Sinfonia antartica
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The English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams gave the Italian title Sinfonia Antartica ("Antarctic Symphony") to his seventh symphony.
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[edit] History
Vaughan Williams provided the music for the film Scott of the Antarctic in 1947, and was so inspired by the subject that he incorporated much of the music into a symphony. The piece was begun in 1949, the first performance taking place in 1953 in Manchester with Sir John Barbirolli conducting the Hallé Orchestra.
[edit] Score notes
The work is scored for a large orchestra including three flutes doubling piccolos, two oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, four percussion (playing triangle, cymbals, side drum, bass drum, gong, bells, glockenspiel, vibraphone, and wind machine), celesta, harp, piano, and organ.
There is also a wordless three-part women's chorus and solo soprano, which sing only in the first and last movements.
Vaughan Williams did not number his symphonies as he composed them (he referred to them only by title or key) until the appearance of the Ninth, which is in the same key as the Sixth. At that point he assigned numbers to them, beginning with the F minor, in order to avoid confusion. The first three are as well known by their titles as by their numbers.
[edit] Mechanics of the composition
A typical performance lasts around 45 minutes. There are five movements.
The third and fourth are linked, and each movement is listed at the start of the score with a literary quotation.
- Prelude: Andante maestoso (quotation from Shelley, Prometheus Unbound)
- To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite,/ To forgive wrongs darker than death or night,/ To defy power which seems omnipotent,/ Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent:/ This… is to be/ Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free,/ This is alone life, joy, empire and victory.
- Scherzo: Moderato (quotation from Psalm 104, Verse 26)
- There go the ships, and there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to take his pastime therein.
- Landscape: Lento (quotation from Coleridge, Hymn before Sunrise, in the vale of Chamouni)
- Ye ice falls! Ye that from the mountain's brow/ Adown enormous ravines slope amain —/ Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,/ And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!/ Motionless torrents! Silent cataracts!
- Intermezzo: Andante sostenuto (quotation from Donne, The Sun Rising)
- Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,/ Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
- Epilogue: Alla marcia, moderato (non troppo allegro) (quotation from Captain Scott's Last Journal)
- I do not regret this journey; we took risks, we knew we took them, things have come out against us, therefore we have no cause for complaint.
Occasionally in performance and recordings the preceding quotations are recited before each movement is played, but this practice makes impossible the composer's instruction that the third movement lead directly into the fourth without a pause. (One example is a Decca release conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, and featuring Sir John Gielgud as the speaker.)
[edit] DVD & Discography
The Naxos recording of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kees Bakels, has Symphony No. 7 on tracks 1 - 5, and on tracks 10 - 14 the quotations read by David Timson.
- The booklet suggests using the CD player's programme mode to have the quotations recited before each movement.
- Similarly, the Previn recording with the London Symphony Orchestra on RCA placed each of the quotes on a separate track before each movement.
Other notable recordings include those by Boult (with John Gielgud reading the epigraphs) and Barbirolli, both now on EMI as part of their British Composers series.
[edit] DVDs
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in conjunction with TVNZ's Natural History Unit has released a PAL zone DVD consisting of Antarctic footage with Sinfonia Antartica as the cover music.
- This TVNZ programme has not been seen in Australia, Canada or the USA.
- The DVD can be bought online and at the Christchurch airport, as well as the nearby Antarctic tourist attraction at the airport.
[edit] In popular culture
In one Monty Python episode that had content related to Scott of the Antarctic, the Boult EMI recording is used.[citation needed]
