Alas, that great city

It was only because it was so clearly with Englishness that Vaughan Williams aligned his art, and only because he seems to have understood England as well as anyone else has, that a while ago I felt I could make so bold as to suggest that his fourth and sixth symphonies articulate something about England’s loss of heart in the twentieth century.  I know that Vaughan Williams was famously impatient with others’ attempts to apply authoritative interpretations to his works; still, the music forebodes something, and I like the idea that, in the opening of the Sixth particularly — the interplay of violence, fidgety addiction, impatience, parodied beauty and a single cloudburst of authentic beauty — he foresaw the spiritual and moral upheavals that his death only just preceded, but which were already rumbling.

So I was interested by an observation made in passing by James Day, in his book on Vaughan Williams (London: Dent, 1961), while actually discussing a completely different work, another favourite of mine: Sancta Civitas (1929), a setting of texts from the Book of Revelation.  On page 100, Day describes the ‘weird and unnerving’ lament for the fall of Babylon which, he notes ‘in outline […] foreshadows one of the themes in the Moderato of the sixth Symphony’.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet it is possible to hear straightaway how, indeed, the sinister second movement ought to have sounded familiar at 9' 19":

Meanwhile here (emptying the Albert Hall of one orchestra and replacing it with another!) in a memorable performance that I was fortunate enough to hear live, is the lament for the fall of Babylon from Sancta Civitas.  Day is surely right: there is a distinct similarity between these sets of descending chords, though they were written fifteen years apart:

It is astonishing how this music evokes both Babylon’s over-sated greed and its desolation.  As if the music were not clear enough, these are the words sung by the choir:

Babylon the great is fallen.  Alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city!  For in one hour is thy judgement come.  The kings of the earth shall bewail her and lament over her.  And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her.

And the fruits thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.  Babylon the great is fallen. Alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and precious stones.  What city is like unto this great city!  Alas, for in one hour art thou made desolate.

Rejoice over her, O heavens; for God hath avenged you on her.  And a mighty angel took up a millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, ‘Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.’  And the voice of the harpers shall be heard no more at all in thee.  And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee.  Babylon the great is fallen.

Of course it would be too far, by a country mile, to conclude from this that Vaughan Williams’s Sixth paints England as Babylon.  But it is not unreasonable to suppose that he was aiming to evoke a similar mood, of utter and unsuspected desolation.  And certainly, in modern Britain, there are not many harpers, or candles, or bridegrooms and brides.

It is worth letting Sancta Civitas run on, though.  For having brought the desolation of Babylon to our ears, Vaughan Williams then sets the following words to radiant, ethereal, hopeful music:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first earth and the first heaven were passed away; and there was no more sea.  And I saw the holy city coming down from heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, having the Glory of God.  And her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; and had twelve gates, and on the gates twelve angels, and the twelve gates were twelve pearls; and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.  And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty is the temple of it.  And the city had no need of the sun, neither the moon, to lighten her: for the glory of God did lighten her.  And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.  And they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it.