Ralph Vaughan Williams OM (12 October 1872, Down Ampney, Gloucestershire – 26 August 1958, London) was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many folk song arrangements set as hymn tunes, and also influenced several of his own original compositions.
Vaughan Williams spent most of his life in London. He studied the viola, piano and organ, and he wanted to compose, but his family discouraged him from an orchestral career. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, and studied composition at the Royal College of Music, as well as organ and piano with several teachers, Although he also studied abroad with Max Bruch and Maurice Ravel, his style remained individual and English. He was appointed organist at Lambeth, and his interest in English folk music dates from his stay there. He became good friends with Gustav Holst, and they often shared their works in progress with each other. His work on the English Hymnal greatly influenced his musical career.
He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in France during World War I. From the 1920s onward, he was in increasing demand as a composer and conductor. He composed simple pieces and grand orchestral works and is considered the outstanding composer of his generation in England. According to Hubert J. Foss in The Heritage of Music, “In Vaughan Williams we hear the historic speech of the English people. What he gives us in music is the language of the breakfast table. It is also the language that Shakespeare wrote.”
https://www.windrep.org/Ralph_Vaughan_Williams
https://www.fabermusic.com/we-represent/ralph-vaughan-williams
ROMANCE FOR HARMONICA, STRINGS, AND PIANO
This whimsical piece for harmonica accompanied by string orchestra and piano was written for the great harmonica player Larry Adler (for whom Malcolm Arnold wrote his Harmonica Concerto). It was premiered by Adler in New York in 1952, a performance that was swiftly followed by another at the Proms under the baton of Sir Malcolm Sargent. Vaughan Williams writes idiomatically for the instrument without sacrificing his own distinctive compositional style, exploiting its expressive possibilities and showcasing the virtuosity of the soloist.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/romance-for-harmonica-9780193693265?cc=au&lang=en&#
In March 1963 Jack Harrison performed the Australian premieres of
Gordon Jacob’s Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone and Strings
and
Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Romance for Harmonica and Orchestra
.
| Mar 1963 | Gordon Jacob Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone and Strings (1948) AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE Vaughan Williams Romance for Harmonica and Orchestra (1951) AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE | Jack Harrison (saxophone) Jack Harrison (harmonica) John Farnsworth Hall (conductor) West Australian Symphony Orchestra | ABC Free Concert, Supreme Court Gardens Perth, Western Australia |
ABC FREE CONCERT 1963
With
W.A. Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by John Farnsworth Hall
Soloist: Jack Harrison (saxophonist and harmonica player)
Programme includes:
Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone and Strings (Gordon Jacob)
Romance for Harmonica and Orchestra (Vaughan Williams)
Tomorrow Night at 8pm
Supreme Court Gardens
CONCERT
MARCH 14th 1963
An outstanding programme by the Perth Sinfonietta will be given in Winthrop Hall at 1.10pm next Thursday under the baton of Verdon Williams. This free recital is being presented by the A.B.C. as the first in a weekly series being sponsored by the University during the year. The Sinfonietta will play works by Berger, Copland, Delius and Vaughan Williams. The soloists will be Allyne Tilsed (flute) and Jack Harrison (clarinet). Those attending the concert include Russian violinist Nelli Schkolniskova and W.A. resident conductor John Farnsworth Hall, who will be soloists and conductor in the first A.B.C. Youth Concert on March 19.
LUNCH MUSIC IS PROMISING
By Sally Trethowan
MARCH 14th 1963
The programme for this year’s free lunch-hour concert series held on Thursdays in Winthrop Hall is even more interesting and varied in type of music and number of performers than last year’s.
If the first concert given yesterday to a large audience by the Perth Sinfonietta, is any indication of the quality, the weekly programmes will be exciting musical experiences and a major contribution to musical life in W.A.
The Perth Sinfonietta always gives us an entertaining, thought-provoking programme. Conductor Verdon William’s introductory comments are instructive, to the point, and do not offend by being too technical or too long. The choice of composers in yesterday’s concert – Berger, Vivaldi, Copland, Delius and Vaughan Williams – leaned heavily towards the moderate, making the Vivaldi Flute Concerto (“The Goldfinch”) a pertinent, pleasant comment on, and exposition of, a more elegant and graceful age. The young flautist, Allyne Tilsed, who has just joined the W.A. Symphony Orchestra has a sureness of tone control which allows the most delicate innuendos without over or under emphasis. In Vivaldi’s “Goldfinch”, flute and strings chattered and trilled in animated conversation, whereas in the Copland Clarinet Concerto, a different symphonic relationship exists between orchestra and clarinet.
