Overview
On the heels of our previous Masterworks concert highlighting some of America’s most definitive composers, A London Landscape of English composers in the modern era is a look now across the pond at their English counterparts. Many of the works on this program are contemporary to those from the previous concert, making this a unique opportunity to compare how orchestral writing developed in each nation during the modern era, particularly as they emerged from disruption of the world wars.
Just like the Americans, British composers turned to the natural world for solace and inspiration. Nature has always gone hand in hand with the development of positive national identity. How could it not? If we find hope and meaning in the natural world by going outside and, to borrow a phrase from the kids, touching grass, then the particular grass we touch is as intrinsic and fundamental to our identities as any other part of our culture. Just as the American landscape was reflected in the music on our previous program, here we encounter the exquisite character of the English countryside: fecund meadows, lush forests, crags and cliffs, and, of course, the perilous splendor of the sea.
Orb and Sceptre (1953)
William Walton (1902-1983)
Run time: Approx. 8 minutes
Orb and Sceptre, written by William Walton for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, is the successor to his earlier coronation march, Crown Imperial, composed in 1936 for the coronation of her father, George VI. For both works, Walton took their titles from a speech in Shakespeare’s Henry V, and he once remarked that he was reserving the phrase “bed majestical” for King Charles III, though he may never have imagined how many years it would be until the monarchy next changed hands. The speech reads as follows:
I am a king that find thee, and I know
‘Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running ‘fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave.
The orb and the sceptre are references to two key pieces of the Coronation Regalia, part of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. The Sovereign’s Orb and the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross were both made in 1661 for the coronation of Charles II and used in every coronation since. The sceptre contains the largest colorless cut diamond in the world.
Orb and Sceptre was commissioned by the Arts Council of Great Britain, and Walton obtained permission to dedicate the piece to the Queen, a considerable honor, as such permission was rarely granted.
Musically, the piece is exactly what one would want in a coronation march. It’s celebratory, poised, and joyful, but never over-excited. The structure is straightforward, with a brisk opening, a stately middle section, and a return to a triumphant conclusion.
The Lark Ascending (1914)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Run time: Approx. 13 minutes
The Lark Ascending
By George Meredith
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.
For singing till his heaven fills,
‘Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
to lift us with him as he goes.
Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.
Ralph Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending is a single-movement work for violin and orchestra, inspired by the poem of the same name by George Meredith. In his poem, Meredith describes the unique visual and auditory experience of a lark taking flight, while also capturing the sense of awe inspired by witnessing such a scene.
Larks, which are ubiquitous throughout the United Kingdom, possess one of the most unique songs of any bird. Their bright, high-pitched, fluttering sounds as they hover in the air like a helicopter, unlike most birds, which sing from a perch. Remarkably, they can continue for up to fifteen minutes seemingly without pause for breath. As Meredith wrote, they “drop the silver chain of sound, / Of many links without a break.” Sometimes they hover so high that they are almost invisible. For many, the skylark’s song is the quintessential sound of the English countryside.
In his lyrical interpretation of the poem, Vaughan Williams captures all the elements Meredith extolls: the lark’s song and flight, the beauty of the pastoral English landscape, and the well of emotion stirred in the observer of this small miracle of nature. The violin begins as the bird itself, rising from the earth and gradually ascending into its high register, where it hovers before descending again. Just like the lark, the violin plays extended passages without pause. Vaughan Williams captures it without resorting to mimicry, ebbing and flowing seamlessly between soaring lines evoking its majestic ascent, and fluttering passages that echo its song. Gradually, the scope of the music opens to include an English folk song, evoking a sense of place and reflecting the lark’s intrinsic connection to the English countryside.
Vaughan Williams wrote a great deal of music that we might call pastoral, and at a time when many of his contemporaries were becoming increasingly avant‑garde, he held true to more traditional styles. The music critic John Alexander Fuller Maitland remarked that when listening to his music, “one is never quite sure whether one is listening to something very old or very new.” Witnessing scenes of nature can evoke a similar suspension of time—the sense that what is happening now could have unfolded in exactly the same way a hundred years ago; that hearing a lark today is much the same experience as it was when Vaughan Williams heard one in 1914. The Lark Ascending captures something of that experience.
Symphony No. 104 in D major, “London” (1795)
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Run time: Approx. 28 minutes
By the late 1700s, Haydn, now in his 60s, was enjoying the rewards of a fruitful career. He had become quite well-known, and though his long-time patron, Prince Esterházy, had died, he had left Haydn a generous pension. The new prince was wholly uninterested in music, so the court musicians were dismissed, leaving Haydn with fame, money, and quite a lot of free time.
Requests for commissions were coming in left and right, but the most interesting was an offer from conductor and music impresario Johann Peter Salomon, for not one, but twelve symphonies. Salomon was a significant player in various European music scenes. He was born in not just the same city as Beethoven (Bonn), but the same house! It’s also believed that he provided Haydn with the original model text used for The Creation, as well as bestowed the nickname “Jupiter” onto Mozart’s 41st symphony.
Haydn accepted the offer and set out for London, where he composed most of the works, and oversaw their premieres. The public adored him, and his time in the English capital was both well received and well compensated. In his journal he wrote that he made 4,000 gulden from the concert, saying, “such a thing is possible only in England.”
