Day 8: Wasps, Vaughan-Williams

Day 8: Wasps, Vaughan-Williams

I do have quite a lot of English music, and Vaughan Williams in particular, in my CD collection, but I haven’t got his London Symphony, which was suggested to me by a friend. So, instead, I listened to a couple of excerpts from the Wasps!

The music was originally written as incidental music, to accompany the play of the same name by the Greek Aristophanes. The overture begins with a very wasp-like buzzing, but this theme is very quickly followed by some rather typical Vaughan Williams writing. The whole suite of incidental music amounts to about an hour or so of music, but the actual overture itself is only about 10 minutes long.

The other extract on my CD – which was recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, one of the best interpreters of Vaughan Williams’ music – is the March Past of the Kitchen Utensils. The story goes that Vaughan Williams composed the movement to represent a judge who blames his dog and outs him on trial for stealing some cheese! As his character witnesses the dog calls upon some of the kitchen utensils! I’ve no idea if he was found guilty or not, but it’s certainly an amusing story!