WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 Welcome to today's deep dive. We're really glad 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:05.519 you are here with us today because, well, our 00:00:05.519 --> 00:00:08.560 mission today is to explore how a self -described 00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:11.619 late developer managed to break the centuries 00:00:11.619 --> 00:00:14.599 -old rules of his field to forge an entirely 00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:17.879 brand new national identity. Yeah, it is quite 00:00:17.879 --> 00:00:20.699 the story. It really is. We're looking at the 00:00:20.699 --> 00:00:23.399 life and the music of the English composer Ralph 00:00:23.399 --> 00:00:25.820 Vaughan Williams. And I have to tell you, the 00:00:25.820 --> 00:00:28.460 deeper you look into his letters, his biographies, 00:00:28.460 --> 00:00:31.519 and, you know, his actual music, the more you 00:00:31.519 --> 00:00:34.979 realize this is a life completely full of surprising 00:00:34.979 --> 00:00:36.979 contradictions. Right. Absolutely. I mean, we 00:00:36.979 --> 00:00:38.740 are talking about a man who was an agnostic, 00:00:38.759 --> 00:00:40.560 but who wrote some of the most famous church 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:43.259 hymns of all time. A late bloomer who didn't 00:00:43.259 --> 00:00:45.079 really find his footing until he was, what, almost 00:00:45.079 --> 00:00:47.560 40 years old? I think 40, yeah. Right. Yet he 00:00:47.560 --> 00:00:50.229 composed right into his mid -80s. A man who, 00:00:50.329 --> 00:00:52.890 from the outside, seemed like the ultimate British 00:00:52.890 --> 00:00:55.509 traditionalist, but who actually led a radically 00:00:55.509 --> 00:00:58.329 unconventional domestic life behind closed doors. 00:00:58.549 --> 00:01:02.759 It really is a remarkable story. The reason this 00:01:02.759 --> 00:01:05.260 matters to you listening right now is that his 00:01:05.260 --> 00:01:07.859 journey is essentially a masterclass in how to 00:01:07.859 --> 00:01:12.099 synthesize diverse, unexpected influences. We 00:01:12.099 --> 00:01:14.200 are going to see how mixing seemingly opposite 00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:17.260 things like avant -garde French modernism with 00:01:17.260 --> 00:01:20.739 rural English folk songs can help anyone find 00:01:20.739 --> 00:01:22.620 their unique voice, no matter what their age 00:01:22.620 --> 00:01:25.280 is. It's just a brilliant reminder that you do 00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:27.439 not have to have your entire life and career 00:01:27.439 --> 00:01:29.920 figured out in your 20s. OK, let's unpack this 00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:32.540 because his upbringing. sets the stage for all 00:01:32.540 --> 00:01:35.480 these contradictions. He was born in 1872 in 00:01:35.480 --> 00:01:37.379 a place called Down Ampney in Gloucestershire. 00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:40.219 But his family tree is where it gets... Really 00:01:40.219 --> 00:01:42.680 wild. Oh, it's fascinating. Right. He was the 00:01:42.680 --> 00:01:44.799 great nephew of Charles Darwin, and he was also 00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:47.659 related to the famous Wedgwood pottery family. 00:01:47.859 --> 00:01:50.840 So he grows up in this very well -to -do, progressive 00:01:50.840 --> 00:01:53.540 -minded environment. But how did being related 00:01:53.540 --> 00:01:55.879 to someone as controversial as Darwin actually 00:01:55.879 --> 00:01:58.299 shape his worldview as a kid? Well, it gave him 00:01:58.299 --> 00:02:00.480 a remarkably open and inquisitive foundation. 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:02.920 There is a great anecdote from his childhood 00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:04.939 that perfectly illustrates this. Oh, I love this 00:02:04.939 --> 00:02:07.459 one. Yeah, so young Vaughn Williams, growing 00:02:07.459 --> 00:02:11.020 up in a very traditional Victorian era, asked 00:02:11.020 --> 00:02:13.039 his mother about the clash between the Bible 00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:15.719 and his great uncle's highly controversial book 00:02:15.719 --> 00:02:18.199 on the origin of species. A heavy question for 00:02:18.199 --> 00:02:21.360 a kid. Exactly. But instead of shutting the conversation 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:25.219 down, his mother simply replied, The Bible says 00:02:25.219 --> 00:02:28.120 that God made the world in six