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Tuba

Two F-tubas, from c.1900 (left) and 2004 (right)
Brass instrument
Classification	low brass Wind Brass Aerophone
Hornbostel–Sachs classification	423.232 (Valved aerophone sounded by lip movement)
Inventor(s)	Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht and Johann Moritz
Developed	1835
Playing range
Related instruments
sousaphone,baritone Subcontrabass tuba Euphonium Contrabass Bugle Baritone horn Sousaphone Wagner Tuba Helicon_(musical_instrument)

The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the ophicleide^[1] . Tuba is Latin for trumpet or horn.^[2] The horn referred to would most likely resemble what is known as a baroque trumpet.

A person who plays the tuba is known as a tubaist or tubist.^[3]

History[link]

Prussian Patent No. 19 was granted to Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht and Johann Gottfried Moritz (1777–1840)^[4] on September 12, 1835 for a "basstuba" in F1. The original Wieprecht and Moritz instrument used five valves of the Berlinerpumpen type that were the forerunners of the modern piston valve. The first tenor tuba was invented in 1838 by Carl Wilhelm Mortiz (1810–1855), son of Johann Moritz.

The addition of valves made it possible to play low in the harmonic series of the instrument and still have a complete selection of notes. Prior to the invention of valves, brass instruments were limited to notes in the harmonic series, and were thus generally played very high with respect to their fundamental pitch. Harmonics starting three octaves above the fundamental pitch are about a whole step apart, making a useful variety of notes possible.

The ophicleide used a cup-shaped brass instrument mouthpiece but employed keys and tone holes similar to those of a modern saxophone. Another forerunner to the tuba was the serpent, a bass brass instrument that was shaped in a wavy form to make the tone holes accessible to the player. Tone holes changed the pitch by providing an intentional leak in the bugle of the instrument. While this changed the pitch, it also had a pronounced effect on the timbre. By using valves to adjust the length of the bugle the tuba produced a smoother tone that eventually led to its popularity.

Adolphe Sax, like Wieprecht, was interested in marketing systems of instruments from soprano to bass, and developed a series of brass instruments known as saxhorns. The instruments developed by Sax were generally pitched in E♭ and B♭, while the Wieprecht "basstuba" and the subsequent Cerveny contrabass tuba were pitched in F and C (see below on pitch systems). Sax's instruments gained dominance in France, and later in Britain and America, as a result of the popularity and movements of instrument makers such as Gustave Auguste Besson (who moved from France to Britain) and Henry Distin (who found his way eventually to America). ^[5]

Roles[link]

An orchestra usually has a single tuba, though an additional tuba may be asked for. It is the principal bass instrument in symphonic and military bands, and those ensembles generally have more. It serves as the bass of the brass section and of brass quintets and choirs (though many small brass ensembles will use the euphonium or bass trombone as the lowest voice), as well as reinforcement for the bass voices of the strings and woodwinds, and as a solo instrument.

Well known and influential parts for the tuba include:

• Modest Mussorgsky (orch. Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition - Bydlo, Night On Bald Mountain
• Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra, Eine Alpensinfonie
• Shostakovich: Fifth symphony
• Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring
• Edgard Varèse: Déserts
• Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Lohengrin, Ride of the Valkyries
• Sergei Prokofiev: Fifth Symphony
• George Gershwin: An American in Paris
• Silvestre Revueltas: Sensemayá, Noche de los mayas, Homenaje a Federico García Lorca
• Gustav Holst: The Planets

Concertos have been written for the tuba by many notable composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edward Gregson, John Williams, Alexander Arutiunian, Eric Ewazen, James Barnes, Martin Ellerby, Philip Sparke, Kalevi Aho, Arild Plau, James Woodward, Victor Davies, Josef Tal and Bruce Broughton. Joseph Hallman's Concerto for tuba and chamber orchestra was written for and premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra's tubist, Carol Jantsch in May 2007.

Tubas are also used in concert bands, marching bands, drum and bugle corps, drum and brass corps, and in many jazz bands (see below). In British style brass bands, both E♭ and B♭ tubas are used and are normally referred to as basses.

Types and construction[link]

Tuba section in a British style brass band.

Tubas are found in various pitches, most commonly in F, E♭, C, or B♭. The main tube of a B♭ tuba is approximately 18 feet long, while that of a C tuba is 16 feet, of an E♭ tuba 13 feet, and of an F tuba 12 feet. The instrument has a conical bore, meaning the bore diameter increases as a function of the tubing length from the mouthpiece to the bell. The conical bore causes the instrument to produce a preponderance of even-order harmonics.

A tuba with its tubing wrapped for placing the instrument on the player's lap is usually called a concert tuba or simply a tuba. Tubas with the bell pointing forward (pavillon tournant) instead of upward are often called recording tubas because of their popularity in the early days of recorded music, as their sound could more easily be directed at the recording instrument. When wrapped to surround the body for marching, it is traditionally known as a hélicon. The modern sousaphone, named after American bandmaster John Philip Sousa, resembles a hélicon with the bell pointed up and then curved to point forward. Some ancestors of the tuba, such as the military bombardon, had unusual valve and bore arrangements compared to modern tubas. During the American Civil War, most brass bands used a branch of the brass family known as 'Saxhorns', which by today's standards have a narrower bore taper than tubas (being the same as true cornets and baritones, but being distinct from trumpet, euphoniums and others with wider or narrower (or no) bore tapers). Starting around the time of the start of the Civil War, Saxhorns manufactured for military use in the USA were commonly wrapped with the bell pointing backwards over the player's shoulder, and these were known as "over-the-shoulder saxhorns", and they came in all sizes from cornets down to E♭ basses. However, the E♭ bass, even though it shared the same tube length as a modern E♭ tuba, has a narrower bore and as such cannot be called by the name 'tuba' except as a convenience when comparing it to other sizes of Saxhorn.

