Vaughan Williams Ten Little Pieces


Vaughan Williams

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So, you might want to stick some Bach on your playlist

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if life seems pretty good,

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or maybe some Wagner if you need an energy boost.

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And then there's other music that can give us time to breathe,

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some space to think and stop the world for a while.

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MUSIC: The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams

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Do you have those days that have gone wrong?

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When you lie back on your bed, put some music on - any music -

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and imagine you're just floating away from it all?

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On those days, I want to be that lark up there,

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belting out a beautiful song high up in the sky.

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And up there, just like when you look down from a plane

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or tall building, the world seems different.

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We become smaller.

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Maybe our worries do, too.

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An English composer called Ralph Vaughan Williams

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was walking along the coast near Margate

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when he imagined a violin melody that would capture this feeling

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of a bird singing as it makes its steep vertical flight.

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And he called it The Lark Ascending.

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It was September 1914...

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GUNFIRE ..Britain had just entered

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the First World War, and soon, Vaughan Williams joined the Army

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and left for France.

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In the trenches during that war,

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some of the few birds the soldiers ever saw or heard

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were skylarks flying high over their heads.

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That birdsong must have sounded like an escape, freedom,

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like a different world they had left behind.

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When he came back from the war,

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Vaughan Williams returned to his violin piece with its melody -

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fragile, peaceful, out of reach, like the bird.

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And he created this music -

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music that, for me, really CAN take you to another place,

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wherever you want that to be.

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