Woking Choral Society will be performing a programme of music about the sea at their next concert to be held on Saturday 19th March. There will be two pieces – Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony and Hubert Parry’s Chivalry of the Sea. Both works date from the period before World War I, the golden age of Britain’s glory as a sea-faring power.
The Sea Symphony, one of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s best-known works, is a favourite of choral societies. It is a huge work for soprano, baritone, choir and orchestra and captures the energy and immensity of the ocean. The text is taken from 2 poems by the American, Walt Whitman, whose writings Vaughan Williams particularly admired. Its opening sections describe ships sailing forth and the heroes who risk all to sail on them and the vastness and universality of the seas. In a change of mood, it leads to a finale where these ideas are translated into an allegory of the soul’s journey through life. The symphony is a homage to the English late romantic choral tradition of Elgar and Parry (with whom Vaughan Williams had studied) but yet introduces its own powerful and original voice.
Hubert Parry’s , based on a poem by Robert Bridges, celebrates the heroism and courage of seafarers who wage war for their country.