days. Great Uncle 00:02:28.120 --> 00:02:30.939 Charles thinks it took longer. But we need not 00:02:30.939 --> 00:02:33.240 worry about it, for it is equally wonderful either 00:02:33.240 --> 00:02:36.849 way. i love that it is such a calm measured way 00:02:36.849 --> 00:02:40.250 to handle what was at the time just a massive 00:02:40.250 --> 00:02:42.590 culture war what's fascinating here is how that 00:02:42.590 --> 00:02:45.330 exact parental attitude shaped his entire life 00:02:45.800 --> 00:02:48.300 That specific environment created a man who later 00:02:48.300 --> 00:02:50.800 described himself as a cheerful agnostic. The 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:53.280 cheerful agnostic. Yeah, yet because he wasn't 00:02:53.280 --> 00:02:55.780 forced to reject religion outright, he never 00:02:55.780 --> 00:02:57.680 lost his love for the beauty of the authorized 00:02:57.680 --> 00:02:59.879 version of the Bible. He became this natural 00:02:59.879 --> 00:03:02.500 nonconformist who still held a deep, profound 00:03:02.500 --> 00:03:04.560 respect for the best parts of tradition. Which 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:06.759 is such a tricky balance to strike. It really 00:03:06.759 --> 00:03:09.400 is. Yeah. But it allowed him to engage with religious 00:03:09.400 --> 00:03:12.020 music later in life, not from a place of strict 00:03:12.020 --> 00:03:15.780 dogma, but from a place of emotional and communal 00:03:15.780 --> 00:03:18.099 resonance. And he was going to need that kind 00:03:18.099 --> 00:03:20.340 of inner resilience, wasn't he? Because looking 00:03:20.340 --> 00:03:22.740 at his early musical career, it was definitely 00:03:22.740 --> 00:03:25.659 not a rocket ship to start him. Not at all. When 00:03:25.659 --> 00:03:27.759 he went to the Royal College of Music and later 00:03:27.759 --> 00:03:30.500 Cambridge, it seems like even his own family 00:03:30.500 --> 00:03:33.000 doubted he was talented enough to actually make 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:35.120 a career out of composing. They basically let 00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:36.620 him go just because they felt it would break 00:03:36.620 --> 00:03:40.020 his heart to say no. Ouch. And once he gets there, 00:03:40.159 --> 00:03:42.759 he immediately clashes with his main composition 00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:46.099 teacher, Charles Villiers, Stanford. What was 00:03:46.099 --> 00:03:48.500 Stanford's problem with him? While Stanford was 00:03:48.500 --> 00:03:51.719 deeply conservative, he was a huge champion of 00:03:51.719 --> 00:03:54.379 composers like Brahms and Wagner, which meant 00:03:54.379 --> 00:03:57.020 he believed music should follow strict, established 00:03:57.020 --> 00:04:00.139 classical rules. Stanford kept trying to correct 00:04:00.139 --> 00:04:02.659 his students' music, particularly Vaughn Williams' 00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:05.039 love for what is called modal music. OK, for 00:04:05.039 --> 00:04:06.979 those of us who aren't classical musicians, what 00:04:06.979 --> 00:04:10.180 exactly is modal music and why did it upset his 00:04:10.180 --> 00:04:13.000 teacher so much? Think of it this way. Classical 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:15.960 music usually relies on the standard major and 00:04:15.960 --> 00:04:18.060 minor scales, you know, your basic do -re -mi. 00:04:18.220 --> 00:04:21.399 Right. Modal music uses older, slightly different 00:04:21.399 --> 00:04:24.240 scales. If you listen to medieval church chants 00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:27.120 or very old traditional folk songs, they often 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:30.300 sound a bit haunting, slightly unresolved or 00:04:30.300 --> 00:04:32.600 earthy. Okay, I can hear that in my head. That 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:35.589 is the modal sound. Stanford thought it was incorrect 00:04:35.589 --> 00:04:38.389 and unrefined. He was trying to force his student 00:04:38.389 --> 00:04:41.269 into a very specific traditional German mold, 00:04:41.350 --> 00:04:43.910 which was the dominant style in Britain at the 00:04:43.910 --> 00:04:48.720 time. which takes a lot of guts for a young student. 00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:51.879 If he isn't getting the validation or the exact 00:04:51.879 --> 00:04:54.120 guidance he needs from his official teachers, 00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:56.459 how does he survive that environment? Does he 00:04:56.459 --> 00:04:58.980 just figure it out on his own? He looks laterally. 