Most music for the tuba is written in bass clef in concert pitch, so tuba players must know the correct fingerings for their specific instrument. Traditional British-style brass band parts for the tuba are usually written in treble clef, with the B♭ tuba sounding two octaves and one step below and the E♭ tuba sounding one octave and a major sixth below the written pitch. This allows musicians to change instruments without learning new fingerings for the same written music. Consequently, when its music is written in treble clef, the tuba is a transposing instrument, but not when the music is in bass clef.

The lowest pitched tubas are the contrabass tubas, pitched in C or B♭; (referred to as CC and BB♭ tubas respectively, based on a traditional distortion of a now-obsolete octave naming convention). The fundamental pitch of a CC tuba is 32 Hz, and for a BB♭ tuba, 29 Hz. The CC tuba is used as an orchestral instrument in the U.S., but BB♭ tubas are the contrabass tuba of choice in German, Austrian, and Russian orchestras. In the United States the BB♭ tuba is the most common in schools (largely due to the use of BBb sousaphones in high school marching bands) and for adult amateurs. Most professionals in the U.S. play CC tubas, with BBb also common, and many train in the use of all four pitches of tubas.^{[citation needed]}

The next smaller tubas are the bass tubas, pitched in F or E♭ (a fourth above the contrabass tubas). The E♭ tuba often plays an octave above the contrabass tubas in brass bands, and the F tuba is commonly used by professional players as a solo instrument and, in America, to play higher parts in the classical repertoire (or parts that were originally written for the F tuba, as is the case with Berlioz). In most of Europe, the F tuba is the standard orchestral instrument, supplemented by the CC or BB♭ only when the extra weight is desired. Wagner, for example, specifically notates the low tuba parts for "Kontrabasstuba," which are played on CC or BB♭ tubas in most regions. In the United Kingdom, the E♭ is the standard orchestral tuba.

Comparison of euphonium (left) and tuba (right)

The euphonium is sometimes referred to as a tenor tuba and is pitched in B♭, one octave higher than the BB♭ contrabass tuba. The term "tenor tuba" is often used more specifically to refer to B♭ rotary-valved tubas pitched in the same octave as euphoniums. The "Small French Tuba in C" is a tenor tuba pitched in C, and provided with 6 valves to make the lower notes in the orchestral repertoire possible. The French C tuba was the standard instrument in French orchestras until overtaken by F and C tubas since the Second World War. One popular example of the use of the French C tuba is the Bydło movement in Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, though the rest of the work is scored for this instrument as well.

Larger BBB♭ subcontrabass tubas exist, but are extremely rare (there are at least four known examples). The first two were built by the Gustav Besson in BBB♭, one octave below the BB♭ Contrabass tuba, on the suggestion of John Philip Sousa. The monster instruments were not completed until just after Sousa's death. Later, in the 1950s, British musician Gerard Hoffnung commissioned the London firm of Paxman to create a subcontrabass tuba in EEE♭ for use in his comedic music festivals. Also, a tuba pitched in FFF was made in Kraslice by Bohland & Fuchs probably during 1910 or 1911 and was destined for the World Exhibition in New York in 1913. Two players are needed; one to operate the valves and one to blow into the mouthpiece.

Size vs. pitch[link]

In addition to the length of the instrument, which dictates the fundamental pitch, tubas also vary in overall width of the tubing sections. Tuba sizes are usually denoted by a quarter system, with 4/4 designating a normal, full-size tuba. Larger rotary instruments are known as kaisertubas and are often denoted 5/4. Larger piston tubas, particularly those with front action, are sometimes known as grand orchestral tubas (examples: The Conn 36J Orchestra Grand Bass from the 1930s, and the current model Hirsbrunner HB-50 "Grand Orchestral," which is a replica of the large York tubas owned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra). Grand orchestral tubas are generally described as 6/4 tubas. Smaller instruments may be described as 3/4 instruments. No standards exist for these designations, and their use is up to manufacturers who usually use them to distinguish among the instruments in their own product line. The size designation is related to the larger outer branches, and not to the bore of the tubing at the valves, though the bore is usually reported in instrument specifications. The quarter system is also not related to bell size, at least across manufacturers.

Valves[link]

Tubas are made with either piston or rotary valves. Rotary valves, invented by Joseph Riedl, are based on a design included in the original valve patents by Friedrich Blühmel and Heinrich Stölzel in 1818. Červeny of Graslitz was the first to use true rotary valves, starting in the 1840s or 1850s. Modern Piston valves were developed by Perinet for the saxhorn family of instruments promoted by Adolphe Sax around the same time. Pistons may either be oriented to point to the top of the instrument (top-action, as pictured in the figure at the top of the article) or out the front of the instrument (front-action or side-action). There are advantages and disadvantages to each valve style, but assertions concerning sound, speed, and clarity are difficult to quantify. German players generally prefer rotary valves while British and American players favor piston valves - the choice of valve type remains up to the performer.

Piston valves require more maintenance than rotary valves — they require daily oiling to keep them freely operating, while rotary valves are sealed and seldom require oiling. Piston valves are easy to disassemble and re-assemble, while rotary valve disassembly and re-assembly is much more difficult and is generally left to qualified instrument repair persons.

Tubas generally have from three to six valves, though some rare exceptions exist. Three-valve tubas are generally the least expensive and are almost exclusively used by beginners and amateurs, and the sousaphone (a marching version of a BB♭ tuba) almost always has three valves. Among advanced players, four and five valve tubas are by far the most common choices, with six-valve tubas being relatively rare except among F tubas, which mostly have five or six valves.

