Vaughan-williams: Willow-wood / The Sons Of Light / Toward The Unknown Region

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Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)Willow-Wood Toward the Unknown Region The Sons of LightThe poems of the American Walt Whitman (1819-1892)were published in Leaves of Grass, a collected workswhich in successive editions over 35 years from 1855added new poems at each appearance. Vaughan Williamsmay have been first introduced to Whitman by his teacherStanford, who in his pioneering Elegiac Ode of 1884 hadbeen the first significant British composer to respond toWhitman's visionary non-sectarian stanzas and thefreedom of his verse. Ursula Vaughan Williams tells usthat from 1902 or 1903 Leaves of Grass in variouseditions was 'his constant companion'. The outcome ofthis absorption was A Sea Symphony, gradually broughtinto focus over seven years and first heard in 1910. Acompanion piece, started later but completed sooner, wasToward the Unknown Region. Vaughan Williamsremembered that when he and his friend Gustav Holst hadboth considered themselves 'stuck', they decided theyshould both set the same Whitman text from 'Whispers ofHeavenly Death' and jointly select the winner. They dulyawarded the palm to Vaughan Williams for this work. Itwas first performed at the Leeds Festival on 10th October1907 with the composer conducting (doubtless theFestival conductor, Stanford, insisted that his pupil shouldconduct his own work), but when, two months later, itfirst appeared in London at the Royal College of Music on10th December 1907 Stanford was on the podium.Vaughan Williams referred to the work as a \song forchorus and orchestra and it was announced thus at thefestival. Hubert Foss has pointed out that the openingmelody is almost identical to 'Love's Last Gift', the finalsong of Vaughan Williams's Rossetti sequence TheHouse of Life which included his popular song 'SilentNoon'. Percy Young has also drawn our attention toanother musical motif that Vaughan Williams subsumesinto his score when he looks to the psalm tune SineNomine 'and reaches a blazing climax in the final bars,emblematic of the ultimate triumph of the soul's destiny'.The cantata Willow-Wood for baritone, women'svoices and orchestra first appeared as a scena for baritoneand piano in March 1903 when it was sung by CampbellMcInnes in a concert at St James's Hall, Piccadilly. AgainVaughan Williams set words from Dante GabrielRossetti's sequence The House of Life. The genesis ofthese early works seems to be interrelated, and MichaelKennedy has drawn our attention to a motif, also in thesong 'Love's Last Gift', which this time became theopening of Willow-Wood.Vaughan Williams orchestrated Willow-Wood soonafter the first performance and later added an ad.lib.women's chorus (much of it wordless), and in this form itwas performed at the Music League Festival in Liverpoolon 25th September 1909, for which Breitkopf and Hartelprinted the vocal score. There the soloist was thecelebrated baritone Frederic Austin, and the conductor theWelsh choral conductor Harry Evans. Despite somepositive press notices and