This essay was originally published in The Journal of The RVW Society, No 36, June 2006.
We had the experience but missed the meaning.
—T.S.
Eliot
I remember once sitting in a graduate seminar, listening
to presentations on 20th century composers, when a very bright
student delivered a thirty-minute talk on the Fourth Symphony of Charles Ives.
He went into great detail, but the detail was not exclusively about Ives, nor
was it primarily about the piece in question. It was primarily about himself:
his experience of the piece, his path toward understanding the complex musical
material in front of him and, ultimately, his own philosophical and spiritual
understanding of life, of which he more or less used the piece as a proof. By
the end of the presentation, the other students had certainly learned about
Charles Ives and his music, but if they were listening carefully, they learned
even more about their classmate.
Regardless of whether or not such a presentation is of
value in a purely musicological sense, it is important to note that this method
of analysis is no mere student phenomenon. It is in fact a practical rule,
albeit tacit, of musicology itself. Most scholars tend to make a strong
pretense to objectivity, but a careful reading of standard musical biographies,
general histories of music, and articles will demonstrate that the history of
music is often used as an ideological battleground, fraught with the agenda of
whatever scholar is at hand, rather than as a true discovery of the musician in
question, thoughtfully and carefully placed in his or her own day and age. Thus
we have a conflicting and even contradictory history of scholarship on any
given composer or subject. For example, if we read enough we can learn of the
Marxist Beethoven, the Fascist Beethoven, the Freudian Beethoven, or the
Feminist deconstruction of Beethoven. Each of them will claim to give us the
“true” Beethoven, or at least purport to have placed him properly for the first
time. But in each we will also note that some quotations of the composer will
have been exaggerated, others will have been suppressed; some important pieces
will have been ignored; other, less significant pieces will have been suddenly
discovered for the unheralded masterpieces they truly are. To anyone critically
following the bias of the scholar, it will become obvious that in many such
cases Beethoven is used less as a subject for study than as an object—even to
the point of becoming a pawn in what is often a distinctly non-musical game.
All of the great composers have been subjected, over and
again, to this sort of analysis. These days, it can sometimes seem as though it
is the only analysis that is ever done. But despite all of this, the majority
opinion of scholars comes to something like a general agreement on a reasonable
position: Bach isn’t regarded as a covert atheist, nor is Beethoven regarded as
a proto-Marxist by reasonable scholars, though both claims have been made.
Likewise a reasonable consensus exists for most of the major composers in the
Classical Canon.
Ralph Vaughan Williams, however, is an exception. He is
not considered by the majority of scholars to have been one of the most
important composers of his era. Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ravel, even
Shostakovich and Prokofiev tend to overshadow him in general survey texts.
Remembered as a primary factor in the English Musical Renaissance of the early
20th century, he is studied closely only by a handful of scholars,
and all too often relegated to a “second tier” of “nationalist” composers (most
of whom are considered, rightly or wrongly, to be derivatives of the “greater”
composers). Thus Vaughan Williams hasn’t been as hotly debated; fewer
ideologues have tried to claim him as their own; fewer hostile scholars have
tried to deconstruct him and his work. In one sense this can be good: in so
being considered, his life and music have avoided a variety of misreadings. But
in another way, this can be very bad, and stunt our understanding of his
artistic achievement, particularly if all of the small circle of Vaughan
Williams scholars hold one narrow ideology, or reductive outlook, unanimously.
Imagining this happening to Beethoven demonstrates how detrimental it might be:
if all of the major scholars agreed that he was a proto-Marxist, and every
quotation of the great composer running counter to this hypothesis was
overlooked, others exaggerated, our deeper understanding of his music would
suffer. What would happen to interpretation of the Missa Solemnis? Likewise if Bach criticism was to be dominated by
scholars without sufficient background in Christian thought, our understanding
of his artistic achievement would be hindered, if not maimed irreparably. And
yet this, without exaggerating matters, is analogous to the situation
confronting the person who would seek to understand and appreciate the music of
Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Since the time of his death, there has been one scholarly
opinion regarding the religious beliefs of Ralph Vaughan Williams: it is taken
for granted that he was an atheist as a young man, and that he later drifted
into agnosticism defined in a narrow and reductive sense, which he held for the
rest of his life. Every other opinion, be it Hubert Foss’s flirtation with the
word “pantheism” or Byron Adams’s suggestion that RVW used scripture in
non-Christian ways, is merely a variation or development on this unanimously
assumed theme. Over the last half century, the most frequently cited quotations
on the subject have become so officially canonized and engrained that no one,
to date, has gone back to look at the strength of the quotes themselves. What
was their actual context? Who was the source? Are they being presented in a biased
manner, or do they come from a biased source? What was Vaughan Williams
actually referring to when he made them? None of these questions have been
asked, nor has it been pointed out that the reductive view of Vaughan
Williams’s supposed atheism and agnosticism has been hung, for over four
decades, on the strength (or weakness) of only a handful of these quotes.
More interesting then this, however, are the quotations
ignored, which seem to weaken (or in some cases contradict) the prevalent
theory of VW’s beliefs. Finally, the pieces themselves speak very strongly, and
only when we are willing to question the assumptions of the major scholars are
we able to uncover the true depths of pieces such as the Five Mystical Songs, Sancta Civitas, the Dona Nobis Pacem, and The
Pilgrim’s Progress.
The remedy is not so simple as illuminating the depths of
pieces, however, as a great deal of dogma has been written about the religious
beliefs of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Scholars seemingly without enough knowledge
of Christianity, Church history, theology and mysticism have made
pronouncements on the subject, buttressing a narrow understanding of VW’s
beliefs with a great deal of misinformation, false assumption, and in some
cases, misreadings of even the quotes they have thought supported their
conclusions. It will therefore take a great deal of unraveling before the
situation can be remedied.
Vaughan Williams the
atheist?
In his brief overview of the generally prevalent attitudes
towards Vaughan Williams’s beliefs, John Barr sensibly opts for a chronological
exposition, documenting the major opinions held by scholars at each stage of
the composer’s life.1 Beginning, then, with
VW’s childhood, Barr points out that the composer was the son of an Anglican
clergyman, who died while Ralph was little more than an infant. Significantly,
he also mentions that his mother, Margaret Vaughan Williams, was a Christian
with “strict evangelical leanings,” though he couldn’t remember exactly where
he had read this. It is no surprise that it was difficult to locate the exact
source for the quote, as it is not to be found in any of the primary materials
a Vaughan Williams scholar might immediately reference for childhood material.
Rather, the description of Vaughan Williams's mother as a “strict Christian”
comes from Byron Adams’s article, “Scripture, Church and culture: biblical
texts in the works of Ralph Vaughan Williams” published in 1996.2
In our current cultural climate, particularly if one is an
American, to call someone a strict Christian with evangelical leanings is
hardly neutral. It implies many things, not the least of which is the term
“fundamentalist,” with all of its historical and cultural baggage. Adams could
have chosen the word “devout,” of course, but he didn’t. As it is, Margaret
Vaughan Williams’s religious beliefs are shown in what certainly appears to be
a negative light. Moreover, the implication that Vaughan Williams’s mother was
“strict” at all in matters of religion (that she was a rigid enforcer of doctrine
or ideas, or a literal interpreter of scripture) seems unfounded. This can be
demonstrated by the reply Mrs. Vaughan Williams made to her son when he asked
her opinion on the controversy surrounding The
Origin of Species, his great uncle’s celebrated book:
The Bible says
that God made the world in six days, Great Uncle Charles thinks it took longer:
but we needn’t worry about it, for it is equally wonderful either way.3
This is not the opinion of a woman
who was “strict” about her beliefs, intellectually, in any pejorative sense. In
fact, it seems to have been drawn from The
Origin of Species itself, where we read:
I see no good
reason why the views expressed in this volume should shock the religious
feelings of any…A celebrated author and divine has written to me that “he has
gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to
believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into
other and needful forms, as to believe he required a fresh act of creation to
supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.” 4
The evidence would therefore
suggest that Margaret Vaughan Williams was open-minded on such issues (as are
many Christians); one who left room in her faith for intellectual inquiry and
debate. Likewise, it seems bizarre that a “strict Christian” would have exposed
her son to the radical opinions of his childhood nurse, Sarah Wager, which
Ursula Vaughan Williams said were, anyhow, also the opinion of the family.5 We are left, then, with a different portrait
of Vaughan Williams’s family life. What emerges are liberal Anglicans,
politically and doctrinally, including the person of his mother. It was
probably within this family structure that his allegorical understanding of
scripture (discussed later) was first nurtured.