00:04:58.980 --> 00:05:01.620 He finds a fellow student named Gustav Holst. 00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:03.879 Oh, the planets guy. Exactly, who would go on 00:05:03.879 --> 00:05:06.319 to be a legendary composer himself, famous for 00:05:06.319 --> 00:05:08.620 writing the planets. They formed a bond that 00:05:08.620 --> 00:05:11.000 became absolutely crucial to this story. The 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:13.620 Holst friendship. Looking at the historical records 00:05:13.620 --> 00:05:16.079 of their relationship, it's just amazing. Instead 00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:18.500 of just relying on the official curriculum, Vaughn 00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:20.899 Williams and Holst became each other's most brutal 00:05:20.899 --> 00:05:24.040 and most valued lifelong critics. They really 00:05:24.040 --> 00:05:26.040 do. They would play their unfinished compositions 00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:28.839 for each other. They discussed literally everything 00:05:28.839 --> 00:05:31.439 under the sun, from the lowest note of the double 00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:34.160 bassoon to the philosophy of Thomas Hardy's novel 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:38.129 Jude the Obscure. I think the takeaway for you, 00:05:38.269 --> 00:05:41.930 the listener, is so powerful here. Success does 00:05:41.930 --> 00:05:44.470 not have to be solitary, and it doesn't have 00:05:44.470 --> 00:05:47.810 to be instantaneous. If you are struggling in 00:05:47.810 --> 00:05:50.230 your field and your mentors just don't get what 00:05:50.230 --> 00:05:53.269 you're trying to do, finding a trusted peer to 00:05:53.269 --> 00:05:55.550 critique your work, someone who is in the trenches 00:05:55.550 --> 00:05:58.269 with you, is completely invaluable. You learn 00:05:58.269 --> 00:06:00.069 the rules from your teachers, but you learn who 00:06:00.069 --> 00:06:02.430 you are from your peers. And for Vaughn Williams, 00:06:02.610 --> 00:06:05.670 figuring out who he was took a very long time. 00:06:05.810 --> 00:06:08.069 Which brings us to a really interesting crossroads. 00:06:08.490 --> 00:06:11.670 By the time he reaches his late 30s, he still 00:06:11.670 --> 00:06:15.170 hasn't truly found his own voice. In the classical 00:06:15.170 --> 00:06:17.730 music world, isn't your late 30s practically 00:06:17.730 --> 00:06:20.990 retirement age for a prodigy? For a prodigy, 00:06:20.990 --> 00:06:25.290 yes. Mozart was dead by 35. But Vaughn Williams 00:06:25.290 --> 00:06:28.180 was a late developer. He is writing music. He 00:06:28.180 --> 00:06:30.420 is working as a church organist, which he apparently 00:06:30.420 --> 00:06:32.519 disliked, even though it paid him 50 pounds a 00:06:32.519 --> 00:06:34.699 year. Hey, 50 pounds was 50 pounds back then. 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:37.519 True. But he knows he's missing something. He 00:06:37.519 --> 00:06:40.579 desperately wants to escape this heavy Teutonic 00:06:40.579 --> 00:06:42.980 shadow that dominated British music. He wants 00:06:42.980 --> 00:06:45.819 English music to sound English. So what is his 00:06:45.819 --> 00:06:48.149 solution? Because he doesn't just sit in a room 00:06:48.149 --> 00:06:51.089 and try to invent a new style from scratch. He 00:06:51.089 --> 00:06:52.629 actually goes out into the English countryside, 00:06:52.829 --> 00:06:55.689 right? He does. In 1903, he starts physically 00:06:55.689 --> 00:06:58.829 going out to rural villages to collect vanishing 00:06:58.829 --> 00:07:01.550 English folk songs. He would find these elderly 00:07:01.550 --> 00:07:04.470 laborers, fishermen, and farmers and note down 00:07:04.470 --> 00:07:07.110 the melodies they sang, preserving them before 00:07:07.110 --> 00:07:10.180 that oral tradition died out entirely. And around 00:07:10.180 --> 00:07:13.600 the same time, from 1904 to 1906, he took on 00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:16.740 the massive job of being the music editor for 00:07:16.740 --> 00:07:19.019 a brand new church hymnal called the English 00:07:19.019 --> 00:07:21.060 Hymnal. Getting his hands dirty with the music 00:07:21.060 --> 00:07:23.060 of the people. And he loved that experience. 