Vaughan Williams's Veranda

[Roasted Swan]

I've been doing a lot of driving and walking among the hills and dales of Lancashire recently - landscapes that really are very familiar to me, and yet which seem to be showing me a different aspect for some reason: the clarity of the air, the ancient sweep of ancient land, the rhythms of hills and valleys. And I've taken to listening to a lot of Vaughan Williams in the car, in these places. Vaughan Williams, not Elgar. It seems only RVW will do.

I've been playing the usual suspects: the 3rd and 5th symphonies, the Tallis Fantasia - and they fit this land so perfectly. I don't think RVW had much to do with Lancashire or Yorkshire, did he? But it doesn't really matter. There are universals here that match his music so well. We saw a barn owl hunting above the grass the other day; and a sparrowhawk perched insolently on a fence post, looking hungry. Life and death precariously balanced. The place and the music are timeless, and there's no real comfort in it (or so it seems). I use a stick these days, and can't walk as far as once I could. But weirdly, a lot of mini-worries evaporate while I'm there.

Thought it was worth a mention.

I enjoyed reading this post - thankyou!

[Luke]

So did I. Beautiful and 100% relatable.

[LKB]

I've been doing a lot of driving and walking among the hills and dales of Lancashire recently - landscapes that really are very familiar to me, and yet which seem to be showing me a different aspect for some reason: the clarity of the air, the ancient sweep of ancient land, the rhythms of hills and valleys. And I've taken to listening to a lot of Vaughan Williams in the car, in these places. Vaughan Williams, not Elgar. It seems only RVW will do.

I've been playing the usual suspects: the 3rd and 5th symphonies, the Tallis Fantasia - and they fit this land so perfectly. I don't think RVW had much to do with Lancashire or Yorkshire, did he? But it doesn't really matter. There are universals here that match his music so well. We saw a barn owl hunting above the grass the other day; and a sparrowhawk perched insolently on a fence post, looking hungry. Life and death precariously balanced. The place and the music are timeless, and there's no real comfort in it (or so it seems). I use a stick these days, and can't walk as far as once I could. But weirdly, a lot of mini-worries evaporate while I'm there.

Thought it was worth a mention.

Now that we're in the holiday season, perhaps the Fantasia on Christmas Carols might inspire an excursion?

[Elgarian Redux]

being in the countryside can be therapeutic and helps to put problems in perspective. I find that VW's 6th Symphony goes well with the bleaker parts of the English landscape (see picture below):

Yes indeed, but I have to confess that the 6th is too bleak for me. And too bleak for the particular landscapes I've been exploring, which, although they are are high, remote, and cold (at this time of year), I wouldn't actually call them bleak. There's nothing depressing up there. It's energising. There's a balance, a sense of rightness, a sweeping majesty that places me in the same context as the barn owl, the sparrowhawk, the stonechats, the sheep, and the occasional farmer.

There's a back story to this. I've recently been exploring a deep interest in the wood engravings of Gwen Raverat (d. 1957), and it was initially her landscape woodcuts that made me start looking with new eyes at our local landscape here, and also thinking of and listening to RVW. To my surprise, it turned out that Raverat knew RVW - was a distant relation in fact - and she designed stage sets for a performance of Job - A Masque for Dancing. So actually the richness of these walks is doubly enhanced by musical memories of RVW, and visual memories of Gwen Raverat. I'll attach one of her landscapes - they are very small, this one (titled February), being only 10 cm wide.

I love these moments when the natural world, and visual art, and music, all come together to generate an experience beyond the reach of my 'ordinary' life.

[Karl Henning]

Yes indeed, but I have to confess that the 6th is too bleak for me.

Ah, but perhaps at that infrequent time when it might be "a damp, drizzly November in your soul" (God grant those seasons remain rare) the Sixth might be just the thing.

[Elgarian Redux]

Ah, but perhaps at that infrequent time when it might be "a damp, drizzly November in your soul" (God grant those seasons remain rare) the Sixth might be just the thing.

That's possible, Karl. I'd never rule it out. As far as landscape is concerned, there are regions in NW Scotland where I'd say the 6th might be a perfect (and terrifying) accompaniment.

[foxandpeng]

I've been doing a lot of driving and walking among the hills and dales of Lancashire recently - landscapes that really are very familiar to me, and yet which seem to be showing me a different aspect for some reason: the clarity of the air, the ancient sweep of ancient land, the rhythms of hills and valleys. And I've taken to listening to a lot of Vaughan Williams in the car, in these places. Vaughan Williams, not Elgar. It seems only RVW will do.

I've been playing the usual suspects: the 3rd and 5th symphonies, the Tallis Fantasia - and they fit this land so perfectly. I don't think RVW had much to do with Lancashire or Yorkshire, did he? But it doesn't really matter. There are universals here that match his music so well. We saw a barn owl hunting above the grass the other day; and a sparrowhawk perched insolently on a fence post, looking hungry. Life and death precariously balanced. The place and the music are timeless, and there's no real comfort in it (or so it seems). I use a stick these days, and can't walk as far as once I could. But weirdly, a lot of mini-worries evaporate while I'm there.

Thought it was worth a mention.

It was, indeed. Landscape and music are hugely significant. Throw in some good theology or British poetic Romanticism, and Bob's your Uncle.

[Luke]

Hey, guys, there's a book about all this stuff, coming soon.... 

[foxandpeng]

Hey, guys, there's a book about all this stuff, coming soon.... 