This brief clarification
concerning Margaret Vaughan Williams aside, the first mention of an atheistic
phase in Vaughan Williams’s life usually begins with a discussion of his time
at Rottingdean, where he encountered a boy whose atheistic opinions had
impressed him. Yet also at Rottingdean, Vaughan Williams had, in his words, a
“remarkable undermaster.” His memories of this undermaster are of interest to
the present discussion, for the composer later said, “I remember once his explaining
the philosophy of the thirteenth chapter of 1
Corinthians. I wish we had had more of him, for this was, of course, all
off the record.” 6
These two anecdotes provide a good
example of how scholars over the last four decades have presented the development
of Vaughan Williams’s religious beliefs. The former example (of the atheist
boy) is the one frequently cited, while the latter (which actually appears
first in Ursula Vaughan Williams’s book) is never referenced. Yet the incident
is important, as the text which the undermaster elucidated to Vaughan Williams,
leaving him wanting more, was a chapter from St Paul’s First Letter to the
Corinthians—a fact which would be directly pertinent to any discussion of
Vaughan Williams and religion.
There are many other reasons why
this is important. First, it belies the common assertion that Vaughan
Williams’s only attraction to the Bible was literary: that somehow, he was
enraptured by the prose of the Authorized Version, while remaining
disinterested or unaffected by the underlying meaning of the text. On the
contrary, by this quote we know that Vaughan Williams from a young age was
interested in the meaning of scripture. This will become more and more apparent
when we consider his mature musical works, such as the Dona Nobis Pacem, but it also has implications for his translations
of the Bach Passions.
Second, the text itself is
important. Vaughan Williams remembered the very book and chapter. Frequently
read at weddings, the text is as follows:
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling
cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries,
and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods
to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity,
it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth
not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
I have quoted here from the
Authorized Version that Vaughan Williams is known to have loved. It is tempting
to speculate as to what the undermaster said concerning the passage. Was he
also using the Authorized Version? And if so, was he elucidating the term
“charity”, now usually translated as “love”? What was it that so impressed
Vaughan Williams that he remembered the experience half a century later? Was it
here that he first came into intellectual (rather than merely cultural) contact
with the writings of St Paul (one who he was to quote and paraphrase many times
throughout his life)? Was it here, in fact, that he fell in love with
scripture? Perhaps more importantly than these questions, however, is that here
Vaughan Williams might have been exposed to the philosophy he was to hold for
course of his career: namely that music is not an end in and of itself. Instead
of the 19th century concept of “art for art’s sake”, Vaughan
Williams was repeatedly explicit that music was a way of spiritually reaching
out to “ultimate reality” beyond music itself.
Yet it
remains that scholars have preferred the story of the atheist boy, whose
opinions struck him as “impressive and reasonable.” It ought to be pointed out,
however, that nowhere in Ursula Vaughan Williams’s account does it say,
directly, that RVW came to share them absolutely. Striking to me is that in
Mrs. Vaughan Williams’s meticulous biography of her husband, she gives no
actual quotations from her husband, directly pertaining to personal atheism.
This is significant in that the scholars since Mrs. Vaughan Williams have
tended to exaggerate even further the idea and strength of an atheistic phase.
In terms of verbal proof
of such a phase, the most heavily relied upon quote comes from Bertrand
Russell, who related a story and quote to Michael Kennedy after the composer’s
death, dating from VW’s time at Cambridge in the 1890s.
Kennedy writes:
At
Cambridge he had had a reputation as ‘a most determined atheist’, according to
Bertrand Russell, who was at Trinity at the same time, and he was noted for
having walked into Hall one evening saying in a loud voice, ‘Who believes in
God nowadays, I should like to know?’7
The anecdote is of
interest not simply for its content, but for the person who related it. The
storyteller was not neutral to the topic of religious beliefs, though neither
Kennedy nor subsequent scholars have mentioned it. In fact, Bertrand Russell
(1872-1970) was distinctly and openly anti-Christian (anti-religious in every
sense of the word, actually). A noted philosopher and mathematician, he was
also one of the most influential atheists of his day. He campaigned actively, through his writings
and lectures, to convert people to non-belief, though he was careful to qualify
the statement, admitting that pure atheism was a logically untenable position—his
position would be perhaps best described as agnosticism with no real
possibility of God’s existence. This is an important thing to consider, as
“agnosticism” may mean any range of positions. Vaughan Williams’s agnosticism,
it will be shown, did not resemble Russell’s, whose opinions on religion are
quoted below:
“I regard
[religion] as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the
human race.”8
“Fear is the
basis of [religion]—fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear
is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder that cruelty and
religion have gone hand in hand.”9
“I think all
the great religions of the world—Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and
Communism—both untrue and harmful.”10
“The knowledge
exists by which universal happiness can be secured; the chief obstacle to its
utilization for that purpose is the teaching of religion. … It is possible that
mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary
to first slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.”11
Setting aside the hyperbole
which runs throughout his essays (essays which lampoon a caricature of
Christianity rather than engaging actual theology with reasoned argument), what
can be seen clearly is a distinct bias against religion on the part of Bertrand
Russell. And yet it is this single quote, written to Michael Kennedy
approximately seventy years after the supposed incident, which remains our only
verbal proof for a strong atheistic phase in Vaughan Williams’s development.
Perhaps the entire correspondence between Kennedy and Russell regarding this
issue would shed more light on the quote. Context, which we sorely lack in this
instance, would help us determine its value.
Also interesting is the
willingness with which some scholars have accepted this story, interpretation
and all, without reservations. Of RVW’s many biographers and critics, including
James Day, Simon Heffer, Byron Adams and others, none has brought up the fact
that Russell was a celebrated atheist. On the contrary, some have appeared all
too eager to develop the story further. Ultimately, though, the quote is of
very little weight, despite the commanding and definitive position it has been
awarded for the past forty years. The source was so partisan as to render it
suspect, the story was related after the composer’s death, some seven decades
after the supposed fact, and without context for the comment. And whatever else
this quote might be, it is emphatically not a public proclamation of anything
so specific as atheism. A devout Christian might have related the same
quotation, with a differently implied context, changing the meaning entirely.
To this point, the evidence for a youthful atheistic phase of any real
determination for Ralph Vaughan Williams has been based on very scant evidence
coupled with dogmatic assertions, usually to the exclusion of evidence to the
contrary. This is not to rule out the possibility of some legitimacy, but we
should be honest and clear about this: nowhere have we been given actual
statements, written or spoken by Vaughan Williams, to corroborate blind belief
in such a dedicated, atheistic phase of his spiritual development. And as we
shall see, even if Vaughan Williams had an atheistic phase, it would have been
over by about 1898, once we begin analyzing some of the poetic texts he chose
for songs.
In 1898, as part of a set
entitled (somewhat misleadingly) “Three Elizabethan Songs”, Vaughan Williams
set a lyric by George Herbert (whose poems he would return to for the rest of
his long career), entitled “Virtue.” The poem deals with the transitory nature
of temporal existence, while ending with a contrasting meditation on the
immortality of the soul in the final stanza:
Only a sweet and virtuous
soul,
Like season’d timber, never
gives;
But though the whole world
turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
The imagery, though gentle, is
explicitly apocalyptic—the whole world turning to coal is an allusion to the
end of time in the Book of Revelation (which was the basis of Vaughan Williams’s
Oratorio, Sancta Civitas). Even if we
suggest that Vaughan Williams in 1898 held no literal belief in a future
apocalypse, as the 17th century cleric who wrote the lyric surely
must have, the poem at the very least speaks to the immortality of the soul,
which topic Vaughan Williams was drawn to, relentlessly, for the rest of his
career. This in and of itself would be a bizarre, inconsistent, and a
self-contradictory subject for an atheist of Vaughan Williams’s day. It would
be contradictory even to the formulation of hardened agnosticism later
propagated by Bertrand Russell.
In that same year, Vaughan
Williams also set a text by Christina Rossetti entitled “Dream Land.” Rossetti,
a devout High Anglican, was often explicit in her Christian imagery, and this
lyric is no exception. In the first stanza we encounter a reference to the star
over Bethlehem at the nativity, while in the fourth and final stanza, we read:
Rest, rest for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart’s core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.
Once again we are given a
meditation on the immortality of the soul in the poem, this time in even more
explicitly Christian imagery. Vaughan Williams would not have failed to notice
the reference to Milton in this final stanza. “Till joy shall overtake” is a
quote of Milton’s ode “On Time” (“then joy shall overtake us as a flood”),
another poem dealing with the loss of the temporal and the gaining of the
eternal.
Despite even the most
sophisticated arguments of 21st century secularists, it is hard to
imagine an atheist having any attraction to poetry such as this, let alone to
go on setting exactly this sort of verse for another six decades. The obvious,
simplest, and most reasonable conclusion is that if Vaughan Williams ever had
an atheistic phase, it was most certainly over by the year 1898. I qualify this
only by saying that it is by no means proven that he ever had a true atheistic
phase (one which he had thought through, debating the actual claims of
Christianity, and rejecting each one in turn). This quick demonstration reveals
two things: First, that the works of Vaughan Williams pertain directly to the
discussion of his religious beliefs, and second, it highlights the lack of
interest scholars have shown regarding the texts themselves. This will become
even more obvious as we continue to Vaughan Williams’s later masterpieces.
