello
What is sul ponticello?
Player bows very near the bridge to create a thin, strained tone
Why does ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’ involve muted strings?
Enhance the mysterious, distant effect
Describe the string quartet in ‘Bredon Hill’
Con Sord
Double stopping
Sul D and G
Natural Harmonics on open strings
How does ‘On Wenlock Edge’ show the gale through dynamics
Word ‘trouble’ matched by opening f
Frequent use of crescendo and diminuendo = gales speed
Describe the dynamics in ‘Bredon Hill’ and ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’
Quiet, even pppp
Loud outbursts
What is the texture?
Homophonic with considerable variety
Explain some textural variety
Doubling at the octave over broken-chord semiquavers in ‘On Wenlock Edge’
Singl chords sustained by upper strings - simple harmonic background in ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’
Voice accompanied by dense parallel semibreve and minim chords in ‘Bredon Hill’
What is the structure of each song?
Blending of strophic and through-composed
Describe the tonality of ‘On Wenlock Edge’
Gm
Bitonal - piano on Ab while vocals in Gm
Pentatonic - G-A-C-D-F
What’s the tonality of ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’
Dorian mode for the ghost
Dorian inflections - B and C natural
Dm in friends replies
What is the tonality of ‘On Bredon Hill’?
Mixolydian on G - his favourite key
Blurred
Describe ‘On Bredon Hill’s’ pentatonic set
G-A-B-D-E
What is the tenors range?
12th from D below middle C up to A
Highest note - A on ‘bells’ in Bredon Hill
Describe the word setting
Syllabic
Some slurred pairs
Short melismas for emphasis
Describe the melodies
Stepwise
Small leaps
Larger leaps (above a perfect 5th) in intense moments
What’s freer in its use of larger intervals?
Instruments
How does Williams use contrary motion?
Similar motion
Parallel first inversion chords and triads
False relations
Parallel 4ths and 5ths
How ‘Is Wenlock Edge’ harmony simple?
Quartal harmony with the pentatonic set G-A-C-D-F
How is Bredon Hill characteristic of early 20th C music?
Parallel 8ves divided into 5ths and 4ths - bells
Mixture of 6ths, 5ths and 4ths
Other parallelisms e.g succession of perfect 4ths and 5ths
How is ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’ more old fashioned?
Chromatic harmony
Chromatically descending bass
half-diminshed 7th chords
French augmented 6th chords
explain the tenors rhythm
In keeping with the stress pattern of text
Describe the tempo of each piece
‘On Wenlock Edge’ - Allegro moderato (suprising for a stormy piece)
‘Is My Team Ploughing?’ - Ghost = Andante, Live man = poco animato
Changes of tempo reflect the changing situation of the text
What are the metres?
‘On Wenlock Edge’ = 4/4
‘Is My Team Ploughing?’ = change is response to text - 3/4, 4/4, 2/4, 3/4
‘Bredon Hill’ = 2/2, 3/2, 4/4
How is the storm shwon through rhythmic activity in ‘On Wenlock Edge’?
Tremolo, trills and short notes
Describe the rhythm of ‘On Wenlock Edge’
Triplet quavers and sextuplet semiquavers and ordinary syncopation and trills on weak beats
Describe the rhythm of ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’
Rhythmic flexibilty
Mixture of dotted rhythms, triplet quavers, ordinary quavers and offbeat quavers
How does ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’ show the live and dead man?
dead man = modal and Andante (slower)
live man = Dm and poco animato (faster)
What are the features of rhythmic interest in ‘Bredon Hill’?
Increased activity in intro
Continous triplet quavers in piano of stanzas 3 + 4
Syncopation in accompaniment to stanza 6
Rallentando at end - beat remains unchanged by semiquavers give way to triplets then quavers then triplet crotchets which lads to minims
How are bells represented?
Continuous triplet crotchets in piano of stanzas 3+4 giving way into quavers in piano
Dotted minim chords and crotchet octaves in stanza 6
What does colla voce mean?
With the voice
Players must keep with the singer who must have scope for freedom at intense moments
What is quartal harmony
Based largely on 4ths rather than 3rds like traditional harmony
Structure of ‘Bredon Hill’
7 verses
Structure of ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’
3 verses
‘On wenlock edge’ structure
5 verses
Sea Slumber song context
Elgar
1899
Progromatic
From the poem ‘sea pictures’
Sea Slumber song sonority
orchestra and solo voice rocking accompaniment of waves mostly quiet (ppp) crescendos and diminuendos low tesitura and narrow range spread chords harp glissando divided strings
Sea slumber song texture
sparce texture so voice heard
doubling - horns double vocals
tremolo and spread chord
mel-dom-hom
Sea Slumber song melody
Syllabic
Opening clarinet motif repeated throughout
Word painting - quavers = waves
orchestra doubles vocals
Sea Slumber strong structure
Through composed
intro
3 bar postlude
Sea Slumber song tonality
Em
modulates to E major and C major
brighter
ends on Em chord
Sea Slumber song Harmony
Late Romantic
Spread E chord = waves crashing
accidentals = chromatic movement
Ends on Em chord
Sea Slumber song tempo/metre/rhythm
4/4 word painting - sleep = dotted note harp glissando ostinato in strings quaver movement in chromatic sections cross-rhythms
Comparisons
Sea Slumber Sky Waulking Song In Haven Silent noon Pagodes Six songs from a shropshire lad Erlkonig - schubert
Sky Waulking song
Capercaillie 2000 pentatonic G major diatonic cross rhythms, polyrhythms, syncopaton hetraphonic
