Sinfonia Antartica (Vaughan Williams)
Encyclopedia
Sinfonia antartica is the Italian
title given by the English
composer
Ralph Vaughan Williams
to his seventh Symphony
.
in 1947, and was so inspired by the subject that he incorporated much of the music into a symphony. The piece was begun in 1949, and composition completed in 1952, with a dedication to Ernest Irving
. The first performance took place on January 14, 1953 in Manchester
with Sir John Barbirolli
conducting the Hallé Orchestra The soprano soloist was Margaret Ritchie
. The first American performance was given by Rafael Kubelik
and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
on April 2, 1953.
s doubling piccolo
s, two oboe
s, cor anglais
, two clarinet
s, bass clarinet
, two bassoon
s, contrabassoon
, four horns
, three trumpet
s, three trombone
s, tuba
, timpani
, four percussionists (playing side drum
, bass drum
, cymbal
s, triangle
, gong
, bells
, xylophone
, glockenspiel
, vibraphone
, and wind machine
), celesta
, harp
, piano
, organ
(used quite startlingly and effectively in a spot towards the end of the third movement) and string
s.
There is also a wordless three-part women's chorus
and solo soprano
, which sing only in the first and last movements.
. The composer specified that the third movement lead directly into the fourth. The score includes a brief literary quotation at the start of each movement. They are sometimes declaimed in performance (and recordings), although the composer did not say that they were intended to form part of a performance of the work.
Occasionally in performance and recordings the preceding quotations are recited before each movement - notably Sir Adrian Boult
's first recording for Decca with Sir John Gielgud
(supervised by the composer), and Andre Previn
's for RCA with Sir Ralph Richardson
. However, care must be taken, because the composer instructed that the third movement must lead directly into the fourth without a pause. The final notes of the third movement can be sustained as the superscription to the fourth movement is read, thereby ensuring no interruption to the music. The effect is particularly notable - and presumably intentionally so - since the other four movements each have their superscriptions read prior to the beginning of each movement. The horrific grandeur of the third movement is thereby held over into the bittersweet intermezzo. Previn's recording is the most accurate in this regard.
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
title given by the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM 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...
to his seventh Symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
.
History
Vaughan Williams provided the music for the film Scott of the AntarcticScott of the Antarctic (1948 film)
Scott of the Antarctic is a 1948 film about Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated expedition to be the first to the South Pole in Antarctica in 1910-12...
in 1947, and was so inspired by the subject that he incorporated much of the music into a symphony. The piece was begun in 1949, and composition completed in 1952, with a dedication to Ernest Irving
Ernest Irving
Ernest Irving was an English composer and conductor, primarily remembered for his involvement in film music. He composed the score for the Ealing comedy Whisky Galore!, Turned Out Nice Again starring George Formby, Ralph Vaughan Williams dedicated his Sinfonia antartica to him...
. The first performance took place on January 14, 1953 in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
with Sir John Barbirolli
John Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli, CH was an English conductor and cellist. Born in London, of Italian and French parentage, he grew up in a family of professional musicians. His father and grandfather were violinists...
conducting the Hallé Orchestra The soprano soloist was Margaret Ritchie
Margaret Ritchie
Margaret Ritchie was an English soprano who sang opera, oratorio and song. She created a number of operatic roles. In 1946 she was the first Lucia in The Rape of Lucretia by Benjamin Britten, and in 1947 she was the first Miss Wordsworth in the same composer's Albert Herring.She was one of four...
. The first American performance was given by Rafael Kubelik
Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Jeroným Kubelík was a Czech conductor and composer.-Early life:Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me." His mother was a Hungarian...
and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
on April 2, 1953.
Score notes
The work is scored for a large orchestra including three fluteFlute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s doubling piccolo
Piccolo
The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
s, two oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, cor anglais
Cor anglais
The cor anglais , or English horn , is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family....
, two clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s, bass clarinet
Bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
, two bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s, contrabassoon
Contrabassoon
The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...
, four horns
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
, three trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s, three trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s, tuba
Tuba
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...
, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
, four percussionists (playing side drum
Snare drum
The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
, bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
, cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s, triangle
Triangle (instrument)
The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
, gong
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
, bells
Bell (instrument)
A bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...
, xylophone
Xylophone
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
, glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
, vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
, and wind machine
Wind machine
The wind machine is a specialist musical instrument used to produce the sound of wind. One type uses an electric fan with wooden slats added to produce the required sound...
), celesta
Celesta
The celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano or of a large wooden music box . The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal plates suspended over wooden resonators...
, harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
, piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
(used quite startlingly and effectively in a spot towards the end of the third movement) and string
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
s.
There is also a wordless three-part women's chorus
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
and solo soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, which sing only in the first and last movements.
Mechanics of the composition
A typical performance lasts around 45 minutes. There are five movementsMovement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
. The composer specified that the third movement lead directly into the fourth. The score includes a brief literary quotation at the start of each movement. They are sometimes declaimed in performance (and recordings), although the composer did not say that they were intended to form part of a performance of the work.
- Prelude: Andante maestoso (quotation from ShelleyPercy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
, Prometheus UnboundPrometheus UnboundPrometheus Unbound is a four-act play by Percy Bysshe Shelley first published in 1820, concerned with the torments of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus and his suffering at the hands of Zeus. It is inspired by Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and concerns Prometheus' release from captivity...
)- To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite,/ To forgive wrongs darker than death or night,/ To defy power which seems omnipotent,/ ... / Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent:/ This ... is to be/ Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free,/ This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.
- Scherzo: Moderato (quotation from Psalm 104Psalm 104Psalm 104 is a poem from the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, describing the ongoing act of God continuously bringing the world into existence. German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder remarked, "It is worth studying the Hebrew language for ten years in order to read Psalm 104 in the original"...
, Verse 26)- There go the ships, and there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to take his pastime therein.
- Landscape: Lento (quotation from ColeridgeSamuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
, Hymn before Sunrise, in the vale of Chamouni)- Ye ice falls! Ye that from the mountain's brow/ Adown enormous ravines slope amain —/ Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,/ And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!/ Motionless torrents! Silent cataracts!
- Intermezzo: Andante sostenuto (quotation from DonneJohn DonneJohn Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...
, The Sun Rising)- Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,/ Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
- Epilogue: Alla marcia, moderato (non troppo allegro) (quotation from Captain Scott's Last Journal)
- I do not regret this journey; we took risks, we knew we took them, things have come out against us, therefore we have no cause for complaint.
Occasionally in performance and recordings the preceding quotations are recited before each movement - notably Sir Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...
's first recording for Decca with Sir John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
(supervised by the composer), and Andre Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
's for RCA with Sir Ralph Richardson
Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson was an English actor, one of a group of theatrical knights of the mid-20th century who, though more closely associated with the stage, also appeared in several classic films....
. However, care must be taken, because the composer instructed that the third movement must lead directly into the fourth without a pause. The final notes of the third movement can be sustained as the superscription to the fourth movement is read, thereby ensuring no interruption to the music. The effect is particularly notable - and presumably intentionally so - since the other four movements each have their superscriptions read prior to the beginning of each movement. The horrific grandeur of the third movement is thereby held over into the bittersweet intermezzo. Previn's recording is the most accurate in this regard.