The valves add tubing to the main tube of the instrument, thus lowering its fundamental pitch. The first valve lowers the pitch by a whole step (two semitones), the second valve by a semitone, and the third valve by three semitones. Used in combination, the valves are too short and the resulting pitch tends to be sharp. For example, a BB♭ tuba becomes (in effect) an A♭ tuba when the first valve is depressed. The third valve is long enough to lower the pitch of a BB♭ tuba by three semitones, but it is not long enough to lower the pitch of an A♭ tuba by three semitones. Thus, the first and third valves used in combination lower the pitch by something just short of five semitones, and the first three valves used in combination are nearly a quarter tone sharp.

Tuba with four rotary valves.

The fourth valve is used in place of combinations of the first and third valves, and the second and fourth used in combination are used in place of the first three valves in combination. The fourth valve can be tuned to lower the pitch of the main tube accurately by five semitones, and thus its use corrects the main problem of combinations being too sharp. By using the fourth valve by itself to replace the first and third combination, or the fourth and second valves in place of the first, second and third valve combinations, the notes requiring these fingerings are more in tune.

The fifth and sixth valves are used to provide alternative fingering possibilities to improve intonation, and are also used to reach into the low register of the instrument where all the valves will be used in combination to fill the first octave between the fundamental pitch and the next available note on the open tube. The fifth and sixth valves also give the musician the ability to trill more smoothly or to use alternative fingerings for ease of playing.

The bass tuba in F is pitched a fifth above the BB♭ tuba and a fourth above the CC tuba, so it needs additional tubing length beyond that provided by four valves to play securely down to a low F as required in much tuba music. The fifth valve is commonly tuned to a flat whole step, so that when used with the fourth valve, it gives an in-tune low B♭. The sixth valve is commonly tuned as a flat half step, allowing the F tuba to play low G as 1-4-5-6 and low G♭ as 1-2-4-5-6. In CC tubas with five valves, the fifth valve may be tuned as a flat whole step or as a minor third depending on the instrument.

Resonance and false tones[link]

Some tubas have a strong and useful resonance that is not in the well-known harmonic series. For example, most large B♭ tubas have a strong resonance at low E♭ (E♭1, 39 Hz), which is between the fundamental and the second harmonic (an octave higher than the fundamental). These alternative resonances are often known as false tones or privileged tones. Adding the six semitones provided by the three valves, these alternative resonances allow the instrument to be played chromatically down to the fundamental of the open bugle, (which is a 29 Hz B♭). The addition of valves below that note can lower the instrument a further six semitones to a 20 Hz E0. Thus, even three-valved instruments with good alternative resonances can produce very low sounds in the hands of skilled players; instruments with four valves can play even lower. The lowest note in the widely known repertoire is a 16 Hz double-pedal C in the William Kraft piece Encounters II, which is often played using a timed flutter tongue rather than by buzzing the lips. The fundamental of this pitch borders on infrasound and its overtones define the pitch in the listener's ear.

The most convincing explanation for false-tones is that the horn is acting as a 'third of a pipe' rather than as a half-pipe. The bell remains an anti-node, but there would then be a node 1/3 of the way back to the mouthpiece. If so, it seems that the fundamental would be missing entirely, and would only be inferred from the overtones. However, the node and the anti-node collide in the same spot and cancel out the fundamental.

Some tubas have a compensating system to allow accurate tuning when using several valves in combination, simplifying fingering and removing the need to constantly adjust slide positions. The most popular of the automatic compensation systems was invented by Blaikley (Bevan, 1978) and was patented by Boosey (later, Boosey and Hawkes, which also, later still, produced Besson instruments). The patent on the system limited its application outside of Britain, and to this day tubas with compensating valves are primarily popular in the United Kingdom and countries of the former British Empire. The Blaikley design plumbs the instrument so that if the fourth valve is used, the air is sent back through a second set of branches in the first three valves to compensate for the combination of valves. This does have the disadvantage of making the instrument significantly more 'stuffy' or resistant to air flow when compared to a non-compensating tuba. This is due to the need for the air to flow through the valves twice. It also makes the instrument heavier. But many prefer this approach to additional valves or to manipulation of tuning slides while playing to achieve improved intonation within an ensemble. Most modern professional-grade euphoniums now feature Blaikley-style compensating valves.

Materials and finish[link]

The tuba is generally constructed of brass, which is either unfinished, lacquered or electro-plated with nickel, gold or silver. Unfinished brass will eventually tarnish and thus must be periodically polished to maintain its appearance.

Variations[link]

Some tubas are capable of being converted into a marching style, known as "marching tubas". A leadpipe can be manually screwed on next to the valves. The tuba is then usually rested on the left shoulder (although some tubas allow use of the right shoulder), with the bell facing directly in front of the player. Some marching tubas are made only for marching, and cannot be converted into a concert model. Most marching bands opt for the sousaphone, an instrument that is easier to carry and almost always cheaper than a true marching tuba. The earlier Helicon is still used by bands in Europe and other parts of the world. Drum and bugle corps players, however, generally use marching tubas, which, in this context, are called Contrabass bugles or contras. Standard tubas can also be played whilst standing, with the use of a strap joined to the tuba with two rings. The strap goes over the player's shoulder like a sash, allowing the instrument to be played in the same position as when sitting.

Jazz[link]

"Kaiserbass" (tuba in B♭) and cornet

The tuba has been used in jazz since the genre's inception. In the earliest years, bands often used a tuba for outdoor playing and a double bass for indoor performances. In this context, the tuba was sometimes called "brass bass", as opposed to the double bass, which was called "string bass"; it was not uncommon for players to double on both instruments.