Before
leaving the discussion surrounding atheism, however, there are other issues to
be mentioned. One is of another quote favored and relied upon heavily by
scholars: the oft repeated “There is no reason why an atheist could not write a good Mass.”12 Once again, we have the difficulty of context for
the quote. No direct context is offered by Mrs. Vaughan Williams as to when RVW
said this, where, to whom, or what the tenor of the surrounding conversation
might have been at the time. Did he say this often or only once? Was he
provoked into saying it or did it arise spontaneously? We are not given this
information. Aside from these important concerns, what does the quote mean? It
doesn’t mean that the composer was himself an atheist. And perhaps even more
importantly, it doesn’t even mean that VW felt an atheist had ever actually
written a good Mass: only that there was no reason why one shouldn’t. Any
number of situations might have prompted the comment, from any number of
different points of view. Yet too often scholars have immediately jumped to the
conclusion that this quote says something about Vaughan Williams’s own faith or
lack of faith. Given a lack of context for the quote, and given what the
statement actually means, on its own merits, this is an altogether unreasonable
assumption. We must take it to mean only what it says, and, as such, not much
can realistically be gleaned from it.
Quotations with Context
Moving
on to some quotations with actual context, we turn to the much oversimplified
and misunderstood quote standing at the beginning of Vaughan Williams’s
Oratorio Sancta Civitas. The quote in
question is from Plato’s Phaedo. Frank Howes, Michael Kennedy and James Day,
have offered different translations.13 They are as follows:
No reasonable man ought to be dogmatic about the details
of what I have just been through, yet something of the sort is the truth about
our souls and their habitation after death, since in any event the soul appears
to be immortal. So it seems to me that it is right and proper to take the risk
of holding this opinion—for risk is a fine thing—and a man should, as it were,
have it as a song in his heart and sing about it. 14
Now to assert that these things are exactly as I have
described them would not be reasonable. But that these things, or something
like them, are true concerning the souls of men and their habitations after
death, especially since the soul is shown to be immortal, this seems to me
fitting and worth risking to believe. For the risk is honorable, and a man
should sing such things in the manner of an incantation to himself. 15
A man of sense will not insist that things are exactly as
I have described them. But I think he will believe that something of the kind
is true of the soul and her habitations, seeing that she is shown to be
immortal, and that it is worth while to stake everything on this belief. The
venture is a fair one and he must charm his doubts with spells like these. 16
Vaughan Williams didn’t
offer us an English translation of the text—the score I have seen bears only
the original Greek. Therefore it is unlikely we shall ever know whose
translation he would have preferred; Kennedy’s, Day’s, Howes’s, or someone
else’s. It is dangerous, therefore, to draw exact conclusions from this
excerpt. Did Vaughan Williams understand the Plato to read “the soul is shown to be immortal” (as in Kennedy and
Day) or “the soul appears to be
immortal” (as in Howes)? The former would suggest a statement of conviction on
VW’s part; the latter implies a leaning. Is risk a “fine thing”, or merely
“honorable”? Or is it “worthwhile to stake everything on this belief”? To
discover RVW’s exact belief on this matter, at the time he quoted it, would
likely require a Socratic dialogue with him, which we don’t possess.
This quotation has been
interpreted by all scholars, with seemingly unanimous voice, as Vaughan
Williams’s deliberate distancing of himself from the text which follows, drawn
from the Book of Revelation. But this interpretation raises immediate
questions. First, if Vaughan Williams was an atheist at some point prior to
composing Sancta Civitas (which they
likewise insist), wouldn’t the quote rather demonstrate Vaughan Williams moving
closer towards belief? The text itself suggests that “this or something like
this” is “true”—not aesthetically pleasing or useful as a symbol of the human
spirit. Second, the only way in which this quotation would serve to distance
Vaughan Williams from the text would be if he had, prior to the composition of Sancta Civitas, been convinced of a
literal reading of the Book of Revelation. The quote would then serve to
demonstrate a movement on his part towards a more allegorical reading of the
text, a method of scriptural interpretation we know he understood, by virtue of a letter to Mrs. Joyce Hooper from 31 October
1951, wherein he wrote:
As regards my other
point, human love has always been taken as a symbol
of man’s relation to
divine things. The Song of Solomon has been treated
in all of the
Churches as a symbol of the relationship of God to man. And
what about Isaiah
and his “beloved’s Vineyard”? And is not the Church
in the Book of
Revelations always symbolized as the bride?
Such
allegorical reading of scripture is completely orthodox: it is as old as
Christianity itself. Therefore, a traditional, orthodox Catholic or Anglican
could easily have quoted the same passage from Phaedo without implying even the slightest bit of agnosticism.
Vaughan Williams’s critics seem to have either overlooked this, or to have been
ignorant that within Christian theology there are a variety of approaches to
scriptural exegesis; that fundamentalist theology is not a majority opinion,
but a minority and distinctly non-traditional method. It appears they have been
applying a false norm to Christian thought.
Unrelated to the Greek
quotation preceding the piece, Sancta
Civitas exposes another assumption of the majority of scholars, regarding
scripture. The standard argument has been that Vaughan Williams was primarily
dedicated to the soaring prose of the Authorized Version—that he admired it as literature,
but had no use for its theological and mystical substance (insofar as we are
discussing specifically Christian mysticism). We have already seen, in a
generally overlooked quotation of the composer, that this was hardly the case,
as Vaughan Williams had been interested with the philosophy behind scripture
from the time he was at Rottingdean. But the text of Sancta Civitas also contradicts this assumption, as it was not
chosen solely from the King James Bible, but Taverner’s Bible as well. It seems,
therefore, that Vaughan Williams was looking to accomplish something other than
an immortalizing of the Authorized Version in song. He must have had deeper
reasons, ones which he had thought through on a level beyond the literary or
aesthetic.
Even on a merely literary
level, though, Vaughan Williams’s writings have been misunderstood. Harold
Bloom has complained that the worst offense, and result, of contemporary
literary criticism has been an incapacity to comprehend irony. Lamenting this
most profoundly when discussing a play such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, he implies that a literal
interpretation of Hamlet’s words results in a chaotic reading of the text, so
much of which is dependant upon the irony of the main character.17 Vaughan Williams’s words have been a victim of
something like this as well, although perhaps the device missed by scholars has
been that of frustrated sarcasm. One quote in particular has been habitually
taken out of context by scholars. It comes from a letter to Rutland Boughton,
concerning the changing of the name “Christian” to “Pilgrim” in his opera based
on Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.
The most frequently excerpted line is as follows:
I on purpose
did not call the Pilgrim “Christian” because I want the idea to be universal
and apply to anybody who aims at the spiritual life whether he is Xtian, Jew,
Buddhist, Shintoist, or 5th Day Adventist. 18
As with the previously
favored quotations, this has been frequently cited by scholars without
reference to its full context, and the sarcasm contained within it seems to
have been missed altogether. Boughton’s letter (dated 12 May 1951), to which
Vaughan Williams was responding, was later well described by Michael Kennedy as
being “a mixture of good sense, musicianship, prejudice, muddle-headed
political dogma, and sheer wrong-headedness.”19 Vaughan Williams’s response was short, terse, and
in some places sarcastic—most pronouncedly so in the quote above, where he
mentions a fanciful sect called the “5th Day Adventists.” This, to anyone
who knows what Vaughan Williams was talking about, is obvious sarcasm. But
certain scholars, among them Byron Adams, seem to have taken this to mean
something very serious. Adams goes so far as to interpret the quote as a proof
of Vaughan Williams’s “democratic belief in the validity of all religious
traditions [etc].”20
This is a serious misreading
of the text at hand, as Adams has missed all of the satire of Vaughan
Williams’s invented denomination—the “5th
Day Adventists” (emphasis mine). The denomination he was sarcastically alluding
to actually call themselves the 7th
Day Adventists. That Vaughan Williams had already included “Xtian” was an added
jab, inferring that 7th Day Adventism wasn’t Christian, and that one
of the denomination’s doctrines (that services should be held, and the Sabbath
faithfully observed, on Saturday) was arbitrary. Thus, in the very passage
Adams believes he has found a “democratic belief in the validity of all
religious traditions,” RVW actually lampoons a religious tradition. In other
words, to look for a 21st century notion of religious relativism in
this passage is futile. 21
Beyond the sarcasm of the
letter, there is the question of Vaughan Williams’s intent. Some scholars would
have us believe that it contains a statement of his deepest religious opinions.
But it is no such thing: instead, it must be understood as a quick response to
an annoying letter. This isn’t to say it is without value altogether: it
implies at least an ecumenical side of RVW’s thought. But it must be stressed
that this is only implied, and that the line in which it is implied is riddled
with sarcasm. It is highly improbable that the composer ever expected it to be
kept by the recipient, let alone published and used as a definitive statement
of his beliefs concerning the complexities of ecumenism and inter-religious
relationships. Certainly he would have written something less sarcastic and
flippant if that were the case.
