Vaughan Williams’s ‘Fantasia’

Travelling across more than three centuries of music, we present a programme where the past is never quite left behind…

In 1906, Vaughan Williams stumbled across a melody that was already more than 300 years old. The tune, written by the Tudor composer Thomas Tallis for a 1567 psalter, was hiding in plain sight while Vaughan Williams was editing The English Hymnal. Several years later, he transformed it into the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, one of his most beloved works: a piece that blurs the boundaries between Renaissance England and the twentieth century.

Tallis’ influence continues to echo through David Knotts’ From Crystal Heav’ns Above, written for this concert’s soloist, Simon Blendis. Inspired by William Byrd’s elegy for his friend and mentor Thoams Tallis, the work traces a thread through centuries of English musical history, imagining Tallis’ spirit lingering long after his death.

Haydn completes this time traveller programme with his Symphony No.64, ‘Tempora mutantur’ (‘The times change, and we change with them’). As the master of musical surprise, Haydn plays around with our expectations, delaying and subverting time in ways you might not expect.