Serenade to Music

Composer: VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, Ralph
  • Vaughan Williams composed this piece in 1938 for composer Charles Wood’s golden jubilee as a conductor.1
    • Charles Wood was one of Vaughan Williams’s composition instructors at the Royal College of Music. 
  • Wood conducted the work’s premiere at his Jubilee concert at the Royal Albert Hall on October 5, 1938. The orchestra was made up of members of the BBC Symphony, the London Symphony and the London Philharmonic.2
  • Vaughan Williams originally intended this work to be sung by 16 vocal soloists with orchestra, but in some performances, the vocal parts are taken by full choir, or choir and four soloists. Vaughan Williams also created an arrangement for orchestra alone.3
  • The text is adapted from The Merchant of Venice, Act V scene i.
  • Full text 

Sources

  1. Hugh Ottaway and Alain Frogley, “Vaughan Williams, Ralph,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed July 21, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000042507.
  2. “Serenade to Music (Vaughan Williams, Ralph),” IMSLP, accessed July 21, 2021, https://imslp.org/wiki/Serenade_to_Music_(Vaughan_Williams%2C_Ralph). 
  3. Ottaway and Frogley, “Vaughan Williams, Ralph,” Grove Music Online 

Cut IDs

15869 16983 22218 41134 41423 42491