Vaughan Williams and Gavin Bryars look back

Synopsis

On today's date in 1910, the haunting "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was performed for the first time. The composer himself conducted the London Symphony.

Thomas Tallis was a 16th-century English organist and composer who managed to keep his job and his head while working under four very different Tudor monarchs: Henry VIII, Edward VI, Bloody Queen Mary, and Elizabeth I — and keeping your head was no easy trick for anyone writing church music in that age of bitter religious turmoil.

Like Vaughan Williams, many composer of our time have attempted to evoke the past through the use of old musical themes, ancient texts, and even early instruments. When the contemporary English composer Gavin Bryars decided to set to music the oldest known English-language poem, Cadman's 7th century "Creation Hymn," he did so for two early music groups: the Hilliard vocal ensemble and the instrumental consort called Fretwork.

Not surprisingly, Bryars' music — like Vaughan Williams' — has a decidedly archaic sound, although the event that occasioned it was decidedly contemporary: the Lockerbie air-crash of 1988. One of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing was a sound engineer named Bill Cadman. Bryars' "Cadman Requiem" commemorates his death in a 20th century work based on a 7th century text for performance by ensembles specializing in 16th century music.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Sir Neville Marriner, cond. Argo 414 595

Gavin Bryars (b.1943) Cadman Requiem Hilliard Ensemble; Fretwork Point 462 511

On This Day

Births

• 1644 - Baptismal date of Spanish organist and composer Juan Bautista José Cabanilles, in Algemesi, province of Valencia;

• 1781 - Austrian composer and music publisher Anton Diabelli, sometime on Sept 5/6, in Mattsee (near Salzburg);

• 1912 - American composer Wayne Barlow, in Elyria, Ohio; One of his best-known works, "The Winter's Past," was recorded by the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra under Howard Hanson, Barlow's former teacher;

• 1923 - American percussionist, composer and conductor William Kraft, in Chicago;

• 1938 - American composer Joan Tower in New Rochelle, N.Y.;

Deaths

• 1937 - American composer and conductor Henry Hadley, age 65, in New York;

• 1962 - German composer Hans Eisler, age 64, in East Berlin;

Premieres

• 1791 - Mozart: opera, "La Clemenza di Tito," in Prague at the National Theater. Written for and performed on the eve of the coronation of Leopold II of Prague;

• 1910 - Vaughan William: "Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis," at the Glouchester Festival, with the composer conducting;

• 1961 - Elliott Carter: Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano with Two Chamber Orchestras, in New York during the Eight Congress of the International Musicological Society, with Gustav Meier conducting and harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick and pianist Charles Rosen as the soloists;

• 1977 - Thea Musgrave: opera "Mary, Queen of Scots" at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, conducted by the composer;

• 1979 - Knussen: Symphony No. 3, by the BBC Symphony in London;

• 1995 - Lou Harrison: "A Parade for M.T.T.," by the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting.