A Sea Symphony (Symphony No. 1)

• Written between 1903-1909, Vaughan Williams’s massive Sea Symphony is a fully choral piece, meaning that the solo and choral voices are equally active members of the orchestra as the instruments throughout all four movements of the work.¹
• The composer conducted the 1910 premiere of the symphony at the Leeds Festival, which happened to coincide with his 38th birthday.
• For the text, Vaughan Williams used poetry from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.
• When the composer began working on A Sea Symphony, he was the first British composer to pursue a choral symphony. Earlier examples of the genre, such as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Mahler’s Second Symphony, did not incorporate voices to the same extent as Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony.²
• The titles for each movement capture the mood of the musical narrative:
  1. A Song for all Seas, all Ships
  2. On the Beach at Night Alone
  3. The Waves 
  4. The Explorers

Poetry used for each movement

1. Hugh Ottaway and Alain Frogley, “Vaughan Williams, Ralph,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 24, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000042507.
2. Byron Adams, “Ralph Vaughan Williams, A Sea Symphony,” American Symphony Orchestra (2018), accessed August 24, 2022, https://americansymphony.org/concert-notes/ralph-vaughan-williams-a-sea-symphony/.