Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphony Number Five
Beginning of paper
Ralph Vaughan Williams, descended from the famous Wedgwood and Darwin families,
was born at Down Ampney, Gloucestershire in 1872. In 1890 he entered the Royal
College of Music, and in 1892 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. One of the
greatest of the British composers, a prolific writer of mus ....
Middle of paper
.... key signature of this movement into doubt.
The movement opens with a horn call in D, set against a firm base (or bass?) of
octave C's. Could it be that in the great traditions of British musical
'amateurism', RVW got his transposition wrong? Or is this a deliberate feature
of the music, intended to blur the tonality? Musicologists prefer the latter
explanation. This is by no means an unusual feature of his music, when he was
asked what the 4th symphony was about, RVW replied "It is about F-min ....
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