Introduction

One of his most dissonant symphonies, oddly enough, this is one of Vaughan Williams's most frequently-performed works. We normally think of Vaughan Williams (hereafter referred to as VW) as a "pastoral" composer--modal, melodic, meditative, folky--but in truth his range is far more wide. To those of you who know only the Tallis Fantasia, Linden Lea, the Mass in g, or the English Folk-Song Suite, this symphony will surprise you.

As a VW fan, I have to say this work isn't really typical of him, not because of its dissonance (many of his works are dissonant, written in several different simultaneous keys, etc.), but because it's probably the closest thing he wrote to a conventional symphony. Conductors who can't make structural sense of something like the meditative Symphony No. 3 (the "Pastoral"), find more helpful signposts here. As a result, more conductors not particularly associated with his work have recorded it. Of the recorded performances, I like Boult, Bernstein, and Previn-- in that order. I haven't heard the newer crop of conductors: Thomson, Hickox, Handley, or Davis. However, none of the performances cited above match the composer's own. If you can stand the 1937 sound, get this recording. For a nice compromise between interpretation and sound, get the Boult.

The British composer William Walton, at that time having troubles completing his own symphony and having been to the rehearsals of VW's 4th, reported glumly to a friend, "You are about to hear the greatest symphony since Beethoven." As serious criticism, we can blow it off, but it does indicate the symphony's considerable impact at a first hearing. Indeed, its impact has given rise to several misunderstandings of the work--notably, that it prophesied the rise of Fascism. Something this powerful MUST mean something. But this view, of course, came later, in the 40s. At its 1935 premiere, no one connected this with Fascism, and the composer always strenuously insisted it was pure music. VW's friends found it to express his humor and his "poisonous temper." The composer himself deprecated the symphony in very well-known remarks. He described the opening grinding dissonances as "cribbed from the finale of Beethoven's ninth." To a musician's questioning of a certain note, he replied, "It looks wrong and it sounds wrong, but it's right." "I don't know whether I like it, but it's what I meant." Actually, the composer protested too much. I believe the symphony expresses some inner program, but it is precisely because it talks about "inner weather" (to borrow Frost's happy term about poets) that it remains hidden. People also thought that the symphony was unprecedented in VW's output, but in fact it culminates a phase that began in the 20s, at least with the powerful oratorio Sancta Civitas, and continued through the ballet Job and the piano concerto. Indeed, the piano concerto lies very close in spirit and method to the symphony.

I've called this work the closest VW ever came to a conventional, or classical, symphony. If we define classicism in music as an architectural principle based on symmetry or even as pouring new wine into the sonata-allegro form, VW isn't particularly classical. However, what I would call the "classical process" is there in spades. Composers like Mozart and Beethoven don't begin with elements as complete as "themes," but at the lower level of "cell" or "motive." From cells, they construct themes. By recombining cells, altering rhythms, etc., they get new themes. Mozart plays this game especially well. This method gives a work great unity. Beethoven extended the principle across movements of a piece, in works like the 5th symphony and the 4th piano concerto, thus tightening up a work even more. This is the game VW plays. He grows an entire symphony from a few cells.

I've mentioned before that one of problems of the Romantic symphony was that it based itself on song or theme rather than cell, especially someone like Borodin. The songs are great, but his symphonies don't cohere like Brahms's. Actually, very few composers write great songs and great symphonies. Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Mahler, and VW come to mind. But, in effect, all these guys lead two artistic lives. They work one way when they write songs and another when they write the big instrumental works. As most of you know, the English folk song strongly influenced VW's idiom, but by that time he had been thoroughly trained in the Brahms tradition under its leading British exemplars, Parry and Stanford (see VW's Toward the Unknown Region, especially, for a look at him pre-folk--and pre-Ravel). A very sturdy skeleton supports VW's most emotionally rhapsodic works--rhapsodic almost never degenerates to episodic.

I hope to show that this symphony is also about counterpoint. Yet, despite the formidable compositional technique, ultimately the power of this symphony lies beyond words and analysis. VW is so at home in the symphony, that he constructs movements without the usual signposts. You take the path "less traveled by," but you get to the end without confusion. VW is a poet of the form.

