Ralph Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending

TO A SKYLARK
By Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then - as I am listening now!

Ralph Vaughan Williams studied with Parry, Wood and Stanford at the RCM and Cambridge, then had further lessons with Bruch in Berlin (1897) and Ravel in Paris (1908). It was only after this that he began to write with sureness in larger forms, even though some songs had had success in the early years of the century. That success, and the ensuring maturity, depended very much on his work with folksong, which he had begun to collect in 1903; this opened the way to the lyrical freshness of the Housman cycle On Wenlock Edge and to the modally inflected tonality of the symphonic cycle that began with A Sea Symphony. But he learnt the same lessons in studying earlier English music in his task as editor of the English Hymnal (1906) - work which bore fruit in his Fantasia on a Theme by Tallis for strings, whose majestic unrelated consonances provided a new sound and a new way into large-scale form. The sound, with its sense of natural objects seen in a transfigured light, placed Vaughan Williams in a powerfully English visionary tradition, and made very plausible his association of his music with Blake (in the ballet Job) and Bunyan (in the opera The Pilgrim's Progress). Menwhile the new command of form made possible a first orchestral symphony, A London Symphony, where characterful detail is worked into the scheme. A first opera, Hugh the Drover, made direct use of folksongs, which Vaughan Williams normally did not do in his orchestral works.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• The
• Lark
• Ascending
• Ralph
• Vaughan
• Williams
• Granako

[Yuki1meltingsnow]

Ralph Vaughan Williams, Hibari Misora, Hayao Mitazaki are some artists that set the hurdle for me as a young one that still do not know the gentle way of expressing strength. You can tell from their music and artwork that they know more than what our eyes can capture. granako here in YouTube spent 7 minutes and 10 seconds to tell us something the UN would spend an entire conference on. Film is powerful.I will learn from this and make a film about peace keeping here in California. Yuki Togawa

[syoung1234567]

Beautifully done. Love the music.

[modelerjimg]

My favorite piece of music, and this is so beautifully done. I'm disabled, and whenever I'm feeling a bit low, and wallowing in self pity, I watch this. It always chokes me up a bit, but in a good way. Joy, hope, and peace. I posted this in our Osteonecrosis group, and hope it brings as much joy to the other members as it has bought me. Thank you for the beautiful and sensitive imagery that accompanies the composition.

[hamasburi]

Score and Orchestral parts for The Lark Ascending can be found at SheetMusicX [dot] com

[seekinside]

Oh my Gosh that has been put together so beautifully - music with Vibrations, pics with Heart and words with Soul. Vaughan Williams was such a visionary - he was born with a direct connection to the Divine - pls have a look at my channel if like to know more. Peace

[BubbleGumBabiiRa]

@Yuki1meltingsnow *Miyazaki

[GRtalkinghead]

Brilliant job. I love the image transition at 0:45 and the photo that led into it. A great setting for one of my favorite pieces of music.

[janettkachuk]

This is the most magnificent piece of music that I have ever heard. Thank you so much for posting it! Love and light to you. ♥ ♥ ♥

[wistaria2010]

Vaughan Williams' Lark remains in my top 10 of all time. The first time I heard it way back when, I was put into freeze mode, I couldn't move, I had to sit and listen to the very last sweet note. And then craved to hear it over and over again.

[Amandathecamera]

beautiful photography

[molinmusic]

A favorite song juxtaposed with beautiful images of young children....masterful! Thanks for posting!

[Salmocymraeg]

Lovely Video. Many thanks for posting.