Vaughan Williams wrote his Third Symphony, the aptly named Pastoral Symphony, in 1922, and revised the work in 1955. Conceived first in the countryside of Northern France towards the end of the war, the symphony has a certain sameness of mood throughout, an air of tranquillity that may be perceived in part as a celebration of the return of peace, described in the composer's own programme note on the first performance as "almost entirely quiet and contemplative". One hostile critic, however, satirised the work as "a cow looking over a gate", a verdict that does little justice to the subtlety and bold originality of conception of the music. The score includes a last movement vocalise for soprano or tenor, although the alternative use of a clarinet is happily suggested. Other variants are permitted, although the full score calls for three flutes, one doubling piccolo, two oboes, cor anglais, three clarinets, the third doubling bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets and trombones, tuba, a percussion section of timpani, triangle, bass drum, cymbals and celesta, harp and strings. In addition to these instruments there are parts in the second movement for natural trumpet in E flat and for natural horn.

The symphony breaks with tradition at once in its first movement, which unfolds in a generally meditative mood. A modal accompanimental figure from flutes, joined by clarinets, serves to introduce a theme heard first from cellos and double basses, with the harp. Thereafter thematic elements follow one another in material subtly related, making use of solo instruments and the telling effects of divided string parts, with violins, violas and cellos divided at times into four. The movement ends with a solo cor anglais over divided string chords and a final brief and muted reference to the first theme from cellos and basses. The first theme of the second movement is announced by a solo French horn over a sustained string chord, the theme then handed, over changed harmonies, to oboe and clarinet and then to solo viola and flute. The movement contains two cadenzas, the first for a natural trumpet and the second for natural horn, both with the characteristic intonation of the true harmonic series. The third movement, marked Moderato pesante, is a primordial dance, with its own rhythmic peculiarities, with which a second theme of folk contour, stated by the trumpet, offers a contrast. The movement ends with a curious coda, a Presto introduced imitatively by reduced numbers of strings with thematic material that again proclaims its national origin. The last movement is shaped by the opening solo, for voice or for clarinet, accompanied only by a soft roll of the drum. The modal thematic material that unfolds leads to the final re-appearance of the rhapsodic solo, now accompanied only by sustained notes from the muted violins at a height to which they have ascended in the bars immediately preceding, an inversion of the accompaniment of the opening of the movement.

Writer: Keith Anderson