Clarinettist Jack Harrison interwove the sure mellowness of tone and bell-like clarity of his instrument into the orchestral texture of the work.
The brief overture of Jean Berger that began the programme and a Delius “Serenade” and Vaughan Williams “Fantasia on Greensleeves” which closed it, are works typical of the individuality of their composers, but have in common the fact that they make light and easy listening. [1]
TELEVISION TONIGHT
SEPTEMBER 16 1963
SMOOTH, MAN, SMOOTH – LIKE HOT
It caters for the highbrow and the “way-out man”. From the off beat “Take Five” to Tchaikovsky’s soulful Andante Cantabile. No, you don’t have to go to a record shop or have the radios tuned to two stations. What do you do? Tune in to TWO tomorrow night Tuesday September 17th 1963 at 9.30.
Entitled Quartets in Contrast, this live show will present a string quartet and a jazz quartet in the same programme and will demonstrate the versatility of each. The jazz quartet is led by Jack Harrison and the string by violinist Graham Wood. The show was devised by ABC Music Supervisor Fred Ackland and will be produce by Jock Millett. The two quartets will combine for the opening number – the Andante Cantabile. In combination, they will also play “Stranger in Paradise”. Arrangements of both tunes have been specially written by Vaughan Williams who is also responsible for the string quartet adaption of Arthur Benjamin’s lively Jamaican Rhumba. The jazz group goes classical with Corelli’s Gigue but also presents some straight jazz with a bracket of four numbers: Take Five, It’s A Raggy Waltz, Little Girl Blue and All the Things You Are. [2]
MUSIC
By Peter Hellstrom
Festival Of Perth 1966
The Master of Queens Musick, Sir Arthur Bliss, has told the Festival Of Perth committee that the planning of the musical programs in the coming festival is a magnificent gesture to British music and should be more widely known. That it has become well known already in Britain is showing by letters from many leading authorities there they include congratulations from the executive of the Composers Guild of Great Britain. Though some prominent English music festivals like Cheltenham Aldeburgh and the longest established Three Choirs Festival feature their country music, no British festival has in recent times included such an extensive and exciting range of British music in one series. Works of nearly 70 composers are included. The Perth programs have been wisely spaced over the six week festival period and though many of the concerts will start at the customary 8 pm some will be at 6 pm to enable patrons to attend another festival attraction the same evening.
Works by Vaughan Williams Gordon Jacob, Howard Ferguson, Lennox Berkeley and Michael Tippett will be new to W.A. The London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Colin Davis will introduce Bliss’s “Discourse for Orchestra” to Australia in one of its Perth concerts. In the other, Tippitt’s Symphony No. 2 and Stravinsksy’s Symphony in Three movements will be played here for the first time. Leading W.A. musicians appearing as soloists in the festival will include soprano Molly McGurk who will sing Benjamin Britain’s song cycle Les Illuminations with the W.A. Symphony Orchestra. She will also sing the solo soprano part in the University Choral Society’s performance of Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony. Stephen Dorman will be the accompanist for tenor David Galliver’s three British song recitals. He will also partner violinist Vaughan Hanley in a Sonata recital and will play the solo part in constant Lambert’s Concerto for Orchestra and Nine Instruments. Jack Harrison will be the soloist in David Tunley’s Clarinet Concerto and will be joined by the Oriole Quartet in Bliss Clarinet Quintet. Graham Wood will introduce James Penberthy’s Romance for Violin and Orchestra and Alice Carrard will be the pianist with the A.B.C. Wind Players in Rawsthorne’s recent quintet. Madame Carrard will be joined by Mr Dornan, Stephanie James and Michael Cole to perform Malcolm Williamson’s new Concerto for Wind Quintet and two pianos. The new university organist, Mr John Hind, will be soloist in a program which will feature the W.A. Bach Society. The Oriel Quartet will also be the soloists with the W.A. Symphony Orchestra in Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for strings and will give a separate recital of works by Howells, Frank Bridge, John Exton (the newly appointed senior lecturer in music at the university) Gerald Finzi, Elizabeth Lutyens and Edmund Rubbra. [3]
THE THREE VOCALISES
(often referred to by the German title Drei Vocalisen)
is a wordless chamber work written for soprano voice and B-flat clarinet.