The 1st Movement

(Measure numbers, OUP edition, are in parentheses)

I pointed out that classical composers don't begin with themes, but with cells. Actually, in this symphony VW seems to begin at the even lower level of intervals. He builds the symphony out of two intervals: the semitone (or half step; notes B and C on a piano) and the perfect fourth (the opening two notes of "Here Comes the Bride"). From these intervals come the symphony's cells. From the cells, come most, if not all, of its themes.

Extremely complex, this movement requires an overview and a comparison with the classical sonata-allegro form, traditionally the form of a first movement.

Classical 			4th Symphony 

1. Optional intro		Opening statement of all cells (1-48)

2. 1st subject stated		1st subject stated and developed (49-84)

3. 2nd subject stated		2nd subject stated and developed (84-122)

4. Development		Pseudo-recap; opening cells developed (123-150)

5. Recapitulation		Recap with variations (151-212)

6. Optional coda		Coda (213-240)

The symphony states its matter immediately, beginning with a grinding dissonance ("cribbed", VW claimed, from the 9th's finale) and continuing with its major cells:

1a. A dissonance fortissimo (very loud) on the semitones Db and C. He immediately repeats it an octave lower (1-2).

1b. From these semitones comes the 4-note second cell, 2 semitones separated by a minor third (3-4). This cell does most of the thematic work and is also the BACH theme transposed. BACH in German nomenclature consists of the notes Bb-A-C-B. Bach "signed" some of his pieces in this fashion, and later composers have taken it up in homage. In the opening, VW uses the notes Db-C-Eb-D, the same theme starting on a different note. This should tip us off that the symphony will probably emphasize counterpoint.

1c. He then immediately transforms 1b into a 4-note cell consisting of 2 semitones separated by a semitone: E-Eb-F- E, an "almost-BACH" theme (6-7). He sets all these cells going at progressively faster speeds on different beats of the measure, getting a kind of lurching effect (6-9).

1d. He reverses 1a from Db-C to C-Db (except that he starts it on a C#) and extends it into an upward (later downward) semitonal run to F#, covering the interval of a perfect 4th (10-14). Oooo.

1e. An upward succession of perfect 4ths, heard mainly in the brass, as a kind of slow fanfare (14-18). The cell has major consequences throughout the symphony.

All this has occurred over the first 18 measures in under 30 seconds. Curiously, we have not yet heard f, the nominal key of the symphony and the movement. We could call this a classical intro, a la Beethoven's first or Haydn's 98th, but it takes up too much emotional weight. The latter two symphonies give you the impression of "warming up." VW's opening starts you with a crash. Opening key and emotional ambiguity is typical of VW, especially in symphonies 3-5.

By measure 19, we arrive in f, and VW repeats the opening ideas, minus the slow fanfare, in the new key. "Arrive" is perhaps too strong. The key has not really established itself.

The key that does is not f but d, with the sounding of the first full-blown tune (A) (52-54). This passionately expands 1a--the grinding with the octave drop--to a throbbing accompaniment in the brass (49 ff.). VW repeats A higher and expands and extends it. Interestingly, A has the happy power to start or end a phrase. Essentially a "cadential figure" (a progression that provides final or temporary repose at the end of a section), you can also tack it on as a beginning. VW doesn't develop this theme as much as vary it with new twists and turns. The twists may fascinate you so, you may miss the considerable canonic accompaniment. Theme A both begins and ends this section (49- 84).

We then hit a new theme (B) in an ambiguous D (85-87), which I designate the second subject. It starts out as a syncopated repeated F# which opens out slightly into a combination of 1b through 1d (85-94). Midway through, a counter-theme (basically B reversed) in the winds and A sound against it (90-94). Eventually, A takes over and gets developed (c. 97 ff.). Fragments of A and B full-blown sound simultaneously (111-122), in elaborate fugato counterpoint yet, and we reach a pseudo-recap, pseudo since it's really further development (123 ff.).

We hit this false recapitulation in d with the grinding and immediately fragments of BACH and almost-BACH, first very quiet and then bursting out. This comes closest to a classical development, very short, of the latter two themes, with the upward semitone fragment as an accompaniment (132 ff.). The opening themes (minus the fanfare) and their fragments come to the fore more quickly and with greater urgency.

