A Sea Symphony | Chelsea Opera Group Orchestra

Vaughan Williams had been introduced to the poetry of the American Walt Whitman by Bertrand Russell while an undergraduate at Cambridge and it made an immediate impact. His setting of Toward the Unknown Region was first heard in Leeds in 1907 and brought him to the attention of a wider audience. Following the success of this work Vaughan Williams was invited back to Leeds to introduce A Sea Symphony three years later.

The composition had actually started life in 1903 with a provisional title of Songs of the Sea, and by 1906 this had become the Ocean Symphony. Some of the music was then rejected and A Sea Symphony was completed in 1907, being revised and orchestrated by 1909. In a letter to the writer of the first programme note for the work Vaughan Williams explained 'I use the word (symphony) because the treatment of the words is symphonic rather than dramatic – that is to say the words are used as a basis on which to build up a decorative musical scheme'.

The composer singled out two themes as the main unifying basis of the symphony: the opening fanfare, setting the words 'Behold the sea itself' and the phrase heard immediately afterwards to the words 'and on its limitless heaving breast'. The composer wrote in the same letter: 'These two themes (for no particular reason) seem to suggest the sea to my mind!'