29 September 2022
This September marks 112 years since the premiere of the Tallis Fantasia. Ahead of the Bardi’s performance at their 2022-23 season-opening concert, we explore the history of the English masterpiece in this the 150th anniversary year of the composer’s birth.
Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is perhaps one of the most beloved string works in the repertoire – it has appeared in the top 5 of Classic FM’s ‘Hall of Fame’ list almost every year since the poll’s inception, is regularly performed and recorded all around the world and is seen as a symbol of ‘Englishness’.
The Bardi Symphony Orchestra rehearsing Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, 25th September 2022
And yet, its premiere 112 years ago could at best be described only as a middling success. It was performed at Gloucester Cathedral on 6th September 1910, and at the time Vaughan Williams was a relatively unknown composer, especially compared to Edward Elgar, who conducted his choral masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius to rapturous acclaim in the second half of the very same concert. The audience were perhaps unaccustomed to the gentle, pastoral nature of the music, when Elgar’s nationalistic pomp was seen as the standard of the day.
Described as both ‘extremely beautiful’ by The Daily Telegraph, and yet ‘a queer, mad work’ by music critic Herbert Brewer, the cathedral’s organist, it was too modern for the Edwardian listeners – however the composer intended the opposite, as the basis for the theme actually dates as far back as the 16th century.
When collecting old music and texts for his 1906 book The English Hymnal, Vaughan Williams came across a set of tunes based on Psalm 2, composed by Elizabethan Royal composer, Thomas Tallis. Enamoured with the rising harmonies and simple melody, he set about creating a homage to Tallis’ work. Taking inspiration from old renaissance fantasias like those by Purcell and Locke, he used the unique combination of two string orchestras to explore the tune in several different guises to give an overall impression of the original.
Over the years Vaughan Williams reworked the piece several times, but it was only when his other famous works such as The Lark Ascending came to the fore that his Fantasia was considered a triumph. You can hear the Bardi string section perform the piece at our Vaughan Williams 150 Celebration concert on 8th October.
SATURDAY 8 OCTOBER 7.30pm – DE MONTFORT HALL, LEICESTER
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: A CELEBRATION AT 150
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