Hilary Hahn, Ralph Vaughan Williams- The Lark Ascending (REACTION) 

This is the sound of the English countryside. I've sat, many times, watching the larks ascending on an English summers day and always hear this piece playing in my head.

Skylarks sing on the wing, gradually climbing in the sky as they do. On a walk through the English countryside you might stop and listen and take in the landscape around you.

I did such a double-take when I saw the name Hillary Hahn. She is mesmerizing. Then Vaughn Williams?!! Made my morning sharing this music. Goes straight to my heart.

Absolutely sublime... This was the first RVW piece I ever heard; I was 17, and as a prog rock fan, it completely blew me away. There's a recent version of The Lark Ascending by the amazing vocal group Voces8 that incorporates some of the words from the George Meredith poem that inspired the work. For anyone who loves this piece, I'd highly recommend checking it out! Cheers - thanks Justin!

This music evokes images of the beautiful English rural landscape.

You got the 'tight chest', which means you were listening to Vaughn Williams. You should also try 5 Variants of Dives and Lazarus. Its stunning. Also, welcome to the world of Hilary Hahn, one of the finest violinists in the world. Her tone and color is so clear and beautiful in this performance, which I'd never seen before.

A stunning performance. The intensity and speed of her vibrato are perfectly suited to the soaring beauty of Vaughan Williams's masterpiece.

It wasn't originally for violin & piano. In 1914 it was with orchestra. After WW1 RVW reworked it and a performance was arranged for 1922. But the soloist wanted to play it at a concert in December 1921 with piano, so RVW wrote a version for violin & piano.

Vaughan Williams captured rural England in this piece and indeed in much of his work. He caught that somewhat joyful melancholy that permeates much of English music through the ages, that sense of longing for the green hills and the chalk streams where we English truly belong..

Beautiful, the magic of the British countryside captured in a piece of music. Can anyone listen to this and not be transported to the fields of England on a summer days with the larks circling above you and their song reverberating? I’m moved to tears every time I hear it, partly because of the beauty of the piece, but partly for what we have lost. England’s green and pleasant land and the stoic, God fearing and hardworking people. Of course, it’s easy to look through rose tinted glasses, but this piece of music is England.

I'll repost Craig Johnson's quote from the original video page: 'Soon after Hilary began her solo violin career, I heard her give an NPR interview. At that time she had just performed this piece with the St Martins in the Fields. A group of older men politely asked Hilary, "Have you ever seen a lark? A lark ascending?" Her answer was no. So, one day when no rehearsing nor performing was scheduled, they took her to a hillside field and she saw a lark ascending. She said in the interview that that experience influenced her performance. Larks ascend like our birds of prey ascend, only larks nest in meadows, not in trees. Take off is slow and low, flying in circles until an updraft is captured under their wings and then up to the highest heights.'

Hilary Hahn is an excellent musician. I have heard her play live and she is magnificent.

If you're interested in another version of this song, here is one by 14 year old Chloe Chow. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--PsyKWhn_ps.html

This has been a favorite piece of mine since I was 20 something and heard it for the first time. Ralph (pronounced Rafe) Vaughan Williams also composed Theme on Thomas Tallis - I highly recommend if you liked this. He created beauty like no other.

Long a favorite familiar. What a fine surprise! His variations on a theme by Thomas Tallis is also of the sublime. I'm betting you are gonna like this a lot. But lemme see. [passage of time] Well, how about that! Having since picked up the violin since last hearing this, my appreciation of both the song and Hilary Hahn are highly heightened. This may be my favorite rendition, and it is certainly my most recent. The genius friend who turned me on to this in the '70s, also turned me on the Van der Graaf Generator, Faust, The The, Fripp & Eno, as well as the contemporary classics bu Elliott Carter, Xenaxis, George Crumb, Subotnik, Tomita, etc. but it was my love for the prog pioneers that initially brought us together. Back then, people thought with the top of their head. And great music was the result.

Listen to A Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams. It will make you cry!

Hi JP, great choice! But please continue your 'Planets' journey - the Jupiter, bringer of jollity will blow you away.

