The souls of the righteous de Ralph Vaughan Williams

The souls of the righteous

Ralph Vaughan Williams

en Limba Engleză Sheet music – 10 iul 1947

for STB soli and unaccompanied SATB choirThis unaccompanied motet was first performed at the dedication of the Battle of Britain Chapel in Westminster Abbey, London, and has an accordingly sombre tone. It opens with a haunting treble/soprano solo, and this ethereal atmosphere continues with unexpected harmonic shifts and hushed vocal writing. The words are taken from The Wisdom of Solomon (3: 1-5) and convey death as peaceful for those who have been 'righteous'. This motet would therefore be particularly well-suited to funeral or memorial services.

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Notă biografică

Ralph Vaughan Williams, born in Gloucestershire on 12 October 1872, read History at Cambridge and went to the Royal College of Music where his teachers were Parry, Wood, and Stanford.Vaughan Williams believed in the value of music education and wrote practical competition pieces, serviceable church music, and with the 49th Parallel (1940-41) he found a new outlet in writing for film. His profoundly disturbing Symphony No.6 (1948) received international acclaim with more than a hundred performances in a little over two years. His great sensitivity to the 20th-century human condition, his flexibility in writing for all levels of music making, and his unquestionably great imagination combine to make him one of the key figures in 20th century music.Ralph Vaughan Williams had a long association with Oxford University Press; over 200 publications are available in the Oxford catalogue.