The Lark Ascending
The Lark Ascending is a work for violin and orchestra written in 1914 by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. The composition was inspired by George Meredith's 122-line poem of the same name about the skylark. It is one of the most popular pieces in the Classical repertoire among British listeners.
The work was written for and dedicated to the English violinist Marie Hall, who gave the first performance with piano accompaniment. Contrary to the popular imagination, Vaughan Williams actually wrote sketches for it while watching troop ships cross the English Channel at the outbreak of the First World War. A small boy observed him making the sketches and, thinking he was jotting down a secret code, informed a police officer who subsequently arrested the composer.
The war halted composition, but the work was revised in 1920 and it was premiered under conductor Adrian Boult on 14 June 1921, again with Marie Hall as soloist. The critic from The Times said of the first performance, "It showed supreme disregard for the ways of today or yesterday. It dreamed itself along".
The use of pentatonic scale patterns frees the violin from a strong tonal centre, and shows the impressionistic side of Vaughan Williams' style. This liberty also extends to the metre. The cadenzas for solo violin are written without bar lines, lending them a sense of meditational release. [1]
In the mid-20th Century The Lark Ascending became especially associated with the English violinist Hugh Bean. From 2007 to 2010, the piece was voted number one in the Classic FM annual Hall of Fame poll, over Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto, Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and Vaughan Williams' other great work, the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.[2]
In popular culture
The Lark Ascending is the inspiration for Larks' Tongues in Aspic by King Crimson (1973). The piece was also used as the main theme for the 1987 Australian film The Year My Voice Broke, starring Noah Taylor and Loene Carmen.
This piece was used by David Crowder Band on "The Lark Ascending or (Perhaps More Accurately, I'm Trying to Make You Sing)", the last song on their album A Collision (or 3 + 4 = 7).
Dreadzone's homage to the beauty of the English countryside, "A Canterbury Tale", uses the initial solo violin theme from The Lark Ascending as a recurring melody.
The Jez Butterworth play Jerusalem (which premiered on 10 July 2009 at the Royal Court Theatre, London) used this piece as its preset music.
References
- ^ Megan Hobbs, Birds of a feather, Limelight, October 2002
- ^ Classic FM