I. Lento; Allegro risoluto
II. Lento
III. Scherzo (Nocturne): Allegro vivace
IV. Andante con moto; Maestoso alla marcia
Epilogue: Andante sostenuto
It is doubtful whether without the title and descriptive programme a
hearer, as the music was playing, would say, “Aha! London—I hear the
Thames, the roar and bustle of the streets. Now we are in foggy, dismal
Bloomsbury. Let’s go to the Thames Embankment. And now we see the march
of the unemployed.” No. The austere, remote Delius wrote a symphonic
poem _Paris_, which is anything but the Paris of _Louise_, and might be
Rouen, Belfast, or Terre Haute.
A critic in London reproached Williams for introducing in this symphony
a theme too much like the notes of “Have a banana!” from a song. “We’ll
All Go Down the Strand,” a popular music-hall ditty in the London of
1897. Perhaps Williams did this deliberately for the sake of “local
color.”
The symphony contains pages of great worth. The first two movements are
the richest in musical thought and in powerful expression. The idea of
sleeping London is admirably brought out, and the contrast with London
awake is symphonically, not merely theatrically, dramatic. The second
movement is an excellent example of tonal painting. It seems to us that
the succeeding movements lack varied and contrasting coloring. The
“Hunger March” of the unemployed is disappointing. The subject called
for a Hector Berlioz. The epilogue is of a higher flight of imagination.
On the whole, the symphony is an important contribution to orchestral
literature, one of the most important—and they have not been many—in a
dozen years.
* * *
This symphony was composed in 1912-13. The first performance was at one
of F. B. Ellis’s concerts in Queen’s Hall, London, on March 27, 1914.
Geoffrey Toye was the conductor. On May 4, 1920, the revised version of
the symphony was brought out at Queen’s Hall, London, at a concert of
the British Music Society. Albert Coates conducted. This performance was
said to be the fourth. It was also said that the symphony had been
“shortened a good deal, particularly at the closes of the movements, on
the way.”
The following description by Mr. Coates of the symphony was published in
the bulletin of the society:
“The first movement opens at daybreak by the river. Old Father Thames
flows calm and silent under the heavy gray dawn, deep and thoughtful,
shrouded in mystery. London sleeps, and in the hushed stillness of early
morning one hears Big Ben (the Westminster chimes) solemnly strike the
half-hour.
“Suddenly the scene changes (_allegro_); one is on the Strand in the
midst of the bustle and turmoil of morning traffic. This is London
street life of the early hours—a steady stream of foot passengers
hurrying, newspaper boys shouting, messengers whistling, and that most
typical sight of London streets, the costermonger (Coster ’Arry),
resplendent in pearl buttons, and shouting some coster song refrain at
the top of a raucous voice, returning from Covent Garden Market, seated
on his vegetable barrow drawn by the inevitable little donkey.
“Then for a few moments one turns off the Strand into one of the quiet
little streets that lead down to the river and suddenly the noise
ceases, shut off as though by magic. We are in the part of London known
as the Adelphi. Formerly the haunt of fashionable bucks and dandies
about town, now merely old-fashioned houses and shabby old streets,
haunted principally by beggars and ragged street urchins.
“We return to the Strand and are once again caught up by the bustle and
life of London—gay, careless, noisy, with every now and then a touch of
something fiercer, something inexorable—as though one felt for a moment
the iron hand of the great city—yet, nevertheless, full of that mixture
of good-humor, animal spirits, and sentimentality that is so
characteristic of London.
“Second Movement
“In the second movement the composer paints us a picture of that region
of London which lies between Holborn and the Euston Road, known as
Bloomsbury. Dusk is falling. It is the damp and foggy twilight of a late
November day. Those who know their London know this region of melancholy
streets over which seems to brood an air of shabby gentility—a sad
dignity of having seen better days. In the gathering gloom there is
something ghostlike. A silence hangs over the neighborhood broken only
by the policeman on his beat.