When used in modern jazz, tubas usually fill the traditional bass role, although it is not uncommon for them to take solos. New Orleans style Brass Bands like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the Rebirth Brass Band use a sousaphone as the bass instrument. Bill Barber played tuba on several Miles Davis albums, including Birth of the Cool and "Miles Ahead". New York City-based tubist Marcus Rojas has performed frequently with Henry Threadgill.

Notable tubists[link]

See List of tuba players

See also[link]

• Roman tuba
• Wagner tuba
• Euphonium
• Tubachristmas (music event)
• Contrabass Bugle
• Sousaphone
• Brass Instrument Valves
• Helicon_(instrument)

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up tuba in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tuba

• The International Tuba-Euphonium Association.
• Tuba News, a free monthly online publication for tuba and euphonium players.
• International Tuba Day
• Tubenet Sean Chisham's popular Tubenet discussion forum.
• Brass-Forum.co.uk UK based brass discussion forum.
• Brassmusic.Ru — Russian Brass Community
• The Wagner tuba
• Acoustics of Brass Instruments from Music Acoustics at the University of New South Wales.
• Tuba/Sousaphone as blues instruments
• More Thoughts on Tuba
• Official site for the annual TubaChristmas concerts in the US, Victoria BC and Switzerland
• Paul Haugan Historical Tuba Collection
• The Four-Valve Compensating System
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bombardon". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM ( /ˌreɪf ˌvɔːn ˈwɪliəmz/;^[1] 12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958) was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many folk song arrangements set as hymn tunes, and also influenced several of his own original compositions.

Life[link]

Early years[link]

Ralph Vaughan Williams was born on 12 October 1872 in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, where his father, the Reverend Arthur Vaughan Williams (the surname Vaughan Williams is an unhyphenated double-barrelled name of Welsh origin), was vicar. Following his father's death in 1875 he was taken by his mother, Margaret Susan née Wedgwood (1843–1937), the great-granddaughter of the potter Josiah Wedgwood, to live with her family at Leith Hill Place, a Wedgwood family home in the Surrey Hills. He was also related to the Darwins, Charles Darwin being a great-uncle. Though born into the privileged intellectual upper middle class, Vaughan Williams never took it for granted and worked all his life for the democratic and egalitarian ideals in which he believed.^[2]

The Darwin-Wedgwood-Galton family tree, showing Vaughan Williams's relationships to Charles Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood

As a student he had studied piano, "which I never could play, and the violin, which was my musical salvation." After Charterhouse School he attended the Royal College of Music (RCM) under Charles Villiers Stanford. He read history and music at Trinity College, Cambridge,^[3] where his friends and contemporaries included the philosophers G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell. He then returned to the RCM and studied composition with Hubert Parry, who became a friend. One of his fellow pupils at the RCM was Leopold Stokowski and during 1896 they both studied organ under Sir Walter Parratt. Stokowski later went on to perform six of Vaughan Williams's symphonies for American audiences, making the first recording of the Sixth Symphony in 1949 with the New York Philharmonic, and giving the U.S. premiere of the Ninth Symphony in Carnegie Hall in 1958.

Another friendship made at the RCM, crucial to Vaughan Williams's development as a composer, was with fellow-student Gustav Holst whom he first met in 1895. From that time onwards they spent several 'field days' reading through and offering constructive criticism on each other's works in progress.^[4]

Vaughan Williams's composition developed slowly and it was not until he was 30 that the song "Linden Lea" became his first publication. He mixed composition with conducting, lecturing and editing other music, notably that of Henry Purcell and the English Hymnal. He had already taken lessons with Max Bruch in Berlin in 1897 and in 1907–1908 took a big step forward in his orchestral style when he studied for three months in Paris with Maurice Ravel.^[1]

In 1904, Vaughan Williams discovered English folk songs and carols, which were fast becoming extinct owing to the oral tradition through which they existed being undermined by the increase of literacy and printed music in rural areas. He travelled the countryside, transcribing and preserving many himself. Later he incorporated some songs and melodies into his own music, being fascinated by the beauty of the music and its anonymous history in the working lives of ordinary people. His efforts did much to raise appreciation of traditional English folk song and melody. Later in his life he served as president of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), which, in recognition of his early and important work in this field, named its Vaughan Williams Memorial Library after him. During this time he strengthened his links to prominent writers on folk music, including the Reverend George B. Chambers.

In 1905, Vaughan Williams conducted the first concert of the newly founded Leith Hill Music Festival at Dorking which he was to conduct until 1953, when he passed the baton to his successor, William Cole.^[5]

	Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis noicon Performed by the U.S. Army Band Strings.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

In 1909, he composed incidental music for the Cambridge Greek Play, a stage production at Cambridge University of Aristophanes' The Wasps. The next year, he had his first big public successes conducting the premieres of the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral) and his choral symphony A Sea Symphony (Symphony No. 1). He enjoyed a still greater success with A London Symphony (Symphony No. 2) in 1914, conducted by Geoffrey Toye.

Two World Wars[link]

A statue of Ralph Vaughan Williams in Dorking.

Vaughan Williams was 41 when World War I began. Though he could have avoided war service entirely, or tried for a commission, he chose to enlist as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps. After a gruelling time as a stretcher bearer in France and Salonika,^[6] he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery on 24 December 1917.^[7] On one occasion, though too ill to stand, he continued to direct his battery while lying on the ground.^[8] Prolonged exposure to gunfire began a process of hearing loss which eventually caused severe deafness in old age.^[2] In 1918, he was appointed Director of Music, First Army, and this helped him adjust back into musical life.