Most problematic, however,
is that this quote has been used as a context for The Pilgrim’s Progress. The end result of this approach has been to
present the opera as a mere statement of English nationalism; a vaguely
spiritual allegory which is really, in some muddled sense, “beyond” religion,
and only by accident of birth associated with Christianity rather than with
Buddhism, Islam, or Hinduism (among many other options). This, more than
anything, has contributed to the misunderstanding of the opera, and is probably
the single biggest way in which Vaughan Williams scholars have inadvertently
discouraged the work from production. A few years ago, I published an article
entitled “The Pilgrim’s Progress in
Context: a preliminary study” wherein I discussed the dramatic substance of the
piece. Central to my argument was that, for the Pilgrim to be understood as a dramatic work, worthy of stage
production, the opening of Act I Scene 2, where the Pilgrim comes to the cross,
must be understood and accepted in all of its Christian theological symbolism.
Without this explicitly and uniquely Christian context, the piece absolutely
fails as a music drama—in fact, the plot makes very little sense at all. To
interpret The Pilgrim’s Progress in a
vague, non-religious manner is therefore to interpret it into failure, leaving
it nothing but an unsatisfying exercise in cultural anthropology.22 By contrast, if we are open enough to see the quote
in the context of the opera, rather than vice versa, we gain a better
understanding of both. In all likelihood, the quote taken in context means that
Vaughan Williams believed the Christian message to be applicable to people of
all faiths: that the Christian message was universal.
All of this brings us, at
last, to some relatively ignored quotations with actual context, found in texts
written by Vaughan Williams himself, without sarcasm. The first of great
interest is to be found in program notes written by the composer for a
performance of the Bach Choir in 1923:
The essence of
the ‘Passion’ form is the recital of the Gospel story as a Church service,
interspersed with reflective solos and choruses and the well-known choral
melodies of the Lutheran Church (many of which happily belong to the English
Church as well, so that here we are on familiar ground), and it is in this
spirit that it must be performed and listened to.
However in
transferring a work from the Thomaskirche in 1729 to a London concert room in
1923, certain adaptations and compromises are inevitable. To start with, the
only possible language in which the gospel history can be recited to an English
audience is that of the Authorized Version of 1611: anything else would be an
insult to Bach and the Bible. To do this it is necessary to alter a few notes
of Bach’s recitative, and in a few cases to sacrifice some of Bach’s subtlety
of phrasing but the compromise cannot be avoided.
Bach’s original
chorus for his cantata and Passions consisted of not more than 40 voices. What
then are we to do when we have a chorus of 300? It seems ridiculous and outside
the bounds of dramatic propriety to give the words of the Apostles or the
questions of Peter to more than a few voices; these numbers have then been
assigned to the semi-chorus. One exception, however, has been made: the words
‘truly, this was the Son of God’ belong not to the ‘Centurion and they that
were with him’, but are the triumphant outcry of the whole world. 23
These reflections on Bach’s
Passion settings are extremely important. Unlike all of the previously favored
quotations used to portray a Vaughan Williams as distant from Christianity as possible,
they were actually prepared by the composer for publication, in the form of
program notes. They have context, they are serious, and they were premeditated.
None of the more favored quotations can claim anything like this.
An atheist or agnostic of
the Bertrand Russell variety (hostile to and distant from Christianity) would
never have written anything of the kind. And here it is useful to dispel one of
the most frequent false-parallels employed by Vaughan Williams scholars: the
supposed spiritual parallel between RVW and Johannes Brahms.
It has become an acceptable
bad habit of scholars to compare Brahms and Vaughan Williams as though their
beliefs were in some way similar. It is particularly ill advised to use
Brahms’s Ein Deutsche Requiem as an
example of this.24 For if Brahms’s Requiem serves as any example at all in
this debate, it must serve as a stark contrast to Vaughan Williams’s approach.
In writing the Requiem, Brahms
deliberately avoided all direct references to Christ. This is supremely at odds
with Vaughan Williams, who not only set, explicitly, the Nativity of Christ (in
Hodie) but also the Second Coming of
Christ (in Sancta Civitas), while the
dramatic action of the Pilgrim’s Progress
is utterly dependent upon the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. In
short, there seems to be very little in the way of direct reference to basic
Christian doctrine that Vaughan Williams didn’t explicitly set to music. A
choir shouting out “Emmanuel! Emmanuel! God with us!” in response to the name “Jesus”,
as in Hodie, is certainly not the way
to go about emulating Brahms’s selection or setting of texts. But it is not
only the music and libretti that contradict this comparison. Brahms was open
about his disbelief in the immortality of the soul.25 Vaughan Williams, on the other hand, spent a career
setting texts proclaiming belief in it, and nowhere can we, as yet, find
unqualified evidence of Vaughan Williams ever having disbelieved in it.
Whatever Vaughan Williams might have emulated musically about Brahms (and it
seems he emulated much), he most certainly did not resemble the man
spiritually.
VW’s understanding of Bach,
expressed in the above program notes, likewise contradicts such an analysis.
The utilitarian agnostic approach to setting scriptural texts suggests that,
like Brahms, a composer might set a biblical text for the humanistic qualities
embodied therein, jettisoning the supernatural element. Indeed, an atheist or
materialist agnostic must make this
interpretation: to suggest an orthodox, supernatural interpretation would be to
go against their primary beliefs. If Vaughan Williams had believed this sort of
thing, he would certainly have stressed the musical qualities of the Bach
pieces in question, rather than their theological and evangelical implications.
But in the program notes, he is careful to explain that he has done precisely
the opposite, sacrificing even some subtleties of Bach’s phrasings to achieve
the proper spiritual effect. In other words Vaughan Williams clearly believed the
Gospel narrative, with all of its implications, to be more important to Bach’s
pieces than the even notes themselves. Moreover, he worked with his choirs to
ensure that they went beyond the music, just as the original Lutherans who sang
them had.26 This is completely inexplicable if one
subscribes to the idea that VW was an atheist or a Russellian agnostic. The
only proper conclusion we can draw from this is that Vaughan Williams was
neither.
Perhaps even more telling,
however, regarding VW’s personal beliefs, is the final line quoted above,
wherein VW tells us of his unusual decision to give the words of the Centurion
(“Truly, this was the Son of God”) not to a soloist or semi-chorus, but to the
entire chorus, because “they are the triumphant cry of the whole world.” In
this context, then, we understand the true meaning behind the sarcastic reply
to Rutland Boughton, written almost 30 years later. His ecumenical leaning was
founded on the belief that the Gospel was valid for people of all cultures, the
world over.
In another letter, this one
to Michael Kennedy dated January 26, 1957, Vaughan Williams writes something of
importance:
Your
question of who is the greatest man in my lifetime is very difficult to answer.
I don’t think Churchill, somehow, but a few names taken at random would include
Brahms, Walt Whitman, and General Booth…and of course there is also Sibelius. 27
There is a distinct
odd-man-out in Vaughan Williams’s list of great men, and that man is General
Booth. The composer refers to General William Booth (1829-1881), the founder of
the Salvation Army, a Christian organization that seeks to live out the gospel
in the service of the poor, by means of charity, music and the reformation of
character. These tenets must have made a deep impression on Vaughan Williams,
and though his youthful Fabianism was eventually lost, perhaps he discovered a
more profound expression of social action in this evangelical combination. The
brass band music associated with the Salvation Army must have also impressed
Vaughan Williams. The combination of the gospel message and social activism
within music could hardly have failed to resonate with the man who had written
“No doubt it requires a certain effort to tune oneself to the moral atmosphere
implied by a fine melody.” 28 What he meant in this
enigmatic sentence is perhaps elucidated by his citation of William Booth as
one of the greatest men of his lifetime.
Having earlier dismissed the
spiritual parallel between Brahms and Vaughan Williams, it wouldn’t be surprising
if Brahms was chosen for his as musical qualities. His devotion to Bach, his
counterpoint, his lyric yet absolute qualities, especially in the symphonies,
and his resistance to the fashion of the day are all obvious fore-runners of
Vaughan Williams’s music.
