Piece #17 - Serenade to Music - Ralph Vaughan Williams

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPteIR4Qaog
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btxc1giNl9A&feature=related

As conductors, we always talk about those pieces that we MUST perform before we die...this certainly is on mine. I think in many ways this piece has become the unofficial "musician's international anthem" as the only thing more poignant than the text itself, is the musical setting.

Here is the text, which is taken from The Merchant of Venice.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:

There's not the smallest orb that thou behold'st

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn!

With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,

And draw her home with music.

I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

The reason is, your spirits are attentive –

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;

The motions of his spirit are dull as night

And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted. Music! hark!

It is your music of the house.

Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

Silence bestows that virtue on it

How many things by season season'd are

To their right praise and true perfection!

Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion

And would not be awak'd. Soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Factoids:

• The work was originally arranged for 16-soloists and orchestra.
• Vaughan Williams later modified it for chorus and orchestra.

• There are some truly stunning moments in the piece.
• The lyrical opening violin solo (more prominent in the choral version) is absolutely heart wrenching.
• Additionally, the lovely ascending soprano line on the text "of sweet harmony."

• Vaughan Williams masterfully mirrors the turns in the text, with key changes and shifts in orchestral color.

Please enjoy this wonderful piece.