After the war, he adopted for a while a somewhat mystical style in Flos Campi, a work for solo viola, small orchestra and wordless chorus, and in A Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No. 3), which draws on his experiences as an ambulance volunteer in that war, including a cadenza for trumpet in the second movement based on a bugler practicing and repeatedly hitting a wrong note, a flattened seventh, which Vaughan Williams alludes to in the symphony. The work was premiered on 26 January, 1922, in London, with Adrian Boult conducting. From 1924 a new phase in his music began, characterised by lively cross-rhythms and clashing harmonies. Key works from this period are Toccata marziale, the ballet Old King Cole, the Piano Concerto, the oratorio Sancta Civitas (his favourite of his choral works) and the ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing, which is drawn not from the Bible but from William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job. He also composed a Te Deum in G for the enthronement of Cosmo Gordon Lang as Archbishop of Canterbury. This period in his music culminated in the Symphony No. 4 in F minor, first played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1935. This symphony contrasts dramatically with the "pastoral" orchestral works with which he is associated; indeed, its almost unrelieved tension, drama, and dissonance have startled listeners since it was premiered. Acknowledging that the Fourth Symphony was different, the composer said, "I don't know if I like it, but it's what I meant." Two years later, Vaughan Williams made a historic recording of the work with the same orchestra for HMV (His Master's Voice), his only commercial recording. During this period, he lectured in America and England, and conducted The Bach Choir. He was President of the City of Bath Bach Choir between 1946 and 1959. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in the King's Birthday Honours of 1935,^[9] having previously declined a knighthood.^[2] He also gave private lessons in London to students including Irish composer Ina Boyle.^[10]

Vaughan Williams was an intimate life long friend of the famous British pianist Harriet Cohen. His letters to her reveal a flirtatious relationship, regularly reminding her of the thousands of kisses that she owed him. Before Cohen's first American tour in 1931 he wrote "I fear the Americans will love you so much that they won't let you come back."^[11] He was a regular visitor to her home and often attended parties there. Cohen premiered Vaughan Williams's "Hymn Tune Prelude" in 1930, which he dedicated to her. She later introduced the piece throughout Europe during her concert tours. In 1933 she premiered his Piano Concerto in C major, a work which was once again dedicated to her. Cohen was given the exclusive right to play the piece for a period of time. Cohen played and promoted Vaughan Williams's work throughout Europe, the USSR, and the United States.

His music now entered a mature lyrical phase, as in the Five Tudor Portraits; the Serenade to Music (a setting of a scene from act five of The Merchant of Venice, for orchestra and sixteen vocal soloists and composed as a tribute to the conductor Sir Henry Wood); and the Symphony No. 5 in D, which he conducted at the Proms in 1943. As he was now 70, many people considered it a swan song, but he renewed himself again and entered yet another period of exploratory harmony and instrumentation. His very successful Symphony No. 6 of 1946 received a hundred performances in the first year. It surprised both admirers and critics, many of whom suggested that this symphony (especially its last movement) was a grim vision of the aftermath of an atomic war: typically, Vaughan Williams himself refused to recognise any programme behind this work.

Later work[link]

Vaughan Williams plaque in Dorking parish church. He founded the Leith Hill Music Festival in 1905, with which he kept a lifelong involvement

Before his death in 1958, he completed three more symphonies. His Seventh, Sinfonia Antartica, which was based on his 1948 film score for Scott of the Antarctic, exhibits his renewed interest in instrumentation and sonority. The Eighth Symphony, first performed in 1956, was followed by the much weightier Symphony No. 9 in E minor of 1956–57. This last symphony was initially given a lukewarm reception after its first performance in May 1958, just three months before his death. But this dark and enigmatic work is now considered by many^[12] to be a fitting conclusion to his sequence of symphonic works.

He also completed a range of instrumental and choral works, including a Tuba Concerto, An Oxford Elegy on texts of Matthew Arnold, and the Christmas cantata Hodie. He also wrote an arrangement of The Old One Hundredth Psalm Tune for the Coronation Service of Queen Elizabeth II. At his death he left an unfinished Cello Concerto, an opera Thomas the Rhymer and music for a Christmas play, The First Nowell, which was completed by his amanuensis Roy Douglas (b. 1907).

Despite his substantial involvement in church music, and the religious subject-matter of many of his works, he was described by his second wife as "an atheist ... [who] later drifted into a cheerful agnosticism."^[13] It is noteworthy that in his opera The Pilgrim's Progress he changed the name of the hero from John Bunyan's Christian to Pilgrim. He also set Bunyan's hymn Who would true valour see to music using the traditional Sussex melody "Monk's Gate". For many church-goers, his most familiar composition may be the hymn tune Sine nomine written for the hymn "For All the Saints" by William Walsham How. The tune he composed for the mediaeval hymn "Come Down, O Love Divine" (Discendi, Amor santo by Bianco of Siena, ca.1434) is entitled "Down Ampney" in honour of his birthplace.

He also worked as a tutor for Birkbeck College.^[14]

In the 1950s, the composer supervised recordings of all but his Ninth Symphony by Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Decca.^[15] At the end of the sessions for the mysterious Sixth Symphony, Vaughan Williams gave a short speech, thanking Boult and the orchestra for their performance, "most heartily," and Decca later included this on the LP.^[16] He was to supervise the first recording of the Ninth Symphony (for Everest Records) with Boult; his death on 26 August 1958 the night before the recording sessions were to begin provoked Boult to announce to the musicians that their performance would be a memorial to the composer.^[17] These recordings, including the speeches by the composer and Boult, have all been reissued by Decca on CD.

