Symphony No. 6 in e minor

• Shortly after completing his fifth symphony, Vaughan Williams quickly set to work on his sixth for full orchestra. The piece was written between 1944-47 and subsequently went through a revision in 1950.¹
• The 1948 London premiere of the symphony was once again led by Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.²
• Audiences found this new symphony immediately captivating. Within a year of its premiere, the work had already been recorded twice (once in the U.S. and the other in Britain), and within two years, the piece had been performed 100 times.³
• Some critics speculated that Symphony No. 6 was the composer’s “war symphony” because the music seemed to reflect the ending stages and aftermath of WWII. However, as with similar speculations around his earlier symphonies, Vaughan Williams denied these programmatic assumptions and insisted that the work was purely musical.
  • How genuine these denials by Vaughan Williams were has yet to be determined. The contrast of intensity and bleakness in the symphony painted a poignant picture for listeners of post-war Britain, whether Vaughan Williams intended it or not.
• When writing the hushed fourth movement, where “whiffs of theme drift about,” Vaughan Williams noted that he thought of Prospero’s text from Shakespeare’s The Tempest:

We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.

Act IV, Scene I⁴

• Vaughan Williams dedicated Symphony No. 6 to composer Michael Mullinar. Mullinar played an integral role in helping Vaughan Williams get the symphony on its feet by playing through a piano arrangement of the piece before its premiere.⁵
• *One interesting feature of this symphony – there are no pauses or breaks between movements. Each movement seamlessly flows into the next.

1. Hugh Ottaway and Alain Frogley, “Vaughan Williams, Ralph,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed September 20, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000042507.
2. Michael Kennedy, “Symphony No. 6 in E minor” in accompanying booklet, Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Complete Symphonies performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox, CHAN 5303, 2022, compact disc.
3. Michael Kennedy, “Symphony No. 6 in E minor” in accompanying booklet, Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos 4 & 6 performed by The Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder, Hallé 7547, 2017, compact disc.
4. Michael Kennedy, “Symphony No. 6 in E minor” in accompanying booklet, Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Complete Symphonies.
5. https://www.vaughanwilliams.uk/letter/vwl3681