The Lark Ascending

A short introduction for woodwind and muted strings leads to the soloist’s cadenza, marked pianissimo and sur la touche. In his 2014 note for Hyperion, Philip Borg-⁠Wheeler likened the violin’s animated flurries to the song of a skylark.

Vaughan Williams prefaced the score with three passages from the poem by his near-neighbour George Meredith, among them “He rises and begins to round, / He drops the silver chain of sound”.

At the re-entry of the orchestra the solo violin takes up the 6/8 melody introduced towards the end of the cadenza. Occasional arabesques recall skylark song.

Vaughan Williams dedicated The Lark Ascending to the violinist Marie Hall. She gave the first performance with the pianist Geoffrey Mendham at Shirehampton Public Hall, Bristol, on 15 December 1920, and the first orchestral performance at Queen’s Hall the following June.

The orchestra stops and the violin plays a second cadenza alone, shorter than the first.

The cadenza leads to a contrasting episode, Allegretto tranquillo. The flutes play a new melody and the violin plays around it.

David Wise recorded this version with the Liverpool Philharmonic under Malcolm Sargent in the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, on 18 April 1947. Columbia issued it on two 78-rpm discs, DX 1386 and DX 1387.

The Allegro tranquillo begins with solo violin trills and arabesques, punctuated by an off-beat triangle. In each new episode the violin part takes a firmer melodic shape and keeps some of the skylark song.

The key changes to F major and the time to 6/8. Five bars in, the oboe plays a further new melody, marked scherzando.

The flutes’ melody returns, now played by the solo violin and marked Allegretto molto tranquillo.

After the violin plays the flute melody, the earlier 6/8 section returns.

The orchestra stops, and the violin plays unaccompanied to the end of the piece.