Vaughan Williams is a central figure in British music because of his long career as teacher, lecturer and friend to so many younger composers and conductors. His writings on music remain thought-provoking, particularly his oft-repeated call for all persons to make their own music, however simple, as long as it is truly their own. Vaughan Williams was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey.

Marriages[link]

He was married twice. His first marriage was to Adeline Fisher (daughter of the historian Herbert William Fisher) in 1896. Adeline was cousin of Ruth Fisher de Ropp,^[18] who was the mother of Robert S de Ropp. Robert's father, a semi-destitute European nobleman, was unable to pay for his son's post-secondary education. Consequently, Ralph and Adeline Vaughan Williams paid for Robert’s education at the Royal College of Science, in South Kensington, where he eventually specialised in biology and earned a PhD. De Ropp went on to be a successful research scientist and well-known author of books on human potentials.^[19] Adeline Fisher Vaughan Williams died in 1951 after many years of suffering from crippling arthritis.

Vaughan Williams had an affair with the married poet Ursula Wood beginning in 1938. After Wood's husband died in 1942, Wood became Ralph's literary advisor and personal assistant and moved into his Surrey home, apparently with the tacit approval of Adeline, for whom Wood served as a caretaker until Adeline's death in 1951.^[20] Wood wrote the libretto to his choral work The Sons of Light, and contributed to that of The Pilgrim's Progress and Hodie.^[21] Wood and Vaughan Williams married in 1953 and moved to London and occupied a house at 10 Hanover Terrace, Regents Park until the composer's death five years later. In 1964 Wood published RVW: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams. She served as honorary president of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society until her death in 2007.

Style[link]

Vaughan Williams's music has often been said to be characteristically English, in the same way as that of Gustav Holst, Frederick Delius, George Butterworth and William Walton.^[22] In Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination, Peter Ackroyd writes, "If that Englishness in music can be encapsulated in words at all, those words would probably be: ostensibly familiar and commonplace, yet deep and mystical as well as lyrical, melodic, melancholic, and nostalgic yet timeless." Ackroyd quotes music critic John Alexander Fuller Maitland, whose distinctions included editing the second edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in the years just before 1911, as having observed that in Vaughan Williams's style "one is never quite sure whether one is listening to something very old or very new."

His style expresses a deep regard for and fascination with folk tunes, the variations upon which can convey the listener from the down-to-earth (which he always tried to remain in his daily life) to the ethereal. Simultaneously the music shows patriotism toward England in the subtlest form, engendered by a feeling for ancient landscapes and a person's small yet not entirely insignificant place within them.^[2] His earlier works sometimes show the influence of Maurice Ravel, his teacher for three months in Paris in 1908. Ravel described Vaughan Williams as the only one of his pupils who did not write music like Ravel.^[22]

[edit] Works^[23]

Operas[link]

• Hugh the Drover or Love in the Stocks (1910–20). Romantic ballad opera. Libretto: Harold Child
• Sir John in Love (1924–28), from which comes an arrangement by Ralph Greaves of Fantasia on "Greensleeves"
• The Poisoned Kiss (1927–29; revisions 1936–37 and 1956–57). Libretto: Evelyn Sharp (later amended by Ralph and Ursula Vaughan Williams)
• Riders to the Sea (1925–32), from the play by John Millington Synge
• The Pilgrim's Progress (1909–51), based on John Bunyan's allegory

• The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains (1921). Libretto: Ralph Vaughan Williams (from John Bunyan) (Later incorporated, save for the final section, into The Pilgrim's Progress)

Incidental music[link]

• The Wasps (1909; to Aristophanes's play The Wasps; best known as an orchestral suite)
• The Bacchae (1911; to Euripides's tragedy)
• The Death of Tintagiles (1913; to Maurice Maeterlinck's 1894 play)^[24]

Ballets[link]

• Old King Cole (1923)
• On Christmas Night (1926)
• Job: A Masque for Dancing (1930)
• The Running Set (1933)
• The Bridal Day (1938–39)

Orchestral[link]

• Symphonies
  • A Sea Symphony (Symphony No. 1), a choral symphony on texts by Whitman (1903–1909)
  • A London Symphony (Symphony No. 2) (1913)
  • A Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No. 3) (1921)
  • Symphony No. 4 in F minor (1931–34)
  • Symphony No. 5 in D major (1938–43)
  • Symphony No. 6 in E minor (1944–47, rev. 1950)
  • Sinfonia antartica (Symphony No. 7) (1949–52) (partly based on his music for the film Scott of the Antarctic)
  • Symphony No. 8 in D minor (1953–55)
  • Symphony No. 9 in E minor (1956–57)
• Heroic Elegy and Triumphal Epilogue (1900)
• In the Fen Country, for orchestra (1904)
• Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 (1906, rev. 1914))^[25]
• The Wasps, an Aristophanic suite (1909; see Incidental music above)
• Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910, rev. 1913 and 1919)
• March: Sea Songs (1923), arr. for orchestra 1924 by the composer
• Prelude and Fugue in C minor (1930)
• The Running Set (1933)
• Fantasia on "Greensleeves" (1934)^[26]
• Two Hymn Tune Preludes (1936)
• Partita for Strings (1938)
• Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus (1939)
• Household Music (1940)
• Concerto Grosso, for three parts of strings requiring different levels of technical skill (1950)
• Prelude on an Old Carol Tune (1952)
• Flourish for Glorious John (1957)

Concerti[link]

