Sinfonia Antartica (Vaughan Williams)
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The English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams gave the Italian title Sinfonia Antartica ("Antarctic Symphony") to his seventh symphony.
Vaughan Williams provided the music for the film Scott of the Antarctic 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, the first performance taking place in 1953 in Manchester with Sir John Barbirolli conducting the Hallé Orchestra.
The work is scored for full orchestra, with parts for celeste, piano and organ, and a wide range of percussion instruments including a wind machine. There is also a wordless female chorus and solo soprano.
Vaughan Williams did not number his symphonies as he composed them (he referred to them only by title or key) until the appearance of the Ninth, which is in the same key as the Sixth. At that point he assigned numbers to them, beginning with the F minor, in order to avoid confusion. The first three are as well known by their titles as by their numbers.
A typical performance lasts around 45 minutes. There are five movements. The third and fourth are linked, and each movement is preceded in the score with a literary quotation.
- Prelude: Andante maestoso (quotation from Shelley, Prometheus Unbound)
- 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 104)
- There go the ships, and there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to take his pastime therein.
- Landscape: Lento (quotation from Coleridge, 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 Donne, 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 is played, but this practice makes impossible the composer's instruction that the third movement lead directly into the fourth without a pause.
[edit] Discography
The Naxos recording of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kees Bakels, has Symphony No. 7 on tracks 1 - 5, and on tracks 10 - 14 the quotations read by David Timson. The booklet suggests using the CD player's programme mode to have the quotations recited before each movement.