Much has been made of the
middleman of Vaughan Williams' triumvirate, Walt
Whitman. It has been
repeatedly suggested that Vaughan Williams sought a non-Christian, or
specifically secular expression of spirituality, finding this ultimately in
Whitman's verse. But to prematurely end the discussion of RVW and Whitman there
is to overlook the possibility that Whitman might actually have steered Vaughan
Williams more towards Christianity than away from it. Such was the experience
of G.K. Chesterton, Vaughan Williams's contemporary. For Chesterton, Whitman's
verse provided an important step towards faith, countering the dominant secular
pessimism of his day. Whitman's impact upon his own eventual conversion was of
such importance that, in his dedication of The
Man Who was Thursday, Chesterton included the following reference:
I find again
the book we found, I feel the hour that flings
Far out of
fish-shaped Paumanok some cry of cleaner things 29
It is not unreasonable to
think that the effect upon Vaughan Williams might have been similar. In fact,
it seems probable when we consider that Vaughan Williams tends to use Whitman
for one of two purposes: the first is to discuss the immortality of the soul,
and the vastness of spiritual reality (as in the Sea Symphony and Towards the
Unknown Region). The second is when VW appropriates and reinterprets them
in a Eucharistic sense (as we shall see in the Dona Nobis Pacem). Neither purpose is anything but completely
harmonious with Christianity—in the case of the Dona Nobis Pacem, Whitman is used to strengthen the theology, not
replace it. But before moving on to a discussion of that masterpiece, there are
other matters concerning Vaughan Williams and specific expressions of
Christianity to be addressed, which, combined with a case study of two
important pieces, will demonstrate that Vaughan Williams had an understanding
of mystical Christianity, going beyond even the non-sacramental social action
espoused by General Booth.
Mysticism, dogma, and other sources of confusion
Perhaps the biggest problem
with RVW criticism over the decades has been its insistence on a shallow and
reductive understanding of Christianity. This is a grave error, especially when
dealing with a composer like Vaughan Williams. His scores and carefully
arranged texts deal with almost all of the central doctrines of Christian
faith, and not on a superficial level. As we shall see, he plumbs the depths of
sacramental theology at times. If a scholar has nothing but a superficial,
caricaturized knowledge of Christianity (such as one might gain by reading
Bertrand Russell), they will find themselves ill equipped for analyzing Vaughan
Williams.
A case in point is the slow
movement from the Symphony in D Major (No 5). In the manuscript to the score,
the movement bore the motto: ‘Upon that place there stood a cross and a little
below a sepulchre…Then he said “He hath given me rest by his sorrow and life by
his death.”’ This, combined with the title of the movement, Romanza, has confused some scholars,
including Frank Howes, who said, “There is therefore and indeed nothing
romantic in any of the normal connotations of that pliable word about this
movement”. 30 Having made this
statement, he doesn’t explain what it might mean in a Christian sense.
Likewise, Michael Kennedy delivers a confused understanding when he wrote that
the “Oriental exotic ecstasy” of Flos
Campi “sweeps away the religious mysticism found by disturbed critics as
consolatory evidence that this work was really by the composer of the Tallis Fantasia.”31 And as I pointed out in an earlier
article, Byron Adams misinterpreted the eroticism in the Magnificat, considering it at odds with Christianity and scriptural
intent.32 Three prominent Vaughan Williams
scholars from three successive generations, therefore, have not known that
erotic love has been used for millennia by Christians and Jews as a symbol of
God’s love for the Church and Israel.
Vaughan Williams, however, knew. It is worth revisiting his letter to
Mrs. Hooper of 31 October 1951, in which he wrote “…human love has always been
taken as a symbol of man’s relation to divine things. The Song of Solomon has
been treated in all of the Churches as a symbol of the relationship of God to
man.” There is nothing esoteric or bizarre about Vaughan Williams’s theology:
it is all completely orthodox and traditional. It is to be found in the
writings of countless Christian mystics, including St Bernard of Clairvaux, St
Teresa of Avila, and St John of the Cross. And if this theology is known, the
title “Romanza” makes perfect sense, when dealing with Christ’s sacrifice on
the cross; the passion in Flos Campi,
which was after all inspired by the most erotic book in the Bible, also makes
perfect, orthodox sense; and Vaughan Williams’s interpretation of the Magnificat becomes very Catholic,
emphasizing Mary as the bride as well as the mother of God. But the scholars
have searched, in vain, for latent paganism in Vaughan Williams’s symbolism.
The only shame is that such confusion has developed, unabated, for three
generations now. If we hope to progress in our understanding of Vaughan
Williams’s pieces, it will be necessary to move beyond this unfruitful
confusion.
In light of this
information, it is interesting to consider some of the more dogmatic statements
that have been made concerning Vaughan Williams’s religious beliefs. James Day
writes:
[For Vaughan
Williams]…there is no act of faith to inspire the hope of redemption either of
man or of the world in which he lives through some kind of divine intervention
or divine self-immolation. Prayers, however intense (and there can be no
mistaking the intensity of the prayers in a work like Dona Nobis Pacem) are a projection of man’s hopes and fears,
nothing more. 33
It is difficult to imagine that
the man who wrote these words has ever heard or paid attention to The Pilgrim’s Progress. There, we see
and hear prayers answered, we see a man transformed by virtue of Christ’s
sacrifice and resurrection (which Day refers to with seeming contempt as “some
kind of divine intervention or divine self-immolation”), and we see a man
redeemed. However Day came to his own conclusions on prayer and the ultimate
destiny of humans, it certainly wasn’t from Vaughan Williams. I use this as an
example, and do not wish to single out James Day: there are many such dogmatic
statements in the scholarship on Vaughan Williams. None of them ever quote the
composer directly when they write such dogmatic things, and none of them seem
to take the entirety of the man’s career into consideration.
Michael Kennedy has written
It is important
to realize, and it cannot be over-emphasized, that the religion of Vaughan
Williams’s life was music… 34
Objectively speaking, and apart from whether Vaughan
Williams felt the need for religion or not, music simply is not a religion. Nor
would it seem, after thousands of years of human civilization, that it is
capable of ever becoming one. Ethical systems are not built upon music theory.
Moral codes and societies are not held together by music. Wars are not fought
over music and martyrs are not killed for music. To say therefore that “the
religion of Vaughan Williams’s life was music” is a serious overstatement. What
Kennedy is more likely saying is that Vaughan Williams tried to use music as a substitute for religion, though he also
writes (with something bordering on contempt) of VW’s practice of music going
beyond mere religion. But these statements are too large to make. It is highly
unlikely that Vaughan Williams’s ethics, morals, political opinions,
spirituality, marital relations and relations with other people in daily life
were informed by music. Anyone attempting to live in this way would be insane,
which Vaughan Williams assuredly wasn’t. These things are informed not by music,
but by religion, even if one's religion is an absence of belief: atheism
exists, after all, only in reference to theism. It is worth considering that
even those who do not practice religion or believe in a specific religion are
effected daily by religion, and Vaughan Williams was no exception—especially
considering that he made much of his life’s work a musical monument to
Christian scripture and theology. Ultimately, it seems more that the statement
was Kennedy’s attempt to end the discussion before it could begin—the slamming
of a door on the issue of Vaughan Williams and religion. But the culture
Vaughan Williams inherited and contributed to; the art he was drawn to; and,
most of all, the works he produced tell a different story. Moreover, Kennedy
has given us no evidence to support his assertion that Vaughan Williams ever
considered music to be a ‘religion.’ No passionate insistence alters this fact.
The
dogmatic statements written on this subject are too numerous to mention in a
single article, but they are littered throughout the literature on Vaughan
Williams. The sheer volume is daunting for anyone who would try to refute them,
as refutation, though simple as a matter of reasoning, is time consuming when
so much has been written over the course of so many years. Meanwhile, scholars
have ignored not only quotes, but people in Vaughan Williams’s life, one of
whom we turn to now, beginning with a quote from his book entitled Socialism and Christianity, published in
1907.
Vaughan Williams, the English Hymnal, and Anglo-Catholicism
An old
agricultural laborer once admitted to me that Socialism was "all backed by
Scripture"; and I need hardly remind anyone who reads his Bible, that if I
were to put down every passage that makes for Socialism, I should want a
pamphlet several sizes larger than this. But nothing is more futile than the
unintelligent slinging of texts; and I shall therefore confine myself strictly
to the central features of
Christianity, and not pick out chance sayings here and there, since that could
be done with the writings of every great moral teacher that has ever lived.
Christianity is different. It does not only provide a few noble sayings that
Socialists would welcome. It is
Socialism, and a good deal more . . .
The
above passage was written by the Rev. Percy Dearmer—a man who worked with
Vaughan Williams on three separate occasions over the course of several
decades, beginning with their work on the English
Hymnal from 1904-06.
Vaughan Williams had heard of Dearmer even before taking
the job of music editor for the revolutionary new hymnal. As he put it himself,
“I just knew his name vaguely as a parson who invited tramps to sleep in his
drawing room.” 35 This must have impressed
Vaughan Williams, who was himself a Fabian as a young man.
There
has been so little consideration of this relationship, and such little basic
research done on Dearmer that Jeffrey Aldridge, in his article “A Christian
Atheist”, writes “Vaughan Williams apparently was not much in sympathy with the
Oxford movement and Anglo-Catholicism—the “bells and smells” wing—so there is a
certain irony in the fact that it was that wing that “took up” the English Hymnal [etc].”36 Once we know even a little bit about Dearmer, such
a position becomes impossible to maintain.