• Violin
  • The Lark Ascending for violin and orchestra (1914)
  • Concerto Accademico for violin and orchestra (1924–25)
• Viola
  • Flos Campi for viola, wordless chorus and small orchestra (1925)
  • Suite for Viola and Small Orchestra (1934)
  • Romance for viola and piano (1925–1934 circa)
• Piano
  • Piano Concerto in C major (1926–31)
  • Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1946; a reworking of Piano Concerto in C)
• Oboe Concerto in A minor, for oboe and strings (1944)
• Fantasia (quasi variazione) on the Old 104th Psalm Tune for piano, chorus, and orchestra (1949)
• Romance in D-flat major for harmonica and orchestra (1951) (written for Larry Adler)
• Tuba Concerto in F minor (1954)

Choral[link]

• The Garden of Proserpine, cantata for soprano, chorus & orchestra, setting of Algernon Charles Swinburne (1899)^[27]
• A Cambridge Mass, Missa brevis for SATB, double chorus & orchestra (1899); Doctoral exercise, first performed 3 March 2011.^{[28][29][30][31]}
• Toward the Unknown Region, song for chorus and orchestra, setting of Walt Whitman (1906)
• Five Mystical Songs for baritone, chorus and orchestra, settings of George Herbert (1911)
• Fantasia on Christmas Carols for baritone, chorus, and orchestra (1912); arranged also for reduced orchestra of organ, strings, percussion)
• Mass in G minor for unaccompanied choir (1922)
• Sancta Civitas (The Holy City) oratorio, text mainly from the Book of Revelation (1923–25)
• Te Deum in G major (1928)
• Benedicite for soprano, chorus, and orchestra (1929)
• In Windsor Forest, adapted from the opera Sir John in Love (1929)
• Three Choral Hymns (1929)
• Magnificat for contralto, women's chorus, and orchestra (1932)
• Five Tudor Portraits for contralto, baritone, chorus, and orchestra (1935)
• Dona nobis pacem, text by Walt Whitman and other sources (1936)
• Festival Te Deum for chorus and orchestra or organ (1937)
• Serenade to Music for sixteen solo voices and orchestra, a setting of Shakespeare, dedicated to Sir Henry Joseph Wood on the occasion of his Jubilee (1938)
• "Six Choral Songs To Be Sung In Time Of War" (1940)
• A Song of Thanksgiving (originally Thanksgiving for Victory) for narrator, soprano solo, children's chorus, mixed chorus, and orchestra (1944)
• An Oxford Elegy for narrator, mixed chorus and small orchestra (1949)
• Three Shakespeare Songs for SATB unaccompanied, composed for The British Federation of Music Festivals National Competitive Festival (1951)
• O Taste and See, a motet setting of Psalm 34:8. The original SATB version was composed for the Coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey in June 1953. (1953)
• Hodie, a Christmas cantata (1954)
• Folk songs of the Four Seasons A Cantata for Women's Voices with Orchestra or pianoforte accompaniment (1950).
• Epithalamion for baritone solo, chorus, flute, piano, and strings (1957)
• A Choral Flourish for unaccompanied SATB chorus, composed for a large choral event in the Royal Albert Hall at the invitation of (and dedicated to) Alan Kirby (c. 1952)
• O How Amiable (1934) An arrangement of a hymn for chorus and organ, originally written for the Abinger Pageant

Arrangements of Christian hymns[link]

Vaughan Williams was the musical editor^[32] of the English Hymnal of 1906, and the co-editor with Martin Shaw of Songs of Praise of 1925 and the Oxford Book of Carols of 1928, all in collaboration with Percy Dearmer.

• A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing^[33]
• All Creatures of Our God and King^[33]
• Alleluia, Sing to Jesus^[33]
• Amid the Thronging Worshippers^[33]
• At the Name of Jesus^[33]
• "Come Down, O Love Divine"^[33] original hymnody by Bianco of Siena (1434)"Discendi, Amor santo"and entitled "Down Ampney" in honour of Vaughan Williams's birthplace
• Come, Let Us with Our Lord Arise^[33] an Easter anthem
• Come Thou Long Expected Jesus^[33] a carol for the season of Advent
• For All the Saints harmonised from "Sine Nomine"
• God Be With You Till We Meet Again^[33]
• I Love You Lord, My Strength, My Rock^[33]
• I Sing the Mighty Power of God^[33]
• Jesus, Lord, Redeemer^[33]
• "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence", text of the Cherubic hymn of Liturgy of St James, harmonised to the French folk tune Picardy (1906)
• Make Room Within My Heart, O God^[33]
• My God, My God, O Why Have You Forsaken Me? a lament for Good Friday services during Passiontide
• O Come to Me, the Master Said^[33]
• "O Little Town of Bethlehem" a popular Christmas Carol penned by the American Phillips Brooks adapted to the English tune "Forest Green"
• O Sing a Song of Bethlehem^[33]
• On Christmas Night All Christians Sing^[33]
• When the Church of Jesus^[33]

Vocal[link]

• "Linden Lea", song (1901)
• The House of Life, six sonnets by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, set to music (1904)
• Songs of Travel (1904)
• "The Sky Above The Roof" (1908)
• On Wenlock Edge, song cycle for tenor, piano and string quartet (1909)
• Along the Field, for tenor and violin
• Three Poems by Walt Whitman for baritone and piano (1920)
• Four Poems by Fredegond Shove: for baritone and piano (1922)
• Four Hymns: for tenor, viola obbligato and piano (1914)
• Merciless Beauty for tenor, two violins, and cello
• Four Last Songs to poems of Ursula Vaughan Williams
• Ten Blake songs, song cycle for high voice and oboe (1957)

Chamber and Instrumental[link]