We arrive now at a true recap with a fortissimo restatement of the grinding in a quick, demonic jig (151 ff.). The strings snarl the semitone run (162-169). The fanfares sound in canon (170-175). More grinding (179 ff.). Tune A sounds again in the bass with a simultaneous elaboration in the high strings (189- 211). This reaches a climax which quickly dies down to a brief brass choral statement of A (211-213). We have reached the coda.

A very quiet and much slower statement of B sounds in the middle strings, with A as a counterpoint in the high strings (214-221). The harmonic clouds lighten. The winds play the opening fragment of A in dialogue with the strings, over a Db pedal (228-234). The movement takes a little time trying to figure out whether it will end in major (the strings) or minor (the winds) (235-240).

The 2nd Movement

This is probably one of the most concentrated movements VW ever wrote. It reminds me of a Bach slow movement. The structure is binary (though not symmetrical halves), and it sounds mostly like a contrapuntal aria over a chaconne-like tread in the bass. Both halves end with a solo flute near-cadenza.

The movement opens softly with the fanfare motif of the first movement in the brass and then the winds (1-6). At the end, the flutes give a little shake of 8th notes that have great consequences for the design of the themes that follow (5-6).

The cellos and basses, pizzicato, pluck out the bass, which derives from the first big tune (A) and also the bass accompaniment of tune B in the first movement. Over this, the upper strings start a slow aria in fugato (derived from the first movement's upward semitone run) to which the shake gives definition (10-26). This is varied by the oboe (26 ff.) and the other winds which try to turn the aria more or less upside-down. During this time, the intervals of the shake widen from 2nds to 4ths (26-37). At measures 36 and 37, the lower strings softly give out the shake in perfect 4ths. Violins and violas begin again, this time with the wind version of the aria (38-44). However, the counterpoint cuts off with a new theme (44-46), which is an amalgam of the first movement grinding (except now the octave leap is upwards) and the first movement big tune A. It will reappear throughout the movement mostly as an accompaniment. As you recall, A also derives from the grinding and the octave drop, so here VW tightens the relationship between these ideas. The music builds to fanfares in the brass against shakes of 4ths (50-57) and subsides.

The solo flute relates the shake to tune A (61-63). The horns echo the flute. We are winding down. There is some question, as in the end of the first movement, whether the section will end in major or minor (67-70). We have reached the first half of the movement.

Just when the gas starts to run out, the bassoon steals in with yet another variation of the aria and the pizzicato bass begins again (70 ff.). Fragments of previous themes are heard once more. By now, you can probably name them in your sleep: the semitone grind (reversed), the aria, the shake of 4ths and the "original" form, BACH and almost-BACH (see the celli at measure 78 the wind parts around 80 especially), tune A, etc. This builds to a climax where the brass have their fanfares against a chromatic and rhythmic variant of A (84-91). The relation between the pizzicato bass and tune B of the first movement is emphasized.

The violas (with discreet woodwind doubling) begin the fugato aria yet again (95) with a counter-melody in the high violins (A in yet another guise) (96-106). My, oh my. The oboe comes in with a "new" theme (actually an "almost-BACH") at measure 107 as the lower strings sing the woodwind version of the aria in dialogue with the horn. We rise to a small climax (carried by the fanfare thrown in for good measure) and subside on shakes of 4ths and 2nds in counterpoint with each other.

The harmony brightens for the only time in the movement (125). The strings try on the aria one mo' time, as we say in the South, but the flute is trying out its cadenza again simultaneously (125-130). By measure 131, we're landing at last. Over soft brass chords, the flute starts coming in from the stratosphere in several passes. By measure 136, we get intimations that the harmonic end of the movement is in doubt. The flute is the only thing moving at this point, and it keeps avoiding a landing on the tonic note, F, showing a marked preference for the leading tone, E. Apparently, VW kept rethinking this seemingly small point. In his own recording, made in 1937, the flute ends "nicely" on an F over a soft F-major chord in the strings. By the late 50s, the final flute note is E, making a normally-mild dissonance within the chord. Debussy and Ravel use this chord (technically known as a "major-seventh") routinely to lush effect. Here, however, due to the orchestration, it unsettles you.

The 3rd Movement

The third movement resembles a Beethoven scherzo and trio, basically an A-B-A form: scherzo-trio-scherzo. VW modifies the overall structure, not outrageously, by tacking on a coda-transition-to-the-next-movement passage.

