Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No. 3)

• Conceived on the battlefields of WWI, Pastoral Symphony takes on a much darker character than you might perceive from the quaint title, evoking a sad irony.
• The piece was completed in 1921, though Vaughan Williams began writing down ideas as early as 1916 while in France with the Royal Army Medical Corps. An example of this early inspiration is the trumpet “bugle call” in the second movement.
• Pastoral Symphony premiered in 1922 and was conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, who soon became the composer’s leading interpreter.¹ Flora Mann sang the ethereal, wordless fourth movement soprano solo.²
• In this symphony, Vaughan Williams rejects many of the traditional symphonic procedures of the time, such as using typical tonic-dominant harmonic progressions, and rather creates a dramatic work that conjures a particular mood and atmosphere propelled by prominent melodies.³
  • In other words, symphonies are typically harmonically driven, whereas this symphony is melodically driven.
• Vaughan Williams was not known to have spoken publicly about the horrors he witnessed during the war. However, because this symphony was written shortly after his return to civilian life, we can glean small bits of insight into his experience and the impact it left on the composer.
• In 1938, Vaughan Williams noted the following in a letter regarding the symphony:

“It’s really wartime music – a great deal of it incubated when I used to go up night after night with the ambulance wagon at Écoivres and we went up a steep hill and there was a wonderful Corot-like landscape in the sunset.”⁴

1. Hugh Ottaway and Alain Frogley, “Vaughan Williams, Ralph,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed September 1, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000042507.
2. Michael Kennedy, Essay in accompanying booklet, Vaughan Williams: A Pastoral Symphony / Symphony No. 5 performed by the New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, EMI 64018, 1991, compact disc.
3. Ibid.
4. Michael Kennedy, Essay in accompanying booklet, Vaughan Williams: Pastoral Symphony (No.3) / Norfolk Rhapsodies performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox, CHAN 5002, 2002, compact disc.