• String Quartet in C minor (1897) (early composition)
• String Quartet No. 1 in G minor (1908)
• String Quartet No. 2 in A minor ("For Jean, on her birthday," 1942–44)
• Phantasy Quintet for 2 violins, 2 violas and cello (1912)
• Piano Quintet in C minor for violin, viola, cello, double bass and piano (1903)
• Sonata in A minor for violin and piano (1952)
• Romance for viola and piano (undated)
• Six Studies in English Folk Song, for violoncello and piano (1926)

Organ[link]

• Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes (Bryn Calfaria, Rhosymedre, Hyfrydol) (1920)
• Prelude and Fugue in C minor (1921)
• A Wedding Tune for Ann (1943)
• The Old One Hundredth Psalm Tune, harmonisation and arrangement (1953)
• Two Organ Preludes (The White Rock, St. David's Day) (1956)

Film, radio, and TV scores[link]

• 49th Parallel, 1940, his first, talked into it by Muir Mathieson to assuage his guilt at being able to do nothing for the war effort
• Coastal Command, 1942
• BBC adaptation of The Pilgrim's Progress, 1942
• The People's Land, 1943
• The Story of a Flemish Farm, 1943
• Stricken Peninsula, 1945
• The Loves of Joanna Godden, 1946
• Scott of the Antarctic, 1948, partially reused for his Sinfonia antartica (Symphony No. 7)
• The England of Elizabeth
• Bitter Springs, 1950

Band[link]

• Rhosymedre (based on a Welsh hymn tune for organ) for concert band (1920)
• (English) Folk Song Suite for military band (1923)
• Sea Songs (1923)
• Toccata Marziale for military band (1924)
• Overture: Henry V for brass band (1933/34)
• Flourish for Wind Band (1939)
• Prelude on Three Welsh Hymn Tunes arranged from the organ piece for brass band (1955) and published by Salvationist Publishing and Supplies
• Variations for brass band (1957)

Recordings[link]

Vaughan Williams enjoys an extensive recorded legacy. Early recordings of individual symphonies made by Henry Wood (London), John Barbirolli (Fifth), Adrian Boult and Leopold Stokowski (both in the Sixth), and the composer's own recording of the Fourth, preceded several complete cycles. Stokowski's 1943 NBC Symphony broadcast of the Fourth Symphony has also been issued on CD, as has his 1964 Proms performance of the 8th with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Sir Eugene Goossens recorded the 1920 edition of A London Symphony with the Cincinnati Orchestra for RCA Victor in 1941, the only recording of that version of the score ever made. Boult taped the first cycle (Symphonies 1–8) for Decca in the early 1950s, completing it with No. 9 for the Everest label in 1958; he re-recorded all nine for EMI between 1967 and 1972. Other cycles have followed from André Previn, Bernard Haitink, Bryden Thomson, Vernon Handley, Leonard Slatkin and Richard Hickox.

Several other foreign conductors have also recorded individual Vaughan Williams symphonies: Dimitri Mitropoulos and Leonard Bernstein both recorded the Fourth Symphony with the New York Philharmonic, the same orchestra with which Leopold Stokowski had made the first recording of the Sixth Symphony in 1949. This work was also recorded by Maurice Abravanel and the Utah Symphony in 1966. Paavo Berglund also recorded the Fourth and Sixth Symphonies and, among other CD releases, the Portuguese premiere of the Ninth Symphony, with Pedro de Freitas Branco conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Portugal, has also been issued. Similarly, the US premiere of the Ninth Symphony, given by Leopold Stokowski in Carnegie Hall in 1958 'In Memoriam Vaughan Williams' has also been released on CD by Cala Records.

A first official release of the Symphony No. 5 conducted by the composer in 1952 was recently issued in the U.K. by Somm Recordings.

David Willcocks recorded much of the choral output for EMI in the 1960s and 1970s. Award-winning performances of the string quartets have followed on Naxos, which along with the Hyperion and Chandos labels have recorded much neglected material, including works for brass band and the rarely performed operas.

EMI Classics has issued a budget 30-CD set (34+ hours) with virtually all of Vaughan Williams's works, including alternative settings.

See also[link]

• International Council for Traditional Music
• Music of Sussex

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Vaughan Williams on Music, Ralph Vaughan Williams & David Manning. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-518239-2
• Heirs & Rebels, Ralph Vaughan Williams & Gustav Holst; ed. Ursula Vaughan Williams & Imogen Holst. London, Oxford University Press, 1959.
• Vaughan Williams, Simon Heffer. Northeastern; First American edition (1 March 2001). ISBN 978-1-55553-472-1.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ralph Vaughan Williams

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ralph Vaughan Williams

• Free scores by Ralph Vaughan Williams in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Ralph Vaughan Williams at the International Music Score Library Project
• 1956 audio interview with Vaughan Williams on his editing of the English Hymnal (from the BBC)
• The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society
• Vaughan Williams Phantasy Quintet Soundbites and discussion of work
• Ralph Vaughan Williams at the Internet Movie Database
• Ralph Vaughan Williams at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Heffer, Simon (5 December 2007). "Ralph Vaughan Williams: Uneasy listening". The Daily Telegraph. UK. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/12/05/bmwilliams105.xml. "A stunning new film about composer Ralph Vaughan Williams challenges the myths that obscure his legacy – and exposes the darkness that permeates his work."  (on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the composer's death)
• Works by or about Ralph Vaughan Williams in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• "Famous names in the First World War—Ralph Vaughan Williams" from The National Archives, includes extracts from his army service record, and his 1901 Census return.
• Archival material relating to Ralph Vaughan Williams listed at the UK National Register of Archives