00:07:23.319 --> 00:07:26.660 He later said that two years of close association 00:07:26.660 --> 00:07:29.759 with some of the best and some of the worst hymn 00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:33.459 tunes in the world was a better musical education 00:07:33.459 --> 00:07:36.439 than any amount of sonatas and fugues. Yeah, 00:07:36.500 --> 00:07:38.980 a great quote. But even with all these folk songs 00:07:38.980 --> 00:07:42.040 and hymns, he still felt he lacked the technical 00:07:42.040 --> 00:07:44.519 chops to put it all together. So he makes a pretty 00:07:44.519 --> 00:07:47.180 radical move in the winter of 1907. He packs 00:07:47.180 --> 00:07:49.079 up and goes to Paris to study with the French 00:07:49.079 --> 00:07:52.160 composer Maurice Ravel. Why Ravel? He decides 00:07:52.160 --> 00:07:53.860 he needs to completely shake up his technique. 00:07:54.480 --> 00:07:57.139 Ravel was a modernist, much less dogmatic than 00:07:57.139 --> 00:07:59.639 the teachers back in London. This is a bold move 00:07:59.639 --> 00:08:02.420 because Ravel was known as a very demanding taskmaster 00:08:02.420 --> 00:08:05.699 who took very few pupils. Ravel was slightly 00:08:05.699 --> 00:08:08.100 younger than Vaughn Williams, too, which shows 00:08:08.100 --> 00:08:10.240 a lot of humility on Vaughn Williams's part. 00:08:10.459 --> 00:08:12.439 So how did these sessions actually go? What did 00:08:12.439 --> 00:08:15.959 a French modernist teach an English traditionalist? 00:08:16.649 --> 00:08:18.610 Well, they worked together four or five times 00:08:18.610 --> 00:08:20.990 a week for three months. And what Ravel really 00:08:20.990 --> 00:08:24.689 helped him do was strip away that heavy contrapuntal 00:08:24.689 --> 00:08:26.889 style. Contrapuntal. Let's translate that for 00:08:26.889 --> 00:08:29.529 a second. Sure. Contrapuntal music is when you 00:08:29.529 --> 00:08:32.009 have many different independent melodies playing 00:08:32.009 --> 00:08:34.990 at the exact same time. When done in the traditional 00:08:34.990 --> 00:08:37.929 German style, it creates this incredibly dense, 00:08:38.090 --> 00:08:42.009 overlapping wall of sound. Nice. It is heavy, 00:08:42.129 --> 00:08:44.750 it is thick, and it can be quite majestic. But 00:08:44.750 --> 00:08:47.190 Vaughn Williams felt it was suffocating his ideas. 00:08:47.690 --> 00:08:51.009 Ravel helped him clarify his textures. He taught 00:08:51.009 --> 00:08:53.610 him how to let the music breathe, how to use 00:08:53.610 --> 00:08:56.450 instruments to create clear, shimmering colors 00:08:56.450 --> 00:08:59.330 rather than a dense wall of sound. Did Ravel 00:08:59.330 --> 00:09:01.470 just turn him into a French composer then? Not 00:09:01.470 --> 00:09:03.590 at all. Ravel's quote about this experience is 00:09:03.590 --> 00:09:06.169 legendary. He said Vaughn Williams was my only 00:09:06.169 --> 00:09:07.990 pupil who does not write my music. Oh, that's 00:09:07.990 --> 00:09:11.049 high praise. Very high praise. Ravel didn't turn 00:09:11.049 --> 00:09:13.289 him into a French impressionist. Writing music 00:09:13.289 --> 00:09:15.409 that sounds... like a blurry, hazy watercolor 00:09:15.409 --> 00:09:18.230 painting, Ravel gave him the technical tools 00:09:18.230 --> 00:09:21.210 to express his own ideas. If we look at the music 00:09:21.210 --> 00:09:23.690 that comes right after this Paris trip, it is 00:09:23.690 --> 00:09:26.470 lighter, sharper, and distinctly his own. He 00:09:26.470 --> 00:09:28.929 finally had the ability to weave those earthy 00:09:28.929 --> 00:09:31.769 English folk songs and modal scales into massive 00:09:31.769 --> 00:09:34.250 orchestral works. And the result of this wild 00:09:34.250 --> 00:09:37.179 synthesis? Tudor church music? Rural English 00:09:37.179 --> 00:09:40.200 folk songs and French modernist lightness was 00:09:40.200 --> 00:09:43.759 his first massive wave of hits in 1910. Huge 00:09:43.759 --> 00:09:46.100 hits. He premieres the Fantasia on a theme by 00:09:46.100 --> 00:09:48.820 Thomas Tallis at Gloucester Cathedral and a sea 00:09:48.820 --> 00:09:51.580 symphony at the Leeds Festival. The critics were 00:09:51.580 --> 00:09:54.340 completely floored. One wrote about the Fantasia 00:09:54.340 --> 00:09:56.039 that you are never quite sure whether you are 00:09:56.039 --> 00:09:57.899 listening to something very, very old or something 00:09:57.899 --> 00:10:00.240 entirely new. Yeah. He had finally arrived. He 00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:02.879 was pushing 40 and he was officially a star in 00:10:02.879 --> 00:10:05.429 the British music scene. But just as he achieves 00:10:05.429 --> 00:10:08.210 this long -awaited success, world events completely 00:10:08.210 --> 00:10:11.830 derail his trajectory. In August 1914, the First 00:10:11.830 --> 00:10:14.129 World War breaks out. And this is something that 00:10:14.129 --> 00:10:15.789 really stopped me in my tracks when I was reading 00:10:15.789 --> 00:10:18.190 his biography. Vaughn Williams was approaching 00:10:18.190 --> 00:10:20.750 his 42nd birthday. He was an established, successful 00:10:20.750 --> 00:10:23.850 composer. He did not have to go. No, not at all. 00:10:24.049 --> 00:10:26.690 But he volunteers for military service as a private. 