“There is tragedy, too, in Bloomsbury, for among the many streets
between Holborn and Euston there are alleys of acute poverty and worse.
“In front of a ‘pub’ whose lights flare through the murky twilight
stands an old musician playing the fiddle. His tune is played in the
orchestra by the viola. In the distance the ‘lavender cry’ is heard:
‘Sweet lavender; who’ll buy sweet lavender?’ Up and down the street the
cry goes, now nearer, now farther away.
“The gloom deepens and the movement ends with the old musician still
playing his pathetic little tune.
“Third Movement
“In this movement one must imagine one’s self sitting late on a Saturday
night on one of the benches of the Temple Embankment (that part of the
Thames Embankment lying between the Houses of Parliament and Waterloo
Bridge). On our side of the river all is quiet, and in the silence one
hears from a distance coming from the other side of the river all the
noises of Saturday night in the slums. (The ‘other’ side, the south side
of the river Thames, is a vast network of very poor quarters and slums.)
On a Saturday night these slums resemble a fair; the streets are lined
with barrows, lit up by flaming torches, selling cheap fruit,
vegetables, produce of all kinds; the streets and alleys are crowded
with people. At street corners coster girls in large feather hats dance
their beloved ‘double-shuffle jig’ to the accompaniment of a mouth
organ. We seem to hear distant laughter; also every now and then what
sounds like cries of suffering. Suddenly a concertina breaks out above
the rest; then we hear a few bars on a hurdy-gurdy organ. All this
softened by distance, melted into one vast hum, floats across the river
to us as we sit meditating on the Temple Embankment.
“The music changes suddenly, and one feels the Thames flowing silent,
mysterious, with a touch of tragedy. One of London’s sudden fogs comes
down, making Slumland and its noises seem remote. Again, for a few bars,
we feel the Thames flowing through the night, and the picture fades into
fog and silence.
“Fourth Movement
“The last movement deals almost entirely with the cruder aspect of
London, the London of the unemployed and unfortunate. After the opening
bars we hear the ‘Hunger March’—a ghostly march past of those whom the
city grinds and crushes, the great army of those who are cold and hungry
and unable to get work.
“We hear again the noise and bustle of the streets (reminiscences of the
first movement), but these now also take on the cruder aspect. There are
sharp discords in the music. This is London as seen by the man who is
‘out and under.’ The man ‘out of a job’ who watches the other man go
whistling to his work, the man who is starving, watching the other man
eat—and the cheerful, bustling picture of gay street life becomes
distorted, a nightmare seen by the eyes of suffering.
“The music ends abruptly, and in the short silence that follows one
again hears Big Ben chiming from Westminster Tower.
“There follows the epilogue, in which we seem to feel the great, deep
soul of London—London as a whole, vast and unfathomable—and the symphony
ends as it began, with the river, old Father Thames flowing calm and
silent, as he has flowed through the ages, the keeper of many secrets,
shrouded in mystery.”
And yet the composer has been quoted as saying:
“The title might run _A Symphony by a Londoner_—that is to say, various
sights and sounds of London may have influenced the composer, but it
would not be helpful to describe these. The work must succeed or fail as
music, and in no other way. Therefore, if the hearers recognize a few
suggestions of such things as the Westminster chimes, or the lavender
cry, these must be treated as accidents and not essentials of the
music.”
The symphony is dedicated “to the memory of George Butterworth,” a young
composer of great promise, Lieutenant of the Durham Light Infantry, who
was killed on August 5, 1916, “after successfully taking an enemy trench
at the head of a bombing party.” It is scored for these instruments:
three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass
clarinet, two bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, two trumpets, two
_cornets-à-pistons_, three trombones, bass tuba, a set of three
kettledrums, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, jingles (the
little cymbals, or plates, fixed in the wooden hoop of a tambourine),
tam-tam, glockenspiel, two harps, and strings.