The Reception of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ In the Fen Country Part 2

First Proms Performance: In the Fen Country had to wait until Thursday 28 August 1969 before its first and only (at 2015) appearance at a Promenade Concert. The work featured alongside the world premiere of Peter Maxwell Davies’ Worldes Blis, Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor and William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast. Charles Groves conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra. 

John Warrack, in his programme note makes a number of pertinent observations about In the Fen Country. Firstly, the composer’s belief that through folksong he would be able to find the ‘roots of a personal style and a hope for English musical independence,’ led to critics accusing him of ‘homespun parochialism.’ Secondly, Vaughan Williams not only used folksong (and Tudor music) as he found it but absorbed ‘the characteristics into a musical idiom that could range wider than the simple folksong or even the impressionistic piece.’ And thirdly, the work represented what was RVWs first surviving attempt to synthesise folk melody with symphonic development. Warrack observes that In the Fen Country ‘is something of a pioneer period piece... [and] its rondo-like construction on a folk-like tune of Vaughan Williams’s own is in no way sophisticated, the music has a harmonic range, an alertness and a feeling for colour that were new in English music at the time, and reflect a proper sense of artistic responsibility.’

Edward Greenfield in his review of the Prom concert for The Guardian (29 August 1969) devoted most space to the Maxwell Davies premiere. He reports simply that Charles Groves conducted the ‘rarely heard In the Fen Country (surprisingly a favourite of Beecham’s).’ The Times (29 August 1969) was equally sparing in its comment: Stanley Sadie felt that the work was one ‘of the freshest and most poetic of his [RVWs] folk song works.’

Academic review: Frank Howes (1954) asserted that In the Fen Country displayed impressionism like that ‘being applied at the turn of the century to instrumental music for piano and orchestra, especially to any music that derived its inspiration from visual impressions.’ Unlike the Norfolk Rhapsodies, it does not quote a genuine folksong. He proposes that the formal characteristic of the work is that of a ‘simple rondo’ where instead of the classical ‘episodes’ there are ‘developments from the simple and almost unadorned melody to a very complex and impressionistically orchestrated texture.’

Like most other critics he points out that this is the composer’s ‘first orchestral work’ [recognised by the composer] and that it is an ‘attempt to achieve by means of the current practises of nationalism…an independence of German symphonic methods.’

A.E.F. Dickinson (1963) gives a detailed technical analysis of the work. He begins his study with a misconception: that the title ‘evokes a-wandering in Norfolk…’ A definition of ‘Fen Country’ implies land lying around the coast of the Wash; it reaches into six counties including parts of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, a small area of Suffolk, Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire. So, it could refer to the exploration of a wide range of places. Dickinson denies Simona Pakenham’s description of the work giving ‘a truthful impression of that flat wind-swept East Coast.’ RVW had encouraged ‘her to ‘dig’ that coast for origins.’  He repudiates the existence of any East Anglian folk-tune characteristics in the music. Wittily, he implies that if the composer had entitled the work ‘‘Mist over Russell Square,’ it would not have sounded less characteristic.’ The use of the modal idiom has ‘no more monopoly in Norfolk than in Transylvania.’ What the composer had in mind was ‘orchestral colour’ rather than folksong defining the topography.

James Day (1998) believes that In the Fen Country is ‘a curious, often attractive, yet uncertain amalgam of Vaughan Williams’s ‘pre-Raphaelite’ style with his newly-emerging folksong based melodic idiom.’ Day continues, ‘As a piece of orchestral landscape evocation, the work is excitingly original if it is rather uneven in quality.’ He based this opinion on the disparity between the ‘folk-song-like themes’ and ‘the post-Wagnerian harmonic support.’ The work is ‘an uneasy and unintegrated pattern of meandering downward-gliding chromaticisms, unstable tonality and some rather aimless imitative writing.’ The composer has not ‘reconciled the harmonic and rhythmic implications of his thematic material and the demands of traditional form.’

Despite these stylistic issues, Day recognises that the ‘first faltering steps have been taken towards his mature style.’ 

Michael Vaillancourt presented the most significant discussion of In the Fen Country to date, in his essay ‘Coming of Age: the earliest orchestral music of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ (Frogley, 1996). Firstly, he reminds readers that this is the ‘only one of his early orchestral works that he did not withdraw.’  He notes the various revisions, with the final orchestration ‘…[achieving] a luminosity of texture and beauty of tonal colour far beyond that found in any of the early orchestral works.’ After a detailed description of the formal, melodic, and harmonic structure of the work, he comments on the ‘gradual fading into nothingness’ of the ending. This was to become a characteristic of Vaughan Williams’s music. In the Fen Country ‘represents the composer in full control of his material.’ Vaillancourt feels that there is ‘a compelling relationship between the various facets of musical expression, with melody, harmony and orchestration fused to a degree not yet encountered in a large-scale Vaughan Williams composition.’ It is fair to add that the work as ‘received’ was subject to the above-mentioned revisions over thirty years, well into the composer’s maturity.

