Okay, that title's stretching a point a bit. The 9th Symphony wasn't really the last word from Vaughan Williams, as he kept working on several other projects including a symphony and a new full-length opera! But it was the last major work he completed before his death in 1958. That brings it very close indeed to modern times, but the composer -- as always -- followed his own chosen path in a more conservative idiom. Yet it would be foolish indeed to label the piece as "old-fashioned" or "reactionary" (many have revealed their foolishness by doing so publicly).
That's because Vaughan Williams spent the concluding years of his life experimenting with new and unusual sounds and structures. In his 7th Symphony (Sinfonia antartica) he found intriguing sound equivalents for ice, snow, wind, and the implacability of nature. In his 8th Symphony he made use (in his own words) of "all the hitting instruments which can command definite notes" and "all the 'phones and 'spiels known to the composer." The effect was nothing if not provocative and scintillating.
The unique sound world of the 9th Symphony owes something to the use of a group of three saxophones, which often play in block chords of the sort that the composer frequently used when writing for strings. These saxophones (and a flugelhorn) give the music a sound that is paradoxically both dark and luminous, and much of the rest of the orchestration supports that sound -- violas are also much more prominent in this symphony than usual. This dark radiance arises from the composer's inspiration for the work, which has been shown to definitely be based in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles and the area around Salisbury Plain which figures in that novel.
By this time Vaughan Williams had left the tradition of the sonata form movement far behind him, yet this work is most definitely a symphony and nothing else. The music uses long-breathed melodic lines which support the symphonic structures. The first movement starts out with a long rising theme which the composer said was prompted by something in the organ part of Bach's St. Matthew Passion. It is immediately followed by the block chording of the saxophones, for the first of a number of times in the work. The movement rises to a couple of louder moments but ends in a long, musing epilogue for solo violin in RVW's characteristic ruminating manner.
The second opens with a poetic flugelhorn solo, followed by a barbaric rhythmic drumming figure which alternates with the flugelhorn, and eventually rises to dominate the movement.
The third movement is a bizarre scherzo which suggests soldiers marching across the countryside, with side drums to the fore, and dissonant fanfare figures from the brasses.
The lengthy and loosely-structured finale begins with a long wandering melodic figure that gradually rises to a chordal cadence that has been heard before and will appear several more times. There comes a clear break in the musical flow, and then a viola melody continues along new lines. The music ends in a place which the composer often used to great effect, alternating major and minor chords in close keys. The last word of this remarkable work consists of three great swelling waves of sound that rise up and then sink down as the saxophone chords sound in between them. The third and biggest wave dwindles into silence, decorated by harp arpeggios.
I first discovered this remarkable and moving piece on LP through Sir Adrian Boult's EMI recording, and that is still a favourite in its CD reissue. Bernard Haitink's more recent EMI CD confirms the truly symphonic stature of the piece in modern digital sound and is well worth hearing too. Both versions appear on CD coupled with the 8th Symphony, a natural and sensible pairing.
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