The Lark Ascending
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The Lark Ascending is a popular musical piece written in 1914 by the famous British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Featuring a prominent solo violin part, the composition is intended to convey the lyrical and almost eternally English beauty of the scene in which a skylark rises into the heavens above some sunny down and attains such height that it becomes barely visible to those on the ground below. The First World War halted composition, but the work was revised in 1920 and it was premièred under conductor Adrian Boult in 1921. It was dedicated to Marie Hall who gave the first performance with piano.
The musical work was inspired by George Meredith's 122 line poem of the same name about the skylark.
The Lark Ascending is the acknowledged direct inspiration for Larks' Tongues in Aspic by King Crimson (1973) an inspired brash rock-n-roll twist on Vaughan Williams's lyricism. The piece was also used as the main theme for the 1987 Australian film The Year My Voice Broke, starring Noah Taylor and Loene Carmen.
Dreadzone's homage to the beauty of the English countryside, A Canterbury Tale uses the initial solo violin theme from The Lark Ascending as a recurring melody.
In both 2008 and 2007 it was voted number one in the Classic FM Hall of Fame, over Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.
