Abstract

ABSTRACT The article examines Ralph Vaughan Williams’ first symphony, ‘A Sea Symphony’, from 1912, in the context of the British contemporary relationship to the sea as of defining national importance. It specifically looks for ways in which the symphony engages with narratives around the sea as a national landscape and a nationally defining geography. The article’s aim is to situate the symphonic output and text in a nationally embedded, articulated and traceable discourse around the seascape, and interrogate the ways in which it relates to and contributes to such discourse. It finds that the music resonates against historical, cultural and political engagements with the seascape, and puts forward ways in which these engagements can be heard through textures, expression and sonorities, as well as being seen in inspirations and interpretations of the relational sea-scape and its geographical situatedness.

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