Early Orchestral Works of Vaughan Williams Recovered

Abstract

Ralph Vaughan Williams. Bucolic Suite. Study score. Edited by Julian Rushton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. [Pref., p. iv-v; source, p. vi; textual notes, p. vii-ix; orchestration, p. [x]; score, p. 1-133. ISBN 978-0-19-337955-8. 20.95[pounds sterling].] Ralph Vaughan Williams. Serenade in A Minor (1898). Study score. Edited by Julian Rushton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. [Pref., p. iv-v; source, p. vi; textual notes, p. vii-viii; orchestration, p. [x]; score, p. 1-132. ISBN 978-0-19-337956-5. 20.95[pounds sterling].] Ralph Vaughan Williams. Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra. Study score. Edited by Graham Parlett. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. [Pref., p. iv; manuscript, p. v; editorial method, p. v; textual notes, p. vi-vii; orchestration, p. [viii]; score, p. 1-87. ISBN 978-0-19-338825-3. 15.50[pounds sterling].] Ralph Vaughan Williams. Burley Heath. Study score. Edited by James Francis Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. [Pref., p. v; manuscript and textual notes, p. vii; orchestration, p. [viii]; score, p. 1--32. ISBN 978-0-19-339939-6. 7.95[pounds sterling].] Ralph Vaughan Williams. Harnham Down. Study score. Edited by James Francis Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. [Pref., p. v-vi; manuscript and textual notes, p. vii; orchestration, p. [viii]; score, p. 1-19. ISBN 978-0-19-339940-2. 6.95[pounds sterling].] Ralph Vaughan Williams. The Solent. Study score. Edited by James Francis Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. [Pref., p. v-vi; textual notes, p. vii; score, p. 1-33. ISBN 978-0-19-339941-9. 7.95[pounds sterling].] Despite an increasing presence in both performance and scholarly domains, it seems unlikely that Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) will be honored with a uniform and complete critical edition any time soon. Unlike his younger colleague William Walton, whose monogamous relationship with a publisher--Oxford University Press--combined with a fairly short work-list and unusually neat handwriting made the completion of the William Walton Edition manageable in less than twenty years, Vaughan Williams's spidery script and sprawling oeuvre spread across several publishers' catalogs (principally Stainer & Bell, Oxford, and Curwen, with in varying states of international copyright protection) pose practical challenges to the production of a complete edition. In recent years, Oxford has been steadily churning out new critical editions of a varied selection of Vaughan Williams in its catalog--including Symphonies 5, 6, and 7, as well as lesser (e.g., the Tuba Concerto, and Flos Campi). This worthy initiative has been the beneficiary of the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust. The six reviewed here (all dating between 1895 and 1907) are products of the same initiative, but have remained hitherto unpublished. Although in 1903 he could regard these as among his most important works (see letter 31 in Letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams 1895-1958, ed. Hugh Cobbe [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], 44), all were subsequently withdrawn by the composer. Indeed, scrapped was the word Vaughan Williams generally used for them, but he did not completely discard them. Each of these survives only in an autograph full score. (The autograph of the Serenade is held by Yale University; those of the other five are preserved at the British Library.) With but a single source, these editions are straightforward: some regularization of articulations and dynamics, a number of dubious notes emended, and an occasional creative rethinking of the original notation, but there are no challenging textual variants to be reconciled. Harnham Down seems to have required the least intervention (Very little editorial clarification was necessary since expression marks and dynamics were consistent, p. vii); Burley Heath--breaking off at m. 173 in the surviving source--required the conjectural addition of twenty-six measures (adapted slightly from earlier in the work) to provide a convincing conclusion. …