00:10:27.090 --> 00:10:30.090 He joins the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving 00:10:30.090 --> 00:10:32.740 as a stretcher bearer in an ambulance crew. It 00:10:32.740 --> 00:10:35.440 is hard to overstate how grueling that was. We 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:37.879 were talking about the backbreaking labor of 00:10:37.879 --> 00:10:41.039 doing dangerous nighttime journeys through the 00:10:41.039 --> 00:10:43.639 mud, the rain, and the unimaginable carnage of 00:10:43.639 --> 00:10:46.159 France and later in Greece. Just horrific conditions. 00:10:46.480 --> 00:10:48.620 He was considerably older than almost all of 00:10:48.620 --> 00:10:50.820 his comrades. He eventually gets commissioned 00:10:50.820 --> 00:10:53.639 as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, and the 00:10:53.639 --> 00:10:56.539 continual deafening noise of the massive guns 00:10:56.539 --> 00:10:59.539 actually damages his hearing, which leads to 00:10:59.539 --> 00:11:02.320 severe deafness in his later years. And beyond 00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:04.779 the physical damage, the emotional toll must 00:11:04.779 --> 00:11:07.960 have been unbearable. Devastating. He lost so 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:10.039 many close friends and comrades in the trenches. 00:11:10.299 --> 00:11:13.159 One of the most painful losses was a brilliantly 00:11:13.159 --> 00:11:16.000 talented young composer named George Butterworth, 00:11:16.159 --> 00:11:17.980 who was a dear friend. Oh, that's heartbreaking. 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:21.720 That level of prolonged trauma fundamentally 00:11:21.720 --> 00:11:24.559 altered Vaughn Williams. During the war years, 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:26.899 he stopped writing music entirely. He just couldn't 00:11:26.899 --> 00:11:29.159 do it. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:11:29.259 --> 00:11:32.159 because when the war ends, he eventually returns 00:11:32.159 --> 00:11:35.259 to civilian life. He feels ready to compose a 00:11:35.259 --> 00:11:39.600 major new work again. And in 1922, he premieres 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:42.740 his third symphony, which he titles A Pastoral 00:11:42.740 --> 00:11:45.860 Symphony. And the public reaction is completely 00:11:45.860 --> 00:11:48.179 baffling. They completely misunderstood it. They 00:11:48.179 --> 00:11:50.899 really did. Because of the title, Pastoral, and 00:11:50.899 --> 00:11:53.080 because of the generally quiet tone and slow 00:11:53.080 --> 00:11:56.200 tempos, English critics and audiences, many of 00:11:56.200 --> 00:11:58.100 whom had not fought on the front lines, thought 00:11:58.100 --> 00:12:00.940 it was just a nice, rustic idol. Like a picnic 00:12:00.940 --> 00:12:02.840 in the country. Exactly. They thought he was 00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:05.039 just painting a musical picture of cows grazing 00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:08.330 in a meadow. The fellow composer Peter Warlock 00:12:08.330 --> 00:12:10.710 famously sneered that the symphony sounded like 00:12:10.710 --> 00:12:13.809 a cow looking over a gate. They missed the point 00:12:13.809 --> 00:12:15.990 entirely. It wasn't about the peaceful English 00:12:15.990 --> 00:12:18.080 countryside at all, was it? Not even slightly. 00:12:18.279 --> 00:12:20.820 It was actually a war requiem. It was evoking 00:12:20.820 --> 00:12:23.279 the desolate, ruined landscapes of the French 00:12:23.279 --> 00:12:26.000 countryside that he had seen completely ravaged 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:28.899 by artillery fire and death. Wow. The second 00:12:28.899 --> 00:12:31.860 movement features this haunting spectral last 00:12:31.860 --> 00:12:34.240 post played on a bugle remembering the fallen. 00:12:34.440 --> 00:12:37.580 And the finale includes a wordless female solo 00:12:37.580 --> 00:12:40.500 voice floating over the orchestra, which is meant 00:12:40.500 --> 00:12:43.320 to be a lament for the dead. It wasn't until 00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:45.659 well after the Second World War that audiences. 