Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony

Erscheinungsjahr 2001
ISBN: 978-0-19-816284-1
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 340 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 675 g

Reihe: Studies in Musical Genesis, Structure & Interpretation

Ever since its première just before the composer's death, Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony has divided critical opinion and remained something of an enigma. Yet the composer thought highly of the work, and went against his usual practice by preserving all the sketches. This study, the first of its kind on a work of Vaughan Williams, analyses the symphony and traces its genesis through hundreds of pages of sketches and drafts; it also offers a general
introduction to the composer's working methods. The manuscripts show how the composer worked meticulously to create the complex expressive ambivalence of the finished work, transforming in the process simpler conceptions redolent of his earlier music. Most crucially, however, the sketches reveal an underlying
programme, centred on the theme of innocent sacrifice and drawing on Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Stonehenge, and Salisbury Cathedral. Vaughan Williams's new musical path in the symphony, it emerges, was closely allied to the continuing evolution of his visionary agnosticism.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Frogley, Alain

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Einzelne Komponisten und Musiker
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Geschichte der Musik Geschichte der Musik: Klassische Musik des 20./21. Jahrhunderts

Über Autor(innen)

Lecturer in Music, Magdalen College, Oxford, 1989
Lecturer in Music, Lancaster University, 1989-94
Associate Professor of Music at University of Connecticut, Storrs, since 1994