Though all twelve symphonies are collectively known as the “London Symphonies” (sometimes also called the “Salomon Symphonies”), Symphony No. 104 is the only one that today bears the official subtitle London, possibly because it is the final installment of the set and was used for the grand celebratory concert honoring Haydn’s time in the city. It’s unclear whether he knew this would be the last symphony he ever composed, but he certainly knew this was his grand adieu to London. He delivered a farewell for the ages.
Symphony No. 104 exudes the spirit of a composer who has made his mark and has nothing remaining to prove. It also joyfully capitalizes on the fact that London orchestras were larger than the troupes Haydn was used to writing for as a court composer. The piece is dramatic and experimental, full of exuberance, and most of all, shows off one of the things Haydn was best at—the element of surprise.
It begins with a big, dramatic opening, the orchestra playing declarative chords in unison, alternating with a more somber passage. Haydn writes a substantial introduction in this manner, long enough to convince even the most seasoned concert-goer that this will be a dark and angsty work. But just as you think you’ve got it pinned down, the music gives way to an easy going melody. Fooled you. And before there’s even time to finish a second phrase, it erupts into a triumphant, full-throated statement of the theme. Fooled you again. Here we have finally arrived at the true character of the first movement—lively, proud, and absolutely victorious. The crowd must have been delighted.
The second movement adagio is delicate, courtly, sweet, and unassuming, until—I almost feel a spoiler alert is warranted—the orchestra suddenly explodes in a great rapture. Where did this come from? It’s reminiscent of the fiery, thunderous passages of sacred oratorio; one almost expects a 300-piece chorus to appear. Then, just as quickly as it began, everything stops, and the music goes right back to its charming dance, like nothing ever happened, but only for a moment before another burst of energy takes hold. He got you again.
I won’t spoil every unexpected twist and turn, but the roller coaster ride continues all the way to the end. The exuberant third movement would be incomplete without a few unexpected halts, and the joyous finale meanders from its whirl once or twice to offer some rather poignant asides, echoing the disquiet of the work’s opening.
All of this points to a man who, nearing the end of a prolific career and having earned the full trust of his audience, was simply taking a victory lap. It also lays a trail of breadcrumbs that we can follow directly to Beethoven, who was profoundly influenced by the great composer. Consider all those Beethoven slow movements suddenly interrupted by an opening of the heavens—a strike of Zeus’s thunderbolt. One can imagine Haydn looking down from his eternal rest and saying, “He got that from me.”
Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes (1945)
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Run time: Approx. 16 minutes
In the east of Suffolk, along the North Sea and some 87 miles from London, lies the small fishing village of Aldeburgh. Home to approximately 2,200 people—a population that has remained largely unchanged since the postwar years—the village is widely accepted as the setting for Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes. It was also home to Britten himself, as well as to George Crabbe, the 18th-century author of The Borough, the poem on which Benjamin Britten based his tale. Britten settled in Aldeburgh shortly after completing Peter Grimes. He first encountered Crabbe’s poem whilst feeling rather homesick in America during World War II, and later recalled that upon reading it, “In a flash I realised two things: that I must write an opera, and where I belonged.”
Peter Grimes is, at its heart, a story about otherness and the danger that can arise from fearing what we don’t understand. Peter is a fisherman whose volatile temper and antisocial ways have made him an outcast in his community. When his apprentice dies from harsh conditions at sea, he is put on trial, and the townspeople grow increasingly suspicious, eventually hunting him down in an angry mob and driving him to commit suicide by sinking his ship in the ocean.
Britten himself knew a thing or two about being an outsider. He was a gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England. Though his relationship with well-known tenor Peter Pears was something of an open secret amongst their artistic community, and the pair performed together extensively, they could never speak publicly of their relationship. The couple was together from 1939 until Britten’s death in 1976, but only nine of their 37 years together were spent legally. Britten was also a staunch pacifist. He and Pears officially registered as conscientious objectors during the war, a decision that was not altogether applauded by the British public.
Peter Grimes has essentially four principal characters. There is Peter, who wishes to be accepted by his community but cannot amend his volatile nature nor his isolationist tendencies. There is Ellen Orford, the schoolteacher whom Peter hopes to marry and the only member of the village who is sympathetic to him. There are the townspeople, whose fear of Peter leads to blame and hysteria. And then there is the sea itself.
In the opera, the sea is portrayed by the orchestra, which plays a series of interludes that Britten cleverly composed to cover scene changes, allowing time for the sets to shift while musically establishing the tone of each new day. Britten fashioned four of these interludes into the orchestral suite, offering short vignettes that encapsulate the turbulent story even without the text and actors.
In addition to providing an omnipresent and malevolent backdrop, the sea offers a metaphor for Peter himself—both his inner turmoil and his contradictory character. In the words of Peter Pears, who originated the character, Grimes is “neither a hero nor a villain,” but “an ordinary, weak person who, being at odds with the society in which he finds himself, tries to overcome it and, in doing so, offends against the conventional code, is classed by society as a criminal, and destroyed as such. There are plenty of Grimeses around still, I think!”
Just as people often contain contradictions, the sea has many conflicting characters: tranquility, violence, beauty, abundance, power. And like the inexorable resolve of the angry mob that ultimately seals Peter’s fate, a tide, when it has gathered enough force, can rarely be overcome.
—Notes by Valerie Sly, 2026