Ralph Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending (HD version) – Iona Brown & Marriner/ASMF
I thought my Subscribers might like to see my earlier (480p) upload in 1080p HD.
Like Vaughan Williams’ Tallis Fantasia, this is a pastoral work of transcendent beauty and power. The Lark Ascending was inspired by George Meredith’s 122-line poem of the same name about the skylark (Alauda arvensis). He included this portion of Meredith’s poem on the flyleaf of the published work:
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.
For singing till his heaven fills,
‘Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
to lift us with him as he goes.
Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.
This recording:
« Sir Neville Marriner and Iona Brown offer something radical with their first recording. The music is given more space, partly a matter of broader tempos but also of microphone placement in the old Kingsway Hall in London. The ASMF’s jewel-like sonority is located in a resonant space, the soloist’s silvery presence seeming to come from above and behind. The cooler, more objective quality of the reading appears to reflect some lines from the poem that Vaughan Williams does not quote directly in the score: ‘The song seraphically free / Of taint of personality, / So pure that it salutes the suns’. « . David Gutman, « Gramophone » in 2015.
This work is of course covered well on YouTube and everywhere else for that matter. I make no apology for revisiting this music because I have just (2012) returned home to England after a lengthy absence, and England’s landscapes here in late May are easily the equal of any other of our planet’s outstanding places, both natural and man-made.
Photographs
I took these photos at various locations in the Peak District, Derbyshire, England. At 5:13, Arbor Low – a late Neolithic henge monument, its megaliths now recumbent. The opening skylark pic is courtesy of the Cambridgeshire Bird Club © Peter Beesley. I hope Peter will not mind my including his lovely photograph here.
The Skylark
Troublingly, this iconic bird is now on the danger list, of which more below. However, it was encouraging to witness only a few weeks ago no less than three of these beautiful larks singing their lofty song above the late Neolithic henge at Arbor Low (5:11).
From the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB):
Skylark populations are declining in almost all countries of northern and western Europe. In the UK, the population halved during the 1990s, and is still declining. In the preferred habitat of farmland, skylarks declined by 75% between 1972 and 1996.
The main cause of this decline is considered to be the widespread switch from spring to autumn-sown cereals, which has resulted in a dramatic reduction in the number of chicks raised each year.
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