Symphony No. 4 (Vaughan Williams)

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The Symphony No. 4 in F minor by Ralph Vaughan Williams was dedicated by the composer to Arnold Bax.

Unlike Vaughan Williams's first three symphonies it was not given a title, the composer stating that it was to be understood as pure music, without any incidental or external inspiration. In contrast to Vaughan Williams's previous compositions, the symphony is characterised by a severity of tone. The British composer William Walton admired the work greatly, speaking of it as "the greatest symphony since Beethoven", and the score certainly contains many innovations. Speaking about this work, Vaughan Williams said, "I don't know whether I like it, but it's what I meant."

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.

The work was first performed on April 10, 1935 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Adrian Boult.

The work is in four movements (the third and fourth are linked).

• Allegro
• Andante moderato
• Scherzo : allegro molto
• Finale con epilogo fugato : allegro molto

A typical performance takes about 30 minutes.

[edit] Trivia

All performances and recordings made of this work before the mid-1950's use the original version of the flute solo that closes the second movement; the composer finally decided on changing the last note to E from F at that time.

The Klingon theme, used in nearly every version of Star Trek since the original, is a borrowing from the beginning of the 3rd movement of this symphony. According to an interview given by Jerry Goldsmith, this tradition was started by the original series composer, Alexander Courage.^{[citation needed]}