00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:49.000 broadly began to recognize the profound grief 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:51.960 and the Requiem -like character hidden in that 00:12:51.960 --> 00:12:54.399 music. I want you, the listener, to really think 00:12:54.399 --> 00:12:56.679 about that for a second. Imagine pouring the 00:12:56.679 --> 00:12:58.940 deepest trauma of your life, the grief of losing 00:12:58.940 --> 00:13:01.399 your closest friends in the mud of a world war, 00:13:01.580 --> 00:13:04.539 into a piece of art or a major project, and then 00:13:04.539 --> 00:13:06.240 you present it to the world and people dismiss 00:13:06.240 --> 00:13:09.179 it as a cow looking over a gate. It's just crushing. 00:13:09.580 --> 00:13:12.340 Think about a time when your own public perception, 00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:15.059 how people viewed your work, your mood, your 00:13:15.059 --> 00:13:18.740 output, wildly missed the actual lived experience 00:13:18.740 --> 00:13:20.820 or the true intent behind what you were doing. 00:13:21.299 --> 00:13:24.399 It is a profoundly isolating experience to be 00:13:24.399 --> 00:13:27.000 misunderstood on that level. But the amazing 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:29.419 thing about Vaughn Williams is that he didn't 00:13:29.419 --> 00:13:32.159 let those misinterpretations stop him. He kept 00:13:32.159 --> 00:13:34.340 moving forward and he kept pushing the boundaries 00:13:34.340 --> 00:13:36.980 of his field. he certainly pushed them with his 00:13:36.980 --> 00:13:39.960 middle symphonies by the 1930s he is seen as 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:42.580 the grand old man of british music especially 00:13:42.580 --> 00:13:45.159 after his peers like holst and elgar pass away 00:13:45.159 --> 00:13:47.980 audiences expect a certain comforting nostalgic 00:13:47.980 --> 00:13:51.250 sound from him But his Fourth Symphony, completed 00:13:51.250 --> 00:13:54.529 in 1935, completely astonished listeners because 00:13:54.529 --> 00:13:57.210 it was so shockingly violent, angry, and dissonant. 00:13:57.330 --> 00:13:59.990 The Fourth Symphony was so discordant, especially 00:13:59.990 --> 00:14:01.789 coming during a time of rising international 00:14:01.789 --> 00:14:04.750 tension in the 1930s, that critics started throwing 00:14:04.750 --> 00:14:07.269 incredibly heavy political labels at it. One 00:14:07.269 --> 00:14:09.389 critic called it the Romantic, while another 00:14:09.389 --> 00:14:11.529 actually used the word fascist to describe his 00:14:11.529 --> 00:14:14.059 brutal energy. Yeah, the press went wild. And 00:14:14.059 --> 00:14:16.039 to be clear to you listening, those were just 00:14:16.039 --> 00:14:18.740 the chaotic labels of the 1930s press trying 00:14:18.740 --> 00:14:21.320 to make sense of the noise. We aren't endorsing 00:14:21.320 --> 00:14:23.639 any of those viewpoints. Vaughn Williams himself 00:14:23.639 --> 00:14:26.860 absolutely rejected all of it. He firmly denied 00:14:26.860 --> 00:14:29.419 that the symphony had any political program whatsoever. 00:14:29.659 --> 00:14:33.100 He insisted it was just absolute music. He refused 00:14:33.100 --> 00:14:35.039 to let critics dictate what his music meant. 00:14:35.139 --> 00:14:37.480 And then he pivots again, completely defying 00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:40.279 expectations. During the absolute height of the 00:14:40.279 --> 00:14:42.320 Second World War, when everyone expects him to 00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:45.370 write something military, He writes the Fifth 00:14:45.370 --> 00:14:48.049 Symphony. And it's so different. It is incredibly 00:14:48.049 --> 00:14:52.039 serene, luminous. And consoling. It was exactly 00:14:52.039 --> 00:14:54.700 what the frightened, exhausted British public 00:14:54.700 --> 00:14:58.080 needed during all -out war in the Blitz. One 00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:00.200 critic wrote that it contained the most benedictory 00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:03.259 and consoling music of our time. And then just 00:15:03.259 --> 00:15:05.759 when you think he's settled into being a benign, 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:08.639 tranquil old man, the war ends, the Cold War 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:11.000 begins, and he drops the Sixth Symphony in 1948. 