"Scherzo," of course, means "joke." In this movement, we get the symphony, up to this point, in a fun-house mirror, lively, grotesque, and somewhat frightening at the same time. The work contains the following themes:

1a. An upward rush of 4ths, followed by a harping on 5ths and major 6ths. This derives from the fanfare motif and tune B of the first movement (the one which begins with the repeated notes), as well as the "shake" of the second movement. This is the major material for the "a" part of the scherzo.

1b. A 6/8 version of movement 1's tune B. This is the major material for the "b" part of the scherzo. It consists of repeated notes followed by an insistent upward minor third.

2. A fugal subject, derived from the fanfare motif. This is the matter of the trio.

First appearance of the scherzo (1-148):

We begin with 1a. Almost immediately (5-7), VW interrupts this with "almost-BACH," played by muted trumpets in one time, by the winds at twice the speed, and by the strings at 3 times the speed. It's almost immediately clear that this major motif has been demoted to an accompanying ostinato (8 ff.). Over this, the winds take up 1a (10-36), joined near the end by the rest of the orchestra. By the way, notice how syncopated all this is. Most instruments enter off the beat. How VW ever got the reputation for stodgy rhythm, I don't know. At any rate, this is followed (37-39) by a swirl of mainly high strings, out of which comes another lurching idea (functioning as a transition) that comes from part of tune B (see measure 87 in the first movement, violins and violas). This idea lurches to 1b (48-71).

As 1b progresses, two interesting things happen: the upward third becomes more and more insistent and four of the symphony's five opening cells (1a-1c, 1e, first movement) start creeping in. These begin with a very soft horn entry (71) of the grinding semitone, BACH in the brass (78-79), and almost-BACH in the high winds and strings against the fanfare's rising 4ths in the low winds (80-84). BACH and almost-BACH gradually take over and lead into the second statement of 1a in the bassoon (102 ff.). VW shortens the restatement.

Very quickly, after another swirl of strings and winds, we launch into 1b again (133 ff.), this too telescoped. Toward the end of this section (144-148), we seem to be about to lurch into something else, but the section really runs out of gas. (A subtle point for those of you with scores: notice the clarinets in the background with the opening motif of the first movement.) The emotional energy dissipates. We have reached the trio.

Not much to say here that I haven't already said. This is a straightforward fugal treatment of theme 2, nominally in Eb, but who knows? This section always reminds me of Hindemith, but only because Hindemith's favorite interval is the 4th and he also likes fugues. The section has been described, possibly by VW himself, as "elephantine," but I find it has its graceful, even delicate, moments. Harping on fifths (from 1a) leads to the ...

A quick count of the measures reveals VW isn't about to give us an exact repeat. We're into 1a with a crash. The highpoints are repeated, another swirl, and we sail right into 1b, which curiously enough dies suddenly. It's like an infant sweeping the bowl off his high chair. VW tries again with the fugal subject (271-279), but rejects that with part of 1b (280-283). We are left with mutterings (based on the lurch) in the lower parts (284 ff.). We have reached the coda.

A coda wraps things up. A transition leads to something new. This section polishes off the matter of the third movement and winds up to deliver the fourth. The movement begins as a dialogue between the fanfare motif (the main matter of the scherzo) and the symphony's opening grinding semitone. At measure 316, the grinding turns into almost-BACH and gets faster and more insistent, and we leave the fanfares behind. VW plays almost-BACH against itself in various rhythms over the mutterings (never absent from the texture). The section grows louder and quicker until there's an upward swoop which leads directly to the blare of the fourth movement.

The 4th Movement

By far the most complex of the symphony, this movement will require a new labelling system for the themes, since VW uses stuff from all the movements so far as his musical material. Talk about summing up. Roman numerals refer to movements, the rest refers to the labels we've been using. Thus, I.1a is the grinding semitone of the first movement.

The movement, with an Italian title--"Finale con epilogo fugato," finale with fugato epilogue (HOW do I do it?)--begins with a roar of three chords and then takes off with the rest of the first theme (IV.1a). Perhaps the 3rd-movement transition and finale to Beethoven's 5th lay in back of VW's mind, and the similarity may have prompted Walton's remark.