First
of all, the Rev. Percy Dearmer was, in fact, an Anglo-Catholic.37 He was the author of many books, including an
Anglo-Catholic book on the liturgy, and he seems to have been a clerical
parallel to Vaughan Williams. Nationalistic and progressive, yet returning
theologically to the Tudor age to reinvigorate the liturgy and theology of
England, he mirrored Vaughan Williams’s artistic quest, which also ran back to
the Tudors, and was also paradoxically progressive while restoring what was
lost. It goes without saying that the English
Hymnal was, from the outset, an Anglo-Catholic project. Thus, nothing could
be less ironic than the fact that Anglo-Catholics picked it up so quickly (it
was undoubtedly the plan, from before Vaughan Williams was even recruited). But
even more importantly, Aldridge’s summation of Anglo-Catholicism as “the bells
and smells wing” is revealing. In doing so he superficially dismisses the
Oxford Movement and Anglo-Catholicism in general.
Without
knowing the reason for this flippancy, and perhaps unrelated to it, there is an
important contemporary misconception that should be addressed, and that is the
false relation between orthodox religious beliefs and political conservatism.
In our own day and age (especially in the United States, from where I write),
it is generally assumed that to be a devout Christian means one is also
politically conservative, automatically. It’s important to note that this is
not necessarily the case even today, and that only a very poor scholar would
believe it has always been the case in every age and in every country. It
certainly was not the case at the turn of the 20th century in the
England of Vaughan Williams.
Anglo-Catholicism
in particular, born of the Oxford Movement of the 19th Century,
should not be confused with anything like a conservative political movement.
From its very outset it was associated with what we would now call liberal
social concerns. As John Henry Newman, the leader of the movement until his
conversion to Roman Catholicism, said “the Church was formed for the express
purpose of interfering or (as irreligious men would say) meddling with the
world.” This included the ministering to the poor, especially the urban poor.38 The liturgical renewal which coincided with this practice
of the Christian faith (Aldridge’s “bells and smells”) was hardly the substance
of the movement, and hardly the sum total of what Vaughan Williams is likely to
have known or thought of concerning Anglo-Catholicism. As we can see, Percy
Dearmer resembled Newman and Edward Pusey, his predecessors in
Anglo-Catholicism, in his concern for the poor—and not merely as a theoretical
or political matter, but in an intensely personal manner, as evidenced by his
reputation for letting tramps sleep in his own parlour.
Beyond
this, the assertion that Vaughan Williams had seemingly no attraction to
Anglo-Catholicism seems suspect. If Aldridge meant that Vaughan Williams didn’t
attend services regularly, he is of course correct, but this is a general
statement rather than a specific comment upon Anglo-Catholicism. In light of
many of his pieces, the spiritual substance of Anglo-Catholicism seems to have
been something that appealed quite strongly to Vaughan Williams for much of his
career.
As
we have already seen, his early songs contain the specifically Anglo-Catholic
meditations of Christina Rossetti. Even as this early period was ending, he
worked with Percy Dearmer for two years. In the next decade he was to write the
Five Mystical Songs, the third of which
(‘Love Bade Me Welcome’) makes little sense without a specifically Catholic39 understanding of the Eucharist. If he wasn’t
attracted to actual worship in Anglo-Catholic churches, he certainly was drawn
to and inspired by the spiritual substance of the message, for he incorporated
the most mystical aspects of Catholic theology into some of his most
significant works.
Scholars also tend to paint a portrait of Vaughan Williams
as a man of music alone; one who had little interest in the meaning of the texts
he chose, or anything more than a superficial understanding of them. His work
on the English Hymnal has been traditionally understood as a musical matter
only, the conventional scholarly opinion being that he wanted to give folk
music back to the people, and even if that meant dealing with Christianity, he was prepared to do it. But
this makes no sense. A true atheist or anti-Christian agnostic would have
rejected such time consuming and, for Vaughan Williams, money consuming work.
Moreover, they certainly wouldn’t have praised the verse of the Anglo-Catholic
priest who contributed lyrics (which Vaughan Williams did).40
Perhaps it was the
enduring influence of the Rev. Percy Dearmer, or perhaps Dearmer was merely
another catalyst for Vaughan Williams’s greater exploration of Eucharistic
theology, but by 1911, five years after the publication of the English Hymnal, RVW had completed one of
his most enduring vocal pieces: the Five
Mystical Songs, a cycle of poems by George Herbert (1593-1633), another Anglican
cleric with strong Catholic sacramental tendencies. Vaughan Williams actually
set only four poems, but by dividing Herbert’s “Easter” into two separate songs
(“Easter” and “I got me flowers”), he arrived at five. Hubert Foss, in his Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Study 41
attempted to superimpose a pantheistic understanding on the song cycle, but he
did so only by misinterpreting the second song from “Easter.” The crux of
Foss’s argument is the second stanza of what was to become this second mystical
song (I give the first two stanzas here):
I
got me flowers to straw [in VW “strew”] thy way;
I
got me boughs off many a tree,
But
thou wast up by break of day,
And
brought thy sweets along with thee.
The Sun arising in the
East
Though he give light and
th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to
contest
With thy arising, they
presume.
Foss insisted that the
“they” in stanza 2 referred to the “flowers brought to strew thy way.”42 But
Herbert is actually saying that the light and the perfume of nature’s sun cannot
compete with the risen Christ. In doing so, he is involving an implied pun (a
common technique in 17th century metaphysical verse): Christ the
Son’s rising is more beautiful than the rising of Nature’s Sun itself. It is
therefore an explicitly supernatural poem, and cannot be interpreted properly
in a pantheistic sense.
But there is an even more specifically theological poem in
the cycle, and this is ‘Love Bade Me Welcome.’ In George Herbert’s book of
verse, The Temple, it stands as the
final poem, and is simply entitled ‘Love.’ The poem is a dialogue between
Herbert and Christ, in the context of the Eucharist (the Sacrament of Holy
Communion, where Catholics believe the offered bread and wine become the Body
and Blood of Christ). In it, Herbert finds himself welcomed by Christ (‘Love’),
but pulls back, seeing himself as too dirty and sinful to accept the offer.
Christ then gently informs Herbert that He Himself has answered for that very
sinfulness (alluding to the sacrifice on the cross). Herbert then begs Christ
to allow him to serve, but Christ instead gently commands ‘You must sit
down…and taste my meat” (meaning the Blessed Sacrament—Herbert is being told,
literally, to eat Christ’s body). Herbert’s response is the grateful final
line, “So I did sit and eat.”
That Vaughan Williams understood Herbert’s poem and wanted
to emphasize this exact reading is shown by his incorporation of the ancient
chant attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, ‘O Sacrum Convivium’ in the wordless
background chorus. The text of the Aquinas reads thus:
O sacred banquet
at which Christ is received
the memory of his passion is renewed,
our souls are filled with grace,
and a pledge of future is given to us.
at which Christ is received
the memory of his passion is renewed,
our souls are filled with grace,
and a pledge of future is given to us.
This represents the very mystical center of Catholic
worship. It is therefore clear that Vaughan Williams had no desire to use
Herbert’s words separate from their original purpose. In fact he strengthens
the poem with this traditional Catholic chant, written by the man who had
contributed the theology behind the Catholic doctrine of
transubstantiation—that the bread and wine become, physically, the Body and
Blood of Christ during the Eucharist. The song can only be fully interpreted in
the light of this theology. RVW left no room for a pantheistic reading, no room
even for a Calvinist reading (which would deny the ‘real presence’ of Christ in
the Blessed Sacrament). In light of the music and text, Foss’s interpretation
falls, and with it, any credible arguments of Pantheism in the piece.
A Case Study of Christian
Depth: Dona Nobis Pacem
A large number of the most important pieces of RVW contain
religious symbolism that has gone unnoticed by scholars for over half a century
now. The argument posed here is that to deny this symbolism is also to deny
them of their depth, keeping us from recognizing the true greatness of Vaughan
Williams’s artistic achievement. Importantly, this very symbolism contradicts
the notion of Vaughan Williams’s using sacred texts in a secular manner. In
fact, the opposite is to be found, strikingly in the example of a misunderstood
masterpiece such as the Dona Nobis Pacem.
The Dona Nobis Pacem
has puzzled critics since its first performances in 1936. Undoubtedly effective
in performance, it has often been criticized as being too much of a patchwork
quilt on the page—a hodgepodge of Whitman’s verse, parliamentary speech, quotes
from the Bible and the Mass. While it is rightfully acknowledged as a
forerunner to Britten’s War Requiem,
it seems to make no coherent sense to the majority of those who have written
about it. But the critics have approached the piece with the assumption that it
was written by a hardened agnostic, uninterested in Christian theology or
mysticism, and because of this disposition they have missed the unity of the
libretto, permeated as it is with Eucharistic symbolism. Once a Christian (and
specifically Catholic) perspective is allowed, one sees how much of an
understatement it is to say that Vaughan Williams “set text.” In actuality, his
genius was the musical interpretation of texts (a much rarer things, and
perhaps where Vaughan Williams might lay claim to supremacy among composers).