Fanfare for "The Lark ascending". Fanfare for more classical interspersed with the usually great music, you present.Fanfare for your intelligent and discerning audience.Fanfare for your British friends, who liken this to the English country-side,(although to me any natural setting with 'birds on the breeze and in the tree's is good enough for me!). "Fanfare For The Common Man" one of my favorites by my late neighbor, Mr. Aaron Copland, or maybe "Appalachian Spring"? That would be a sweet Saturday reverie! Peace & Love from nature and Heaven above.

Vaughan Williams is one of my favourite composers and this is an excellent starting point.

No mountains. Vaughan Williams wrote this about the Sussex downs - gentle rolling hills and open fields. You need to listen to Skylark song to really get the point.

Apparently, because you don't get larks in America, Hillary had never seen one so she was taken to the downs in England by a British friend to see and hear one. Ever since she has played it differently.

The international language of appreciation of birds flying! In this case backed by Vaughan Williams fascination for the folk songs and melodies of rural England - and that foundation is key to some of his most popular works. I don't have the ear to truly know how well someone has played a piece like this, but Ms Hahn certainly seems to be pressing every button required; this listen was mesmerising. He had many more strings to his bow, naturally. I wish I had a pound for the number of times I've gone "hang on, that's familiar" when epic film music references his score for Scott of the Antarctic... As not everyone sees the same concept of what Englishness is or represents, Vaughan Williams' own ideas and styles aren't accepted by all, yet the popularity of a work like The Lark Ascending makes it an archetype for how such music sounds. Pardon me for this tangent but I remember well my anticipation for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films, which seemed to be nicely on course on viewing the trailers. Then, prior to the release, a newspaper promotion included a free themed CD-ROM, on which were two playable tracks from Howard Shore's score for Fellowship. The second was the theme for Aragorn and Arwen, as written by Ireland's own Enya. As I played the first - Concerning Hobbits - my heart sank. The initial tin whistle theme may have sounded pleasant straight away, but after examples of many "Bejaysus - tis grand to be Oirish!" film themes in recent years, had Jackson truly decided to just ignore JRR Tolkien's conceit of providing a lost mythology for England? Fortunately, the second theme kicked in, and for all that it was still being played on Celtic instruments, the fiddle tune gave off as many English as Irish airs and then we hit full-blown Vaughan Williams styles. Enya was Enya, so no complaints from me thereafter. The isles of Ireland and Britain influenced both film and score and, as far as I was concerned, all was right with the Middle Earth! The classical can of worms you've opened is bottomless, I hope you realise! Nonetheless, I would be another to recommend the Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, if ever you come back Ralph's way.

This is Amazing! Never heard this piece before. Simply fantastic and utterly beautiful. Thanks JP for showing me something I didn't know existed. Great Channel! Thank you.

I feel the need to say something, but no words of mine could possibly do justice to this piece. I'm sure I'll have a better day for hearing it.

Leland Sklar hipped me to this piece, saying it was his fave. So when the legendary Lee Sklar speaks, I listen. And he was so right. This is my fave classical piece now.

Justin, you have no idea how touched I am that you are venturing into classical music. The Planets and now this. I owe my love and discovery of classical music from the many 70's progressive rockers. Miss Hahn does a magnificent job here. My fave composer is probably Mussorgsky. Oh, and please continue with The Planets.

Hi Justin. Dave from London. So glad you enjoyed this fabulous piece. For me, it is just so evocative of days growing up among the Wiltshire hills in Southern England. Playing outside with friends, walking the dog, the sound of skylarks (Chalkhills And Children). The version I have on CD is played by British violinist Tasmin Little, and I have also seen her playing it live. Wonderful. My CD contains two other brilliant pieces by VW - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (haunting textures, very influential on modern prog and ambient music) and his masterful 6th Symphony (violent and moody, written just after WW2). P.S. my song ref Chalkhills And Children is by XTC.

Summer in the English Countryside-sublime.

I sometimes wonder that, if I had been exposed to the right type of classical music in the right way, I would have gone down that path rather than that of rock/prog. This is very much the 'right type' and is hugely evocative of its subject matter. Isn't it reminiscent of something by King Crimson (with David Cross on the violin)? Can't be a coincidence that one album was called Larks' Tongues in Aspic. Or is it? Help me out, someone.