The opening of the statement of the first thematic group (1-52) is actually a rhythmic variant of the flute cadenzas in movement II. IV.1a repeats (15) after an oompah bass and leads to a second theme (IV.1b) which relates I.B. (repeated notes) to I.1a (grinding), over the oompah bass. IV.1b gets expanded and developed until the re-entry of the opening (53) and further development. Part of this includes a quick run of F-Gb-Ab-Gb-F (IV.1c) (42) and a tail of a minor-3rd drop (IV.1d) (44-45), both of which have consequences later. He arrives at IV.1d through an earlier drop of a semitone (40), so it's clear that this part of the theme derives from I.1a. The first thematic group gets developed (53-76). Toward the end, VW emphasizes the minor 3rd of IV.1d (67-73). We have reached the end of the first section.

The second section announces a new theme in Bb (IV.2) (77-105), which begins with a triad. It sounds a bit like a call to arms. This is really the first time we've seen musical material like this. Where does it come from? It drove me nuts until the second half of the theme, insistent descending 4ths, clicked. VW has compressed the intervals of the scherzo's opening (III.1a)-- 4ths to 3rds, 5ths to 4ths--and changed a syncopated jig to an on-the-beat 4-in-a bar. He subjects the theme to fugal treatment with stretto (a new entry of the fugal subject before the previous entry finishes). You hear this as a kind of "overlapping" of this theme.

At measure 106, IV.1c gets changed to triple time and moves against the call to arms, also in triple time and missing the 3rd of the triad. One would expect a development of this, but instead, the movement strangely begins to unravel. Theme IV.1a returns in a quicker version (115) and little by little our old friends begin to sneak in: BACH (117), grinding (119-122), and fanfare (117, trombone III and tuba, 127-132). The music tries to come together by insisting on IV.1b over oompahs, but this peters out to its basic semitone. At 169, the strings quietly try IV.1b, c, and d, and give up. At 177, a cantabile ("singing") for strings alone (177-188) shows the relation of I.B by following it with IV.2 (184-185). Toward the end (186), I.1a appears with the drop compressed.

Almost-BACH appears in the lower brass, as the bassoons quietly intone the fanfare. The pot begins to boil again (189-213) with this basic material of the first movement. We have reached the recapitulation.

It's a recap which greatly modifies the first and second subject groups. Everything is telescoped (214-c. 274). We get the opening three chords in the brass, IV.1a (214-215), followed almost immediately by IV.1b over the oompahs (223-245), IV.1c (237), and IV.2 in stretto (246-264) and in its triple-time version (264 ff.). Meanwhile, the strings seem to abandon themes for a continual swirl (see esp. 267-301), punctuated by IV.1d, now related to the major-minor conflict from the end of the first movement (302-309). But this time VW is not done yet. He moves us into the fugal epilogue.

To me, this spectacular section (309-452) takes a 20th-century look at nothing less than Bach's Art of the Fugue. One of the finest summings-up I know, it accords VW his place as a master.

We begin with, appropriately enough, almost-BACH against the rising-4th fanfare. Almost-BACH enters at various speeds (309- 353) sometimes accompanied by the fanfare. At 354, IV.1b is added to the brew, and it too gets played at various speeds within the contrapuntal texture. IV.1c gets its stretto (370- 378).

At 379, we essentially go through the same business again, but this time its almost-BACH against IV.2 (379-412). At 413, we get the triple-time version of IV.2 against a triple-time almost-BACH treated, once more, fugally (413-432). At 433, guess what? A restatement of the movement's three opening chords, but VW doesn't really mean it. It's almost-BACH almost all the way, working up to a ferocious climax, but there's one last surprise. The last page of the symphony (453-464) reprises the first page, and the orchestra makes a final stamp in f minor.

If you think about it, this is the first full stop the symphony has made. The first movement ended ambiguously in the major, after shifting back and forth between minor and major. The second movement ended on an unstable dissonance. The third movement slammed into the fourth, and the fourth movement has many opportunities to end which it passes up. This symphony just doesn't let you go until its last, angry gesture.

I have given you only highlights of this work. VW began sketches in 1931 and didn't complete it until 1934. He kept fiddling with it. As powerful as it is, there's a lot of calculation in it by someone who has fully mastered classical symphonic form. You can't do this kind of original work without first having absorbed the practice of your predecessors. The really amazing thing is that of his nine symphonies, none resembles this one. In fact, none of the nine resemble each other. Each represents a fresh look at the symphony. Try the other eight. Each one should surprise you.

-- Steve Schwartz