In the Dona Nobis Pacem, he
reinterprets the poetry of Whitman by inserting it into the context of the
Catholic Mass.
The poetic structure of the libretto is marked by a
repetition of the phrase “dona nobis
pacem” (“grant us peace”). Day has written that this phrase comes from the
Requiem Mass43 but this is incomplete:
it is in fact recited at every Mass, Requiem or not. It is the final part of the
Agnus Dei, which in English may be
translated:
Lamb of God, you
take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you
take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you
take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.44
This is a prayer with a specific context: the high point
of the Mass, after the breaking of the bread, and as such the spiritual and
mystical center of Catholicism. For Catholics, the Eucharist represents the
intersection of eternity with temporality, the divine with the human, heaven
with earth. Catholic tradition and theology see this as the height of earthly
life and experience, as a fulfillment of the Jewish Passover, a memorial of the
Last Supper and the Passion of Christ, and a pre-figuration of the Wedding
feast of the Lamb, written about in the book of Revelation.45 It is so holy that, prior to reception
of the Sacrament, communicants receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation
(sometimes called “confession” or the Sacrament of Penance).46 Each
of these elements is written into Vaughan Williams's cantata, and in
understanding the complex interrelationships of text to the theology of the
Mass, reveals the libretto and piece to be far more coherent and remarkable
than critics have noticed. The briefest possible overview will be given here.
In reiterating the words dona nobis pacem, Vaughan Williams highlights what the piece is: a
meditation on the prayer. Everything else in the piece happens within those
words. Like a person reciting a rosary while meditating on the its mysteries,
the piece operates on two levels: what we can call the “verbal prayer” (the Agnus Dei itself) and the “meditation”
(the Whitman and other texts which relate to the Agnus Dei). Another way of putting it is that the Agnus Dei serves as a prism for the rest
of the text.
In this meditation on the need for peace, Vaughan Williams
first shows us nothing like peace: in fact he gives us warfare and turmoil,
throwing us into Whitman’s apocalyptic “Beat! Beat! Drums!” Because of the
eucharistic context already provided by the soprano’s “dona nobis pacem,” certain elements of the Whitman text will stand
out to those attuned, especially the lines ordering the drums and bugles “Into
the solemn church, and scatter the congregation/Leave not the bridegroom
quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride.” The symbolism being used
by Whitman, and strengthened by the Eucharistic context given by VW, is from
the Bible. Before his Passion, Christ reminded the disciples of the prophecy of
Isaiah: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be
scattered.”(Matthew 26:31). Likewise, Jesus refers to himself as the Bridegroom
who will be taken from them (“The days will come when the bridegroom is taken
away from them, and then they will fast.” Matthew 9:15). ‘Beat! Beat! Drums!’
is therefore being used to symbolize the Passion of Christ, and its effects on
our world, and conversely, the sharing of the faithful in the Passion.
This segues directly into a section of the piece that
shares its very name with a sacrament linked to the Eucharist: Reconciliation.
From a Catholic perspective, many things jump out: specifically the title
itself and the phrases “Word over all” and
“a man divine as myself.” “Word over all” in a Christian context is
guaranteed to resonate with the opening of the Gospel according to John: “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
Vaughan Williams was to set this text in Hodie,
but by context he has also implied it here in Whitman’s poem. Later in the
poem, he sets the words “a man divine as myself.” This might have meant
something completely different to Whitman, but through Vaughan Williams’s prism
of the Agnus Dei, there is a Catholic
implication that a man receives the divinity of Christ into himself,
physically, through the Eucharist. This poem about reconciliation, then, fits
symbolically in at least three different ways into the context of the Agnus Dei. It is difficult to think this
might be coincidence.
“The Dirge for Two Veterans” parallels the offertory, the
part of the Mass where bread and wine are brought to the altar. Whitman sees a
father and son, both dead. Is this the sacrifice itself, the time of mourning
on the first Holy Saturday? The Agnus Dei
reminds of the Man who said “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John
14:9). Theology teaches that we can give nothing to God in response to His
Passion and death, except our love, freely, which is what Whitman ends up
giving those two symbolic veterans.
The final sections of the piece, which have eluded
scholars over the decades, are of tremendous significance. Vaughan Williams
uses a quote of John Bright, referring the Passover, which is directly related,
by typological significance, to the Eucharist. Likewise he references the “new
heaven and new earth” which signifies the end times from the Book of
Revelation, implying the wedding feast of the lamb, which is essential to
Catholic Eucharistic theology. None of the text is haphazard: all of it serves
to symbolically demonstrate some aspect of the Eucharist. This is completely
inexplicable if we are to accept the accounts of Vaughan Williams given by the
scholars, who suggest that he jettisoned the spiritual elements of Christian
thought. Instead, he did the opposite: his works stand as some of the most
compelling and profound witnesses to Christianity.
Commentators have wryly noted that the peace Vaughan
Williams requests in the cantata was not granted: WWII happened anyway. But
surely this is to miss the point of the piece. The piece itself knows that
earthly wars will still be a part of reality—even after sincere prayer—Vaughan
Williams highlights this by making “Beat! Beat! Drums!” the first poetic text
of the piece. Christianity is not a facile utopian ideology like Marxism; it
offers no promises of ending human suffering by mere social theory. Rather,
Christians understand that this mortal life will be fraught with wars and
rumors of wars: that suffering is inevitable in a fallen world, but through
Christ it can be redemptive. Ultimate peace, for the Christian, is only to be
found in Christ, and Christ is followed by picking up one’s cross: ultimate
peace is therefore linked to redemptive suffering, by means of holy mystery.
Vaughan Williams’s vision of peace, presented in the Dona Nobis Pacem, is revealed only after suffering, reconciliation,
the Passover, and the apocalypse. Only then do the soprano and chorus linger,
truly satisfied, on the word pacem. This
represents an understanding of some very detailed theology. How Vaughan
Williams managed to touch all of this symbolism so profoundly is mysterious,
and we shall probably not know the full answer in this life. But one thing is
clear: he did more than simply “set texts” that could be experienced by devout
believers: he meditated on them, and presented profound conclusions that
resonate with Christian theology.
The question of RVW and religion now becomes more complex.
Instead of it being a question of his beliefs alone, whatever they might have
been, the more profound question becomes what religion’s and, ultimately, God’s
impact was upon him.
Conclusion
Much has been
written about the religious beliefs of Ralph Vaughan Williams, usually the same
few opinions over and over again. A few quotes have been exaggerated, some
misunderstood, many ignored. Lost in all of this has been the relatively clear
trajectory of an artist who continuously investigated and deepened his
meditations on Christianity. His scope was nothing short of incredible, giving
us intimations of immortality in the poems of Christina Rossetti, to
explorations of the spiritual life in A
Sea Symphony, to his intimate discussion of the Eucharist in the Five Mystical Songs, to the apocalyptic
splendor of Sancta Civitas, to the
patiently endured faithful suffering in Riders
to the Sea, to the Eucharistic mystery of Dona Nobis Pacem, to the tracing of an entire spiritual journey to
the Cross, to death, and to eternal life in The
Pilgrim’s Progress, to joyful bursts of angelic song in Hodie, to the final climbing of the
tower of Salisbury Cathedral in the farewell of the 9th Symphony:
his works document and share a consistently engaged and intuitive grasp of the
mysteries of the Christian faith.
So,
like it or not, scholars will eventually have to accept that Vaughan Williams
was a Christian composer, at least in that his works are Christian. In other
words, his pieces bear witness to the theology, the doctrines, and the
mysticism of Christianity. Regarding his own struggles with belief, it is good
to remember the age into which he was born. Darwinism, some strands atheistic,
others not, competed with Creationism; the Salvation Army was formed, the
Anglo-Catholic movement and Christian Socialism were vibrant, and legalized Roman
Catholicism in England was not yet half a century old when RVW was born.
Violent secular atheism was ascendant, in various forms of Marxism and, later,
Nazism. Vaughan Williams himself was appalled by these secular perversions of
true humanism, writing to Rutland Boughton in defense of his choice of Bunyan
for is opera:
...as to what you accuse me
of--i.e. ‘re-dressing an old theology’, it seems to
me
that some of your ideas are a good deal more moribund than Bunyan’s
theology:--the
old fashioned republicanism and Marxism which led direct
to
the appalling dictatorships of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, or your
Rationalism, which dates from about 1880 and has entirely failed to solve any
problems of the Universe. 47
Rationalism, which dates from about 1880 and has entirely failed to solve any
problems of the Universe. 47
Theosophy, astrology, and other aspects of the occult were
also ascendant at the time, as demonstrated by poets like William Butler Yeats,
and Vaughan Williams’s own close friend, Holst. Yet Vaughan Williams set almost
nothing but Christian texts, illuminating them with his own penetrating
meditations. His age was rationalistic, still dominated in many ways by the
paradigm of Enlightenment philosophy, with its emphasis on the supremacy of the
human mind, alienated from the body and creation. Vaughan Williams’s art leaps
back in time, retrieving the lost values from before the age of Descartes,
bringing them into the future and revealing, along the way, their timelessness.