Composed in 1958, it is one of the final pieces Vaughan Williams completed during the last year of his life, written shortly after his celebrated Ten Blake Songs. The work was dedicated to the soprano Margaret Ritchie and published posthumously by the Oxford University Press.
The Australian premiere of Vaughan Williams “Vocalisen” was performed at Winthrop Hall on 2nd March 1968 at part of the sixteenth Festival of Perth. Jack was paid $50 and one free ticket. The engagement included an appearance “with Miss Streich on two occasions on 2nd March 1968” and to make himself available for “such rehearsals as she may determine after her arrival in Perth on 26th February.”
Jack had Rita Streich sign a photograph which is inscribed “To Jack Harrison with many thanks for the beautiful clarinet playing in our recital 2 March 1968. I enjoyed it – Rita Streich”. PHOTO
Rita Streich, Super Star
By Sally Trethowan
Her rendering of Mahler’s “I Breathed a Gentle Fragrance” was close to perfection, as was her singing of Schubert’s “Shepherd on the Rock”. In this last work, and that of Vaughan Williams, her voice was matched by the sweet, sure expressive clarinet obligato of Jack Harrison. [4]
Perfection at Winthrop Hall
By Robert D. Nussbaum
Jack Harrison’s role was a still more limited one but again perfect in its way. The clarinet obligato to Schubert’s “The Shepherd on the rock” is probably the most beautiful part ever conceived for that instrument and the work itself ranks high among Schubert’s many fine compositions. Ss one who has grappled with this obligato half a dozen times in the last four year, I’m in a pretty good position to judge the effectiveness of this presentation. Probably taking his cue from the restraint of the soloist and possibly out of unwillingness to overshadow her in any way, Mr. Harrison held back most of the brilliance of which he is capable. From the sustained note at the beginning to the rapid runs of the coda, he held the volume down to about mezzo forte but he still provided the technically flawless, musicianly interpretation that Perth audiences have come to expect from him (and the kind that makes less skilful executants despair). In the Vaughan Williams “Vocalises” he seemed to be accompanying Miss Streich rather than in duet with her; even so, the blend between voice and clarinet was beautifully managed. The” Shepherd on the Rock” gave Miss Streich more opportunity to demonstrate the range of which she is capable than any other single number on the program and she took advantage of it. [5]
| 2.3.1968 | Vaughan Williams “Vocalisen” (1958) AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE | Jack Harrison (clarinet) Maurice Till (piano) Rita Streich (soprano) | Festival of Perth Winthrop Hall University of Western Australia |
1971
AN EVENING OF BRILLIANCE WITH FIEDLER
BY PAULINE STEEL
Foot stamping, applauding concert goers last night persuaded conductor Arthur Fiedler to return to the stage three times after an evening of brilliant entertainment. The music burst into a bubble of merriment as encore of “Fantasia on Greensleeves” by Vaughan Williams and “Aquarius” (demanded twice) were played. The audience had been alternately thrilled, enchanted and amused by the music of Mr. Fiedler and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. They had packed into Winthrop Hall to hear the second of the ABC concerts for the Festival Of Perth. From the moment the program began with the thrilling chords of the “Triumphal March” from Aida, Mr Fiedler demonstrated the conducting technique that has made him famous under his baton. The W.A. Symphony Orchestra played with precision and great variety of mood. The mysterious atmosphere of Weber’s “Oberon” overture was captured by the Orchestra conjuring up a fairy world. Soloist Jack Harrison demonstrated the beauty and tone of the clarinet during the solo passages of a less well-known work Debussy’s Rhapsody number one for clarinet and Orchestra. He executed the technically difficult piece with great feeling. A highlight of the program was Ibert’s “Divertissement”, a very funny piece with the lead comic role being taken one after the other by wind instruments. The audience enjoyed the fantasy, romance and gaiety of the suite from “The Nutcracker”. The second half of the program ended with a selection from Oklahoma and the fun filled 76 trombones from ”The Music Man”. [6]
[1] The West Australian March 15 1963
[2] Daily News Monday September 16 1963 page 6
[3] The West Australian September 1965
[4] The West Australian Monday March 4 1968
[5] The Critic Vol. 8 No. 7 22 March 1968
[6] The West Australian Wednesday February 17 1971