Today's Instagram post from Hilary Hahn: "February 11, 1990. 33 years ago today, I gave my first full recital and began my career." She was 11.

Five variants of Dives and Lazarus. It was played at Vaughan Williams' memorial service. Look for conductors Neville Marriner or Vernon Handley.

Justin, It's pronounced ''Raiff'' not Ralf. The 'L' is silent, like in salmon. I mention this because Vaughan Williams was famously insistent that people got it right.

This is a stunningly beautiful and highly emotional piece of music which, whenever I hear it, always does evoke images in my mind, of the gentle, English countryside. The sound quality of the video was not the absolute best, but a great performance!

Being able to watch the performance helps me focus and see the interplay of the instruments.

A classic piece of the English Pastoral music I associate it with my mother's funeral she was 92 years old and we discussed the music she wanted. She chose this as the leaving music and a lot of folks stayed seated through the whole thing. Other pieces to explore are: Edward Elgar Nimrod (from The Enigma Variations) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sUgoBb8m1eE.html and his Cello Concerto (here performed by Jacqueline du Pre) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OPhkZW_jwc0.html Other Ralph Vaughan Williams (BTW his first name is pronounced like "rafe" and his family name was "Vaughan Williams" it is a double family name) The Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-e6pEIHtffqQ.html He also wrote a Pastoral symphony (his third symphony) but his big splash on the musical scene was his setting of Walt Whitman's poetry as the Sea Symphony: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aigI8-WDAQA.html Then another composer was Gustav Holst who wrote The Planets Suite Here is Jupiter: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BUM_zT3YKHs.html All of this was written before 1920 as the First World War had a marked effect on British music.

Minutes 10 to 11, exquisite, shiver diwn the spine. I cried in a number of places, but partly this is due to a backdrop of rural England disappearing under pressure of population. Anyway, the other gut-wrenching piece from RVW you could listen to is his 5 mystic songs.

Any popular vote for classical music pieces, right round the world, the Lark comes in near the top (Australia's classical radio station does a different top100 every year and if the Lark is in, it's top 10 or 5... or 1). It is possibly the most loved piece of classical music in the world, RVW has a gift for going straight for the heart. If you want more, I really urge the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, which can make grown men cry. Hahn is sublime, a truly great violinist, though I have a soft spot for the first version I heard by Nigel kennedy.

The control of the violin by Miss Hahn was stunning . This piece does make me cry though .It creates a kind of nostalgia for something that I can’t quite name,and yet is extremely powerful

Just wonderful. RVW just epitomised the English love of the countryside. From a different age. 😊❤

We're going to see the Charlottesville Symphony Orchestra perform Beethoven's 6th tonight, "Pastoral." This was a nice appetizer!

This was winderful, just what I needed this morning, other than the turbinado I kept forgetting to buy. Finally coffee the way I like it and a superb piece of music played well. Made my morning for sure. Enjoyed that muchly. Thank you!

This brings back wonderful memories of Summer, as a boy and walking in the fields or along the riverbank and hearing a Skylark rising into the air and singing beautifully. It is quintessentially English and moves me to tears every time that I hear it. You may wish to react to another of Vaughan Williams' pieces called "I Preludio: Moderato", Symphony No. 5. Yet another marvellous English countryside soundscape.

One of my favorite pieces by my favorite composer. The play of the violin mimicking the flight of the lark is wonderful. The BBC Proms version with Janine Jansen is more dramatic but this one is good. Only the Thomas Tallis Fantasia and the London Symphony top this.

This piece invariably makes me cry.

I can’t quite decide whether she’s playing a violin or a viola? It looks big for a violin but she is quite a small lady.

This piece is mentioned in the denouement of one of the novels in my favorite urban fantasy series. I appreciate the opportunity to put the piece to the prose it's mentioned in.

great choice... Hillary Hahn is a force of nature. I saw her solo in Disney Hall LA... she's the real deal all the way. her Bach Chaconne was utterly epic. also reflects on how good that piece is. it was the standout of the program.