Herbert, Shakespeare, Donne, Crashaw, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Bunyan: these
poets resonated with Vaughan Williams intuitively, presenting him a means to
reconnect with a vision of the world before it had become the Waste Land,
spiritually. Attempting to define the religious beliefs of an artist, and how
those beliefs impact or shape their art, is a precarious exercise. This
difficulty is heightened by the fact that Christianity is not a position, but a
path. A person’s relationship to that path is never static, but dynamic.
Whether Vaughan Williams could rationally assent to Christian faith is perhaps of
less importance than scholars have thought, for the argument was presented by
an age that had rigged the question. His music assents, and that, ultimately,
is what he left us.
I
will perhaps be accused of doing the very thing I was critical of at the
beginning of this article: of presenting my own, biased “Christian-RVW.” But
that is not exactly what I’ve done. There is no wishful thinking that will turn
RVW, retroactively, into a practicing Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, Baptist, or
Seventh Day Adventist, nor does this article propose such an endeavor. Instead,
this article has shown that Vaughan Williams’s atheist and agnostic phases were
no quite so strong as scholars have asserted; that his works can not be
construed as pantheistic; that his agnosticism is neither of the Russellian nor
the Brahmsian variety; and that his works are profound meditations, perfectly
orthodox, in deep harmony with Christian theology. Though it is impossible to
determine the ultimate reason scholars of the past have written the things they
have about Vaughan Williams, it seems that their insistence on an overly
reductive understanding of religion and agnosticism was a type of wishful
thinking. Perhaps, like academia in general, they fell prey to the
Christophobic zeitgeist of the last half-century or so. Just as it does no good
to quibble about whether Vaughan Williams was really a secret Christian in
disguise, so it is useless to claim that his works are not profoundly
Christian; that is, that they are derived from a Christian world-view, informed
by Christian theology, and resonant with the Christian message. If Vaughan
Williams is to assume his rightful place in the history of music, if he is to
be given more than the second-tier status he is currently given by the majority
of academics, it is the Christian symbolism within his works that will have to
be brought to light. For it is in this that he most clearly surpasses his
contemporaries. What other composer of his day produced such monumental
meditations on the nativity, the apocalypse, the relationship of the soul to
God, and the Eucharist? In this respect, his name is worthy of discussion with
the company of Palestrina, Byrd, Tallis, JS Bach, Bruckner, and, after him,
Messiaen. To suppress this dimension of his art, and this achievement, only
diminishes his legacy, and denies the listening public a doorway into some of
the greatest masterpieces Western Civilization has produced. To bring Vaughan
Williams’s musical achievement the recognition it deserves, and to firmly establish
all of his masterpieces in the repertoire of all orchestras, we must not give
short shrift to the eternal values which informed his art, and upon which he
staked the work of his career. Scholars must move beyond mere ideologies,
beyond narrow definitions, beyond reductive caricatures, and beyond mere
wishful thinking, plunging into the depths of the works themselves.
ERIC SEDDON
Eric Seddon is a freelance writer
and poet living in Cleveland, Ohio, in the USA. He holds a BM from The Hartt
School in clarinet performance, and an MM in music History from Butler
University, where his thesis was written on Vaughan Williams. His poetry has
appeared in many journals, including the most recent edition of the New York Quarterly.
1 Barr,
John.“RVW and Religion” Journal of the
Ralph Vaughan Williams Society June 2005
2 Adams,
Byron. “Scripture, Church and culture: biblical texts in the works of Ralph
Vaughan Williams” Vaughan Williams
Studies. Alain Frogley ed. p.101
3 Vaughan Williams,
Ursula. RVW: a biography of Ralph Vaughan
Williams. OUP, 1964. p 13
4 Darwin,
Charles. The Origin of Species.
Abridged by Philip Appleman W.W. Norton, NY London, 1970. p.116
5 UVW pg 11
6 UVW pg 24
7 Kennedy,
Michael. The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
OUP 1964, pg 42
8 Russell,
Bertrand. “Has Religion Made Useful
Contributions to Civilization?” Why I am
not a Christian and other essays. Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1957. pg
24
9 Russell,
Bertrand. “Why I am not a Christian” Why I am not a Christian and other essays. Allen
& Unwin Ltd. 1957. pg 22
10 Russell. Preface to ” Why I am not a Christian and other essays. Allen & Unwin Ltd.
1957. pg i
11 Russell. “Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to
Civilization?” Why I am not a Christian and other essays. Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1957. pg47
12 UVW pg 138
13 The
translation used by James is Day is by F.J. Church
14 Howes,
Frank. The Music of Ralph Vaughan
Williams. OUP 1954, p150
15 Kennedy pg
194
16 Day,
James. Vaughan Williams. OUP 1998,
p103-104
17 Bloom, Harold.
How to Read and Why. Scribner (New
York). 2000. p25
18 Kennedy pg
313
19 Kennedy pg
312
20 Adams,
Byron, p99
21 I am
indebted to Timothy Arena for a conversation a few years ago, where he pointed
out the term “5th Day Adventists.”
22 Seddon,
Eric. “The Pilgrim’s Progress in
Context: a preliminary study.” The Journal of the RVW
Society (No 26 February 2003)
23 UVW pgs 425-26
24 cf. Adams,
Byron. To be a Pilgrim: A Meditation on
Vaughan Williams and Religion. The Journal of the RVW Society No 33 June 05,
p 4
25 Brahms
said to his friend Richard Heuberger,"Apart from Frau Schumann I'm not
attached to anybody with my whole soul! And truly that is terrible and one
should neither think such a thing nor say it. Is that not a lonely life! Yet we
can't believe in immortality on the other side. The only true immortality lies
in one's children." Johannes Brahms:
A Biography, by Jan Swafford (1997, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.)
26 UVW pg 425
27 Kennedy pg
388
28 Vaughan
Williams, Ralph. The English Hymnal pg ix.
29 Chesterton, G.K. The Collected Poems. Methuen: London 1950. pg 110
30 Howes pg
48
31 Kennedy
187
32 Seddon,
Eric. “Mysticism and Joyful Solemnity: Two moments of D Major in The Pilgrim’s Progress”. Journal of the
RVW Society.
33 Day pg 103
34 Kennedy pg
42
35 UVW pg70
36 Aldridge,
Jeffrey. “A Christian Atheist.” Journal of the RVW Society. No 33. June 2005.
p7
37 G.K
Chesterton paints a delightful portrait of Dearmer in his autobiography, saying
“Dr. Dearmer was in the habit of walking about in a cassock and biretta which
he had carefully reconstructed as being the right pattern for an Anglican or
Anglo-Catholic priest; and he was humorously grieved when its strictly
traditional and national character was misunderstood by the little boys in the
street.”
38 Booty,
John E. “Christian Spirituality: From Wilberforce to Temple”; William J. Wolf,
ed. Anglican Spirituality.
Morehouse-Barlow, Co. Inc. 1982 pg 79
39 From here
on in the text, I will use Catholic, with the capital “C”. The ecclesiological
disputes are many and intricate between all of the various denominations
claiming catholicity, and it is beyond the scope or purpose of the present
article to address them. Here the capital C is intended only to give clarity to
certain doctrines Anglo-Catholics hold in common with Roman Catholics,
especially Eucharistic doctrine. Since the foundations of these doctrines, and
my understanding of them expressed in the essay, are most clearly formulated
and propagated by the Roman Catholic Church, I will be using them as the basis
for my sacramental arguments, directly, rather than sifting through the various
disputes in the history of 19th century Anglicanism, which, worthy
as they are to discuss, would be too laborious and distracting in an article on
Vaughan Williams.
40 Vaughan Williams referred to a “fine hymn of
Dearmer’s”: the setting of a Wagner tune for which there was no appropriate
text. This signifies that RVW was not only involved with the texts, but that he
had an appreciation for them.
41 Foss,
Hubert. Ralph Vaughan Williams: a study. George
G. Harrap and Co, Ltd, 1950
42 Foss pg
106
43 Day pg 132
44 Roman Missal. Scepter Publishers
1993. p.737
45 cf.
Cantalamessa, Reniero. The Eucharist: Our
Sanctification. The Liturgial Press 1993. and Hahn, Scott. The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven on
Earth. Doubleday 1999.
46 Once
again, theological differences between those denominations asserting
catholicity would create a lengthy discussion not pertinent to the present
article. My exposition is based upon Roman Catholic teaching, which requires
that a person is “bound by an obligation faithfully to confess serious sins
once a year.” The Catechism of the
Catholic Church goes on to say that “Anyone who is aware of having
committed mortal sin must not receive Holy Communion…without first receiving
sacramental absolution, unless he has a grave reason for receiving Communion
and there is no possibility of going to confession.” (Catechism, no 1457)
47
UVW pg 304
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