00:15:11.559 --> 00:15:14.299 This piece opens with what critics called a primal 00:15:14.299 --> 00:15:17.120 scream of aggression and impending chaos. It's 00:15:17.120 --> 00:15:18.919 intense. But the craziest part is the ending. 00:15:19.309 --> 00:15:22.269 The final movement is 10 to 12 minutes long, 00:15:22.429 --> 00:15:25.409 and it is played entirely pianissimo, meaning 00:15:25.409 --> 00:15:28.769 super, super quiet. It never rises above a whisper. 00:15:29.370 --> 00:15:31.450 Listeners and critics were utterly convinced 00:15:31.450 --> 00:15:34.789 it was a depiction of a nuclear -scorched wasteland, 00:15:34.889 --> 00:15:38.100 a dead planet after an atomic bomb. If we connect 00:15:38.100 --> 00:15:40.279 this to the bigger picture, you see a master 00:15:40.279 --> 00:15:43.740 artist simply refusing to be boxed in by anyone's 00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:47.080 expectations. People constantly push these programmatic 00:15:47.080 --> 00:15:49.279 theories onto his symphonies, saying they were 00:15:49.279 --> 00:15:53.179 about fascism or the Blitz or nuclear war. And 00:15:53.179 --> 00:15:55.120 Vaughn Williams was totally dismissive of it. 00:15:55.240 --> 00:15:57.299 He really was. He responded to the theories about 00:15:57.299 --> 00:15:59.399 the Sixth Symphony by saying, it never seems 00:15:59.399 --> 00:16:01.259 to occur to people that a man might just want 00:16:01.259 --> 00:16:03.610 to write a piece of music. I love that bluntness. 00:16:03.769 --> 00:16:06.370 But behind all these sonic extremes and public 00:16:06.370 --> 00:16:09.129 debates, there was a radical secret life happening 00:16:09.129 --> 00:16:11.450 that I think is just as surprising as his music 00:16:11.450 --> 00:16:14.529 because as traditional as he seemed in his tweeds 00:16:14.529 --> 00:16:16.730 and flat caps, his personal life in his later 00:16:16.730 --> 00:16:19.779 years was deeply unconventional. It was. He had 00:16:19.779 --> 00:16:22.019 been devotedly married to his wife Adeline since 00:16:22.019 --> 00:16:25.759 1897. But as they grew older, Adeline became 00:16:25.759 --> 00:16:28.200 increasingly immobilized by severe arthritis. 00:16:28.779 --> 00:16:30.679 It got to the point where they had to move out 00:16:30.679 --> 00:16:32.879 of London to a house in Dorking just to manage 00:16:32.879 --> 00:16:35.860 her care. He was fiercely devoted to her, and 00:16:35.860 --> 00:16:37.700 his dedication to making sure she was comfortable 00:16:37.700 --> 00:16:41.539 never faltered. But then in 1938, when he is 00:16:41.539 --> 00:16:44.720 66 years old, he meets a 27 -year -old poet named 00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:47.450 Ursula Wood. She was married to an army officer, 00:16:47.590 --> 00:16:49.769 and she approached the composer with a scenario 00:16:49.769 --> 00:16:52.330 for a ballet. Despite the fact that they were 00:16:52.330 --> 00:16:54.690 both married, and despite a nearly 40 -year age 00:16:54.690 --> 00:16:57.870 gap, they fell in love almost immediately. And 00:16:57.870 --> 00:16:59.750 they maintained a secret love affair for more 00:16:59.750 --> 00:17:02.820 than a decade. She essentially became his muse, 00:17:03.080 --> 00:17:05.440 his helper, and his companion whenever he traveled 00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:07.500 into London. And here's where the story shifts 00:17:07.500 --> 00:17:09.559 from a conventional secret affair into something 00:17:09.559 --> 00:17:13.660 incredibly unique and complex. In 1942, Ursula's 00:17:13.660 --> 00:17:16.079 husband died suddenly of heart failure. And it 00:17:16.079 --> 00:17:18.640 was Adeline, Vaughn Williams' wife, who is largely 00:17:18.640 --> 00:17:21.299 housebound, who invited the newly widowed Ursula 00:17:21.299 --> 00:17:23.140 to come and stay with them at their home in Dorking. 00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:25.359 The arrangement they came to is honestly the 00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:27.380 most surprising detail in his entire biography. 00:17:28.240 --> 00:17:30.480 The relations between the two women were apparently 00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:34.400 extremely warm. Adeline essentially adopted Ursula 00:17:34.400 --> 00:17:36.960 in the most amicable way. It's really quite beautiful. 