The Lark Ascending, tone poem by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, first performed in London on June 14, 1921. The piece was scored for solo violin and piano in 1914 and revised by the composer for solo violin and orchestra in 1920.
Vaughan Williams composed The Lark Ascending in 1914, in the early days of World War I, when a pastoral scene of a singing bird on the wing seemed far removed from reality. The war so occupied public attention that the premiere of The Lark Ascending was delayed seven years, until the violinist Marie Hall, for whom the piece had been written, gave the first performance of the orchestral version.
Vaughan Williams supplements the title’s image of a bird ascending skyward by prefacing the score with excerpts from the George Meredith poem that served as his inspiration:
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake…
For singing till his heaven fills,
’Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes…
Till lost on his aërial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.
Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending is a gentle, introspective work. The solo violin flutters and soars, evoking the lark of Meredith’s poem. The winds and supporting strings float peacefully beneath the solo part in long and languid lines.