MUSIC
Vaughan Williams's Fifth Symphony
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS has always been stimulated to symphonic composition by some literary or pictorial theme—Whitman's poetry of the sea, his own thoughts on London or the English countryside. And, although the Symphony in F minor had no title, or avowed programme, its dark mood and obvious relationship to the music of Job's evil genius made it reasonable to find in it a picture of the frustration and foreboding of eight years ago. Now, the composer has turned once more to Bunyan, who provides a text of tranquil faith for the Symphony in. D, performed for the first time at last Thursday's " Prom."
The immediate impression might well be that the new symphony represents a return to the smooth quietism of the " Pastoral " from the rugged forcefulness of the F minor. There is no rhetoric here, nor, until the finale, any touch of drama. The first movement is especially elusive. Apart from an initial " motto," there is nothing concrete and easily apprehensible, and the flowing music rarely raises its voice above piano. At the same time the texture is elaborately woven. It is just the sort of music to which the Albert Hall is least kind, and those who were fortunate enough to hear a rehearsal under more favourable conditions tell of a beauty that eluded one. Perhaps the composer's conducting, never very con- fident or decisive, increased the sense of vagueness, even as it failed to strike the sparks from the Scherzo that certainly lie within it ready for release. So far one might have diagnosed a decline in the composer's vitality. But the woolly beautiful slow movement and the noble finale in the form, not strictly adhered to, of a passacaglia with its eloquent epilogue give the lie to that. DYNELEY HUSSEY.
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