Word: vaughans
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Other composers since Wagner have sought to construct a similar classification. Although Ralph Vaughan Williams' Riders to the Sea is undoubtedly a music drama in the Wagnerian sense, it probably derives more directly from Mussorgsky or Debussy (whose Pelleas et Melisande it most closely resembles...
...Wagner's operas are characterized by unendliche Melodie, Vaughan Williams' piece was written in unendliches Rezitativ-- and the closest thing to a leitmotiv is the broken and falling voice of the sea itself. The lines follow the natural intonations of the human voice as closely as possible, breaking only at rare intervals into a supple and more melodic arietta. The orchestration, furthermore, is designed only to emphasize the emotions of the speakers (the violins quaver in apprehension, the oboe sonorously heightens the women's grief...
...value of such a music-drama is therefore dependent to a very large extent on the text used. And while Purcell or Mozart could always easily transcend or merely ignore their libretti, Vaughan Williams' Riders can be, ultimately, little better than the J.M. Synge play from which it was adapted. And that play, unfortunately, is not a very good...
Synge's work is a tragedy in undertones; and Vaughan Williams has effectively captured the stark and broken tones of the mutterings of Synge's Irish peasants. But the peasants themselves are not intrinsically interesting. Maurya, the matriarchal mother, has lost a husband and five sons to the sea before the play begins; during it she loses the sixth--he rides the family mare into the sea--and is left, stoically resigned to life, with two unmarried daughters. ("They are all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me. We must be satisfied...
...unworthy opera, perhaps. But the performance is very good, and as such Riders becomes indeed a worthy companion piece to Man of Destiny. Go to the Shaw, of course; but stay for the Vaughan Williams. It's more than worth the effort...