In The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams (2013), Alain Frogley examines the ‘History and geography: the early orchestral works and the first three symphonies.’ As part of this study, he explores the post-1902 works that ‘carry programmatic titles specifying particular geographical locations.’  These works divide conveniently into two groups – whether they make ‘clear reference to English folk song,’ either alluded to or quoted directly. In the Fen Country falls into this latter group – where the musical material ‘evokes’ but does not cite folk-song.

All RVWs early orchestral works tend to share ‘an intensified interest in modal harmony, combined with more chromatic elements in sometimes experimental ways…’ Frogley points out that In the Fen Country has the ‘awkward combination of Wagnerian or Straussian chromaticism, fleeting echoes of Debussy…’  He believes that in order ‘to generate momentum from contemplative musical material’ it ‘relies too heavily on imitation or strained modulations…’ Yet it retains ‘many compelling and beautiful passages and sustains its sense of musical direction overall.’

Discographic Overview: This essay does not propose to examine all versions of In the Fen Country that have been commercially recorded. However, it is interesting that the first recording made of this work was not until 1968, ten years after the composer’s death. It was released by HMV ASD 2393 and featured Sir Adrian Boult and the New Philharmonia Orchestra. The LP included the Pastoral Symphony with the soprano Margret Price featured in the final movement. ‘T.H.’ (Trevor Harvey) writing in The Gramophone (September 1968) was impressed by this new record. He writes, ‘I cannot think that you will be bored by this performance, the very best of Boult – unless, of course, you would hate the idea of lying on your back on the Downs watching the clouds floating by.’ This is a dated view of the Pastoral Symphony which many commentators regard as being the Vaughan Williams’ ‘War Symphony’ rather than ‘frisking with lambkins.’  When he considered In the Fen Country, he felt that this was not a good coupling – ‘…for it is more slow music.’ He thought that despite the revisions it ‘remain[s] an undistinguished piece – not nearly as good as the Norfolk Rhapsody [No.1] ...’ He regarded it as a ‘pity…that it is put at the end of side 2 as an ‘encore’’ as the listener must ‘jump up quickly’ to turn the record player off after having enjoyed the ‘niente’ of the symphony. Two months later (The Gramophone November 1968) Robert Layton agrees with his colleague about this ‘early and not particularly strong piece’ though he was ‘glad’ to have heard it on record.

A quarter of a century later, Michael Kennedy, (The Gramophone April 1992) reviewing Ross Pople and the London Festival Orchestra’s CD (ASV CDDCA 779) of RVWs orchestral music was more fulsome in his praise of the work – ‘The extraordinary feature of In the Fen Country…is that was written at the start of Vaughan Williams’s own folk-song collecting career, yet is imbued with the spirit of folk-song without ever quoting any.’ Interestingly, he suggests that it is ‘a forerunner of A Pastoral Symphony, although the scoring is richer and fuller.’ He reminds the reader that Thomas Beecham ‘liked the work’ which successfully evoked ‘the amazing skies of East Anglia as much as its landscape.’

Conclusion: In the Fen Country deserves to be at the forefront of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ achievement. Although no actual folksong is used in this work, it is inspired by modal melodies and harmonies: it breathes the spirit of the English landscape and its inhabitants. The progress of the work is from the simple opening woodwind melody to a complex structure and then back to stasis. Into this musical canvas Vaughan Williams has absorbed influences from Wagner, Strauss, Debussy, and Delius, but has synthesised this to create what is an engaging example of English Pastoral infused with impressionism. The work is not based on any locality in East Anglia, nevertheless the mood of the music does evoke a sense of wide skyscapes and lonely places.

Finally, if there is a topographical inspiration it is more likely to be the countryside around Ely as implied by Ursula Vaughan Williams rather than the flat wind-swept coast of Norfolk advocated by Simona Pakenham.

Select Bibliography:
Day, James, Master Musicians: Ralph Vaughan Williams 3rd Edition, (Oxford University Press, 1998)
Dickinson A.E.F., Vaughan Williams (London, Faber & Faber, 1963)
Foss, Hubert, Vaughan Williams: A Study (London, Harrap, 1950)
Frogley, Alain, (ed.) Vaughan Williams Studies (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
Frogley, Alain & Thomson, Aidan J. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams, (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
Howes, Frank, The Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Oxford University Press, 1954)
Kennedy, Michael, A Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams 2nd Edition, (Oxford University Press, 1996)
Marshall, Em, Music in the Landscape (London, Robert Hale, 2011).
Pakenham, Simona, Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Discovery of his Music (London, Macmillan & Co. Ltd, 1957)
Vaughan Williams, Ursula, R. V. W.: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1964)
The files of The Musical Times, The Times, The Manchester Guardian, The Athenaeum, The Gramophone etc.

Concluded.

With thanks to the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, Issue 65 February 2016, where this essay was first published.