There is a link albeit subtle between this type of pastoral music with certain strands of British prog rock. Intentional or not who knows?

'Rafe' Vaughan Williams - it was a family pronunciation.

This is my absolute favourite piece of music (although not my favourite version. It was slightly rushed in places. I've heard ones with better/fuller violin tone and more naturalistic and expressive phrasing - even more ebb and flow. Sorry if she is highly rated and acclaimed, that's just my response to what I hear in this video.). The violin phrases actually mimic the lark's intricate, rippling song. I've lain in the grass on a beautiful summer's day on an English hillside and watched/listened to a skylark climbing step by step into a perfect blue sky until it could no longer be seen/heard. As Vaughan Williams wrote this as an elegy for the fallen soldiers of the First World War, it's a bit like Soon at the end of Gates Of Delerium by Yes.

Keith Emerson piano concerto, many moments to talk about, great piece.

By far and away my favorite classical piece, your description is perfect too

Anyone read The Peregrine by J A Baker?

This is a great piece to follow with the score, even for a non-musician.

Now this, and I mean every word I type, is--along with Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis--the finest piece of music ever conceived of by man. To call it sublime would be to convey nothing, as this is beyond all words.

Hey JP, nice to see you reacting to a classical piece - I for one wouldn't mind you doing a little more of that. For people who love prog, it almost seems silly to not pay attention to the classical music that plays such a large role underpinning that. I know you're a fellow lover of Yes & Jon Anderson - did you know that Jon's (and mine) favorite composer is Sibelius? Maybe you'd want to try a symphony by him one of these days. Jon played Sibelius incessantly during their classic period, while he was composing their greatest epics, eventually evoking groans from his bandmates. My very favorite is his 5th, but the 3rd is almost neck-and neck, and perhaps a bit more approachable. If not for here, I think you'd enjoy for private listening. Great performances: 3rd Symphony ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_iPYeALbp50.html "Sibelius - Symphony No 3 in C major, Op 52 - Salonen" 5th Symphony ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RRS6dIgn_QI.html "Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 5" by the Oslo Philharmonic And since you were so inspired by the Lark Ascending theme, it brings to mind my favorite pianist, Michael Jones - I think you'd like his impressionistic soaring naturalistic work. Recommendations would include Swallows In Flight (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-87YaOWJ8eT8.html), which features cellist David Darling, or Spring Song (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SMpb2JH1vBY.html), featuring Darling and Nancy Rumbel (of Tingstad and Rumbel) on woodwinds.

A nice little neoclassical piece. One for those more pensive moments due it's lack of dynacism. And this, a nice rendition, one of many, many workings of this seriously popular work.

My 3 fave composers 1.ARVO PART 2.VAUGHN WILLIAMS 3.BEETHOVEN...LOVE YOUR CHANNEL.

I will never understand how humans achieve this level of skill. The amount of practice and sacrifice that's involved is more than I can comprehend. I can't imagine doing just 1 thing all day long, every day, at the expense of everything else, except eating and sleeping and going to the bathroom. I'll never understand how a person can sacrifice everything else, just so that they can excel at one thing. If I only did 1 thing all day every day, I'd get extremely bored and would grow to hate that thing.

South Downs, Black Down, The lark ascending, RVW, Charterhouse, Genesis. That magical cradle of outstanding composers and most beautifil music created in the 20th century. Check Tony Banks' classical albums and find some similarities with RVW's compositions. It's the landscape where magic happens.

Interesting to learn that it was written before the First World War but had to wait until some sort of peace had returned to the world before it was played publicly.. Charming, affecting and sublimely played. [David Cross and King Crimson certainly found it inspiring back in the 1970s.]

