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Originally Posted by tore
As a norwegian, of course I love all things Grieg  |
Maybe classical music reaches back to something deep within our gene pool because, on the rare occassions when I listen to classical music, I usually choose a composer regarded as quintessentially English: Ralph Vaughan Williams. Here is one of his best-known pieces, being performed by a Dutch violinist :-
And here are some interesting bits from wiki :-
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º Vaughan Williams sketched the work while watching troop ships cross the English Channel at the outbreak of the First World War. A small boy observed him making the sketches and, thinking he was jotting down a secret code, informed a police officer, who subsequently arrested the composer.
º The use of pentatonic scale patterns frees the violin from a strong tonal centre, and shows the impressionistic side of Vaughan Williams' style. This liberty also extends to the metre. The cadenzas for solo violin are written without bar lines, lending them a sense of meditational release.
• The Lark Ascending inspired some of the violin parts in the latter half of the track "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One" on the album Larks' Tongues in Aspic by King Crimson (1973).
º In 2011, in a poll to find what music New Yorkers would like to hear on the radio for the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, The Lark Ascending came second.
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