🤔😁

[Luke]

As for the subject of conversation above, the most synchronicitous listening I had wrt Vaughan Williams' 6th Symphony whilst travelling for my book was on a westward journey across the heart of the country (eventual destination: the west Welsh coast). As I drove through industrial Birmingham along that infernal network of motorways that includes the aptly named Spaghetti Junction, VW's most acerbicly urban symphony (more so even than the London) - with all its uneasy, ambiguous harmony, its snarling suspicion, its wailing saxes, its nagging, jolting ostinati, its nuclear wasteland finale - seemed a perfect fit. But then I left the motorway and was instantly enfolded in England's greenest, pleasantest land, and, as if its programming was impelled by the force of cliche itself, the CD continued into Larks, Tallis, Greensleeves and Wasps as I drove through exquisite landscapes to Wenlock Edge...

[foxandpeng]

As for the subject of conversation above, the most synchronicitous listening I had wrt Vaughan Williams' 6th Symphony whilst travelling for my book was on a westward journey across the heart of the country (eventual destination: the west Welsh coast). As I drove through industrial Birmingham along that infernal network of motorways that includes the aptly named Spaghetti Junction, VW's most acerbicly urban symphony (more so even than the London) - with all its uneasy, ambiguous harmony, its snarling suspicion, its wailing saxes, its nagging, jolting ostinati, its nuclear wasteland finale - seemed a perfect fit. But then I left the motorway and was instantly enfolded in England's greenest, pleasantest land, and, as if its programming was impelled by the force of cliche itself, the CD continued into Larks, Tallis, Greensleeves and Wasps as I drove through exquisite landscapes to Wenlock Edge...

I'm looking forward to reading this, Luke.

[Karl Henning]

... the aptly named Spaghetti Junction ....

Rochester, NY has the "Can of Worms."

[Elgarian Redux]

It was, indeed. Landscape and music are hugely significant. Throw in some good theology or British poetic Romanticism, and Bob's your Uncle.

Someone once observed that I was 'only an old Romantic'. I said I was happy to accept 'old' and 'Romantic', but objected to the word 'only' ...

In some ways I haven't made much progress since I was 16. I used to memorise bits of Vaughan Williams to take with me into the wilds of Derbyshire, and I assumed that as I grew older, I'd understand what these profound feelings - these musical/landscape longings - were all about. I never did. I did add more to the mix over the years: the poetry of Ted Hughes, the prose of John Ruskin, the paintings of folk like Turner, Palmer, Constable... and recently Raverat. And they all gave me new 'windows' through which to perceive the landscape, but it's true to say that while they greatly enriched the experience, they were not enlightening (in any rational, describable sense) about the meaning of it all.

So I think after all these years, I probably have to settle for what I (still) have, walking out among those hills: the companionship provided by the memory of a lifetime of knowing Vaughan Williams's music, and the life-affirming awareness of some unidentifiable, numinous quality to the experience.

[Karl Henning]

Someone once observed that I was 'only an old Romantic'. I said I was happy to accept 'old' and 'Romantic', but objected to the word 'only' ...

Excellent attitude!

[Elgarian Redux]

Hey, guys, there's a book about all this stuff, coming soon.... 

I am standing here outside the bookshop, waiting to buy one.

[Elgarian Redux]

As for the subject of conversation above, the most synchronicitous listening I had wrt Vaughan Williams' 6th Symphony whilst travelling for my book was on a westward journey across the heart of the country (eventual destination: the west Welsh coast). As I drove through industrial Birmingham along that infernal network of motorways that includes the aptly named Spaghetti Junction, VW's most acerbicly urban symphony (more so even than the London) - with all its uneasy, ambiguous harmony, its snarling suspicion, its wailing saxes, its nagging, jolting ostinati, its nuclear wasteland finale - seemed a perfect fit. But then I left the motorway and was instantly enfolded in England's greenest, pleasantest land, and, as if its programming was impelled by the force of cliche itself, the CD continued into Larks, Tallis, Greensleeves and Wasps as I drove through exquisite landscapes to Wenlock Edge...

Exquisitely put. I hope, though, that when you reached Wenlock Edge, the wood was not in trouble ...

[Elgarian Redux]

Excellent attitude!

Yeah! And then I knocked him down of course!

[Elgarian Redux]

Now that we're in the holiday season, perhaps the Fantasia on Christmas Carols might inspire an excursion?

There was a touch of snow up there a few days ago, and there was the odd shepherd watching his flocks (only by day, mind you). So I must look for my Christmas Fantasia CD ....

[Luke]

Exquisitely put. I hope, though, that when you reached Wenlock Edge, the wood was not in trouble ...

It was a glorious day!

The interesting thing about Wenlock Edge, and also about Bredon Hill, being such symbolically important locations in British music with respect to landscape (and on learning what I was doing so many people asked me if I had been to these two locations as their first question) is that the poet who immortalised them, A. E. Housman, never seems to have visited them.  Not only that but the RVW song cycle which made Wenlock Edge such a musically resonant location mentions the place precisely once, in the first line that you alluded to. By line  two we have moved on to the Wrekin, which is a few miles away. However as they are both such famous locations I visited both Wenlock Edge and Bredon Hill on my travels even if only so that I could make both points, and say, yes, I did go

[Elgarian Redux]

It was a glorious day!

The interesting thing about Wenlock Edge, and also about Bredon Hill ... is that the poet who immortalised them, A. E. Housman, never seems to have visited them.

I didn't know that!! Gosh, when I think of the number of times we've driven down the A 49 and made some hackneyed jokey comment about trouble in the wood on the Edge ....

Housman, you were a shady dealer!