00:17:37.339 --> 00:17:39.920 During the heavy air raids of World War II, when 00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:42.299 London and the surrounding areas were being bombed, 00:17:42.380 --> 00:17:44.539 things were so dangerous that the three of them 00:17:44.539 --> 00:17:46.900 actually slept in the same room in adjacent beds, 00:17:47.140 --> 00:17:49.779 holding hands for comfort in the dark while the 00:17:49.779 --> 00:17:53.380 sirens blared. It highlights a capacity for profound 00:17:53.380 --> 00:17:55.519 emotional generosity from all three of them. 00:17:55.640 --> 00:17:58.539 It wasn't a scandal. It was a chosen family built 00:17:58.539 --> 00:18:01.839 on deep affection. Ursula later helped Vaughn 00:18:01.839 --> 00:18:04.940 Williams care for the ailing Adeline until Adeline 00:18:04.940 --> 00:18:08.519 passed away in 1951 at the age of 80. Wow. Two 00:18:08.519 --> 00:18:10.359 years later, Vaughn Williams and Ursula were 00:18:10.359 --> 00:18:12.859 married. She remained fiercely protective of 00:18:12.859 --> 00:18:15.160 his legacy, and she openly admitted later in 00:18:15.160 --> 00:18:17.099 life that while she had been jealous of Adeline 00:18:17.099 --> 00:18:19.980 early on, Adeline's place in his life and affections 00:18:19.980 --> 00:18:22.859 was completely unchallengeable. It is a deeply 00:18:22.859 --> 00:18:26.000 human situation that completely defies the stiff 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:28.539 upper lip stereotype of mid -century England. 00:18:28.779 --> 00:18:31.279 So what does this all mean? When we look back 00:18:31.279 --> 00:18:33.480 at the legacy of Ralph Vaughn Williams, we see 00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:35.839 a man who fundamentally changed the landscape 00:18:35.839 --> 00:18:38.240 of his culture without ever losing his humility. 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:41.099 He actually refused a knighthood, preferring 00:18:41.099 --> 00:18:43.480 to just be known as Dr. Vaughn Williams. Yeah, 00:18:43.559 --> 00:18:45.380 he never cared for the fancy titles. He never 00:18:45.380 --> 00:18:48.279 stopped exploring either. He composed right up 00:18:48.279 --> 00:18:50.819 to the morning he died in 1958 at the age of 00:18:50.819 --> 00:18:54.240 85. He left a legacy that completely emancipated 00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:57.039 English music from its German constraints, allowing 00:18:57.039 --> 00:18:59.759 the composers of succeeding generations to write 00:18:59.759 --> 00:19:02.920 freely in their own native language. And he did 00:19:02.920 --> 00:19:05.519 it by trusting his own vision, even when it wasn't 00:19:05.519 --> 00:19:08.700 popular. This raises an important question, and 00:19:08.700 --> 00:19:10.240 it brings us to a final thought I want to leave 00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:12.769 with the listener today. It concerns an opera 00:19:12.769 --> 00:19:15.369 he wrote called The Pilgrim's Progress. Vaughn 00:19:15.369 --> 00:19:17.329 Williams had worked on this piece off and on 00:19:17.329 --> 00:19:20.470 for 45 years. It was a massive labor of love. 00:19:20.589 --> 00:19:23.049 45 years. That is literally half a lifetime. 00:19:23.529 --> 00:19:26.269 Exactly. And when it finally premiered at Covent 00:19:26.269 --> 00:19:30.519 Garden in 1951. The public and the critics didn't 00:19:30.519 --> 00:19:32.079 really like it. It wasn't a hit at all. They 00:19:32.079 --> 00:19:34.420 didn't understand it because it lacked traditional 00:19:34.420 --> 00:19:37.460 operatic tropes. There were no conventional heroines 00:19:37.460 --> 00:19:41.019 and there were no swooning love duets. It was 00:19:41.019 --> 00:19:44.799 a deeply personal spiritual morality play. So 00:19:44.799 --> 00:19:46.880 how did he react to that? When he talked to his 00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:49.000 wife about the bad reviews, his response was 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:50.839 simply, they don't like it, they won't like it, 00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:52.920 they don't want an opera with no heroine and 00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:55.259 no love duets, and I don't care, it's what I 00:19:55.259 --> 00:19:57.299 meant, and there it is. It's what I meant, and 00:19:57.299 --> 00:19:59.339 there it is. So I want to ask you, the listener, 00:19:59.559 --> 00:20:02.200 at what point in your own life, in your career, 00:20:02.299 --> 00:20:05.720 or in your creative journey, do you stop caring 00:20:05.720 --> 00:20:08.880 about public reception? When do you finally look 00:20:08.880 --> 00:20:11.079 at the work you spent your life doing, shrug 00:20:11.079 --> 00:20:12.680 off the critics, and say, it's what I meant, 00:20:12.779 --> 00:20:13.279 and there it is?