RVW orchestrated the piece after having served as a volunteer ambulance driver during WW1 (he was already in his forties). I have heard it posited that the landscape described by the music is not so much the English countryside; rather it is a moment of peace during the battles on the Western Front, the lark rising above the scarred French landscape, beauty amidst the horror. Certainly, the gorgeous 3rd (the Pastoral) symphony owes something to this theory (you should give that a try!), just as the violent 4th (give that a try too) feels like an angry outburst at the fact that he lost many friends during the war. The Tallis Fantasia is amazing; the Wasps Overture and the Tuba Concerto are fun; Dives and Lazarus is beautiful, as is the Oboe Concerto. RVW seems to have been a nice bloke as well, and was a close friend of Gustav Holst, who wrote the Planets

If you want to do a classical piece for Long Song Saturday, please strongly consider Dvorak's 9th Symphony (New World Symphony). You absolutely will not be disappointed! Let me add some more exclamation marks!!!!!!

Excellent choice. Coincidentally, I've had this performance in my reaction request list (for various reactors) for some time. Another great Hahn performance to check out would be Hilary performing Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 in Tokyo. This link will jump to the final movement ("Cadenza"): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SXDk1CoIRuY.html And the Brahms Violin Concerto performed a bit later in her life: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UFl9xuYP5T8.html But there are many great performances posted to her own RU-vid channel as well: www.youtube.com/@hilaryhahnvideos

There was a time when music could be a quiet and peaceful charging of batterys. Contemplative and serene. While it does not make an explosive reaction video, perhaps someone will remember and turn to this music again, and use it to guide their minds to a state of peace. It might take some time, but this twenty minute piece, played as desired, can take us away from this woeful earth. So glad you were in the mood to fully see the beauty here. Williams oboe concerto is also one of my favorites.

Great choice after the Holst you've already featured on the channel. From here you can go back to earlier impressionists like Debussy or Ravel. Or listen to his Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis, a very popular piece.

I once read David Cross say he borrowed some lines from this for Crimson’s Larks Tongues in Aspic

Thanks for going classical JP! An excellent place to begin....

In this piece, for me, RVW emotes deep sadness but with a sense of hope and ultimate deliverance. I think it also suggests that beauty is all around you if you take time to look for it.

If your fan's name was Diogenes, it's pronounced die-AH-jen-eez. He was a Greek philosopher and there is a famous statue of him carrying a lantern "seeking the truth." In fact, he was much more than that. In your spare time you should look him up, I'm sure Wikipedia has something on him.

Great to see you react to this sublime piece of music. OIts great that you go out of your way to experience all kinds of music. I wish I could have been so eclectic when I was younger

The most glorious piece of music. made me late for work one day as there was no way I was leaving the car until it had finished.

The Oboe Concerto in A is worth a spin.

Ralph is pronounced Rafe, like safe. Not obvious here in the US but I guess it's a traditional English pronunciation (The actor Ralph Fiennes = Rafe Fines) . Apparently Vaughan Williams would get pretty irritated when called Ralf.

JP, seu gosto musical é simplesmente sensacional, você mostra pra gente como ouvir a verdadeira musica. Parabéns pelo seu trabalho.

Don't forget the triangle

Poor little lark wouldn't dare ascend these days, for fear of getting its head knocked off by the blades of a wind turbine.

You got a frog in your throat! There's a story that does the rounds that classical music is just a way the upper crust excludes us unwashed masses, and that musically it's not all it's cracked up to be. My ears tell me that's junk philosophy. (So now I need to rationalize until I'm "the one that's right", I think?) Well for starters, if you have your own carriage, some race horses, a library - so, for your times, "Everything" - then if you don't feel like doing something you can just bail out. Go and get drunk with the highwaymen and prostitutes down at the tavern, for instance, instead. And if you have to go and show your face in Society, you're an imposter, there, anyway. So there's nothing really keeping someone from that upper crust at that concert hall when they get there, apart from the quality of what you get when you pay for the ticket - the music. There might be some "social ritual" aspect to this kind of music or the opera, but without some high grade value-for-money underpinning it, it would never have become popular. Anyway, enough of the counter to the junk-philosophy version of what classical music is. Every version I've heard of this is something new. It's the same notes in the same time signatures, but every conductor makes something new of it. (And every soloist adds something, too.) I love this version. And Hilary Hahn! Wow!

Generally I find English classical composers to be on the dull side. This music is indeed beautiful as you said but not all that memorable. I like the Austrians, Germans, Russians. Also I found the young woman's movements a bit comical, classical music is not performance art, you don't need to move around like Ian Anderson.