More Sappy 20th Century British Composer Blogging

The local classical station is finishing off its afternoon with Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasy on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.

I really don't much care for 20th Century music, although I like a few bits and scraps of a few composers like Walton and Holst. Of this lot, the largest pile of scraps probably belongs to Vaughan Williams. I rather enjoy his Fantasy on Greensleeves, his English Folksong Suite and his Overture to The Wasps. (As I'm sure the O.F. is thinking even now, these pieces are for the most part derivative of other forms, not pure composition, so are not really good examples of the period. Well, that's right. But I still like them.)

The Tallis Fantasy is my favorite though, in large part for sentimental reasons. I may have mentioned before that when I was in law school I played Lysander in a production of Midsummer Night's Dream at my wife's (all girl) college. The design was all Maxfield Parish fantasy and the music was mostly Vaughan Williams and Holst.

They played the Tallis Fantasy at intermission and I used to sneak out into the wings behind the curtain and just sit and listen to it. The stage was mostly dark at that point, with dim blue lighting and all the columns and whatnot picked out in silhouette. Just to show you I'm not all cold, hard logic and reason, I always thought there was a certain magic to all of it. (It might have had something to do with how much I enjoyed being in the production too. I can readily see how people get bitten by the acting bug.) At any rate, whenever I hear it now, I get taken back to those days.

As I say, pure mush. But even we Llamas unbend sometimes.