The music of Ralph Vaughan Williams returns frequently to the serene, pastoral majesty of “England’s green and pleasant land.”
We hear these shimmering, sensuous allusions in Vaughan Williams’ 1903 song, Silent Noon. The song, which was later incorporated into the cycle, The House of Life, is a setting of a dreamy sonnet by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The poem evokes a kind of blissful harmony with nature, experienced by two lovers on a summer day amid the “long fresh grass” of a gleaming pasture.
This performance, from a 2004 album, features the Welsh bass-baritone, Bryn Terfel, and pianist Malcolm Martineau:
2 thoughts on “Vaughan Williams’ “Silent Noon”: Serene, Pastoral Bliss”
Williams was Charles Darwin’s great nephew. His wife said of him: “He was an atheist during his later years at Charterhouse and at Cambridge, though he later drifted into a cheerful agnosticism: he was never a professing Christian.”
Williams was Charles Darwin’s great nephew. His wife said of him: “He was an atheist during his later years at Charterhouse and at Cambridge, though he later drifted into a cheerful agnosticism: he was never a professing Christian.”
this video was unavailable for me –Denmark unfortunately not all videos are accepted here.