Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

First bars of Tallis's theme

Like several of Vaughan Williams's other works, the Fantasia draws on the music of the English Renaissance.[9] Tallis's tune is in the Phrygian mode, characterised by intervals of a flat second, third, sixth and seventh;[4] the pattern is reproduced by playing the white notes of the piano starting on E.[10]

Parker's verse for which Tallis composed the tune used by Vaughan Williams

Tallis's theme was one of nine tunes he wrote for the Psalter of 1567 of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker. It was a setting of Parker's metrical version of Psalm 2, which in the King James Bible version begins, "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?", and is rendered by Parker as "Why fumeth in sight: The Gentils spite, In fury raging stout? Why taketh in hond: the people fond, Vayne things to bring about?".[n 2] The tune is in Double Common Metre (D.C.M. or C.M.D.).[12]

According to his biographer Michael Kennedy, Vaughan Williams came to associate Tallis's theme with John Bunyan's Christian allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress, a subject with which the composer had a lifelong fascination; he used the tune in 1906 in incidental music he composed for a stage version of the book.[13] For the Hymnal, he adapted the tune as a setting of Joseph Addison's hymn "When rising from the bed of death".[14][n 3]

The term "fantasia", according to Frank Howes in his study of Vaughan Williams's works, referred to the 16th-century forerunner of the fugue "in that a thread of theme was enunciated and taken up by other parts, then dropped in favour of another akin to it which was similarly treated".[15] Vaughan Williams's fantasia draws on but does not strictly follow this precept, containing sections in which the material is interrelated, although with little wholly imitative writing, and antiphony in preference to contrapuntal echoing of themes.[15]

The Fantasia is scored for double string orchestra with string quartet, employing antiphony between the three contributory ensembles. Orchestra I is the main body of strings; Orchestra II is smaller.[16] The published score does not stipulate the number of players in Orchestra I; Orchestra II consists of two first violins, two seconds, two violas, two cellos and one double bass[17] The composer's metronome marking indicates a playing time of 11½ minutes,[18][n 4] but in recorded performances the duration has varied between 12m 40s (Dmitri Mitropoulos, 1958) and 18m 12s (Leonard Bernstein, 1976), with a more typical time of between 15 and 16½ minutes.[18][23]

The piece is structured with an introduction, opening statement of the themes (Tallis’ original hymn melody broken up into its four constituent phrases and interspersed with a “swaying chord” motif), four episodes (exploring different variations of those themes and different voicings across the three ensembles), and then a restatement of the themes and a coda.[24]

The Introduction begins in B-flat major with all three groups playing together, ppp molto sostenuto for two bars of ⁴
₄ time before moving to ³
₄ and the low strings plucking hints of the first two phrases of the Tallis theme interspersed with the bowed sway motif.[25] Kennedy describes the introduction as “a hauntingly poetic introduction before we hear its first full statement in Tallis's four-part harmonisation".[13] Howes comments that "a phrase of swaying chords" after the initial statement of the theme "acts as a kind of recurrent refrain" throughout the main body of the piece.[15]

In the Opening Statement of the full theme, beginning in the 15th bar, the two orchestras and solo quartet come together. The first two Tallis phrases and sway motif are played on all second violins, violas and celli continuing into a ⁶
₈ section in Phrygian mode for the third and fourth phrases of Tallis’ theme.[26] The first violins join for a restatement of the fourth phrase. In the 30th bar the time signature changes back to ³
₄ and the music rises to a climax. Schwarts says “There's much octave double-stopping (each string player sounds two notes at once), a higher dynamic, and an appassionato marking after all!”[27] The statement ends dying away in ⁶
₈ section dying with a texture remeniscent of the opening two bars.

In the First Episode the two orchestras divide, the key switches to C major and the time signature (but not the pulse of the music) changes rapidly. The section uses the second and third Tallis phrases alternating with the sway motif.

The solo viola leads off the Second Episode with a variation on the third Tallis phrase in E phrygian marked Poco più animato. The other three members of the quartet join, followed by the two orchestras, while “the string quartet continues its polyphonic meditation”.[28]

The Third Episode explores the sway motif. The quartet and orchestra 1 play together, contrasting with orchestra 2, and moving poco a poco animando to a crescendo to fortissimo. The climax is in ⁵
₈.[29] This dies down to a pianissimo "afterglow".[30]

In the Fourth and shortest episode, marked molto adagio, the sway motif is fragmented. Schwartz describes it as the "deep heart's core of the entire piece - a miracle of the imagination”.

The music reverts to the original time and key for the Restatement. The themes return once again plucked on the low strings then taken up by solo violin and viola, while the reunited orchestras provide a “featherbed of sound”.[31]

In Howes's analysis, "by way of coda the solo violin soars [and] The work ends on a chord of G major".[15]

Kennedy observes:

Vaughan Williams revised the work twice: first in January 1913 (for the first London performance), and then again in April 1919, making it more concise each time,[32] taking a total of about two minutes off the original 1910 playing time.[33]

• Day, James (1972). Vaughan Williams. London: Dent. OCLC 462037518.
• Dearmer, Percy; Ralph Vaughan Williams (1906). "Hymn 92 – When Rising from the Bed of Death". The English Hymnal. Oxford: Oxford University Press. OCLC 10855613.
• Frogley, Alain; Aidan J. Thomson (2013). The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-04324-3.
• Culshaw, John (1981). Putting the Record Straight. London: Secker and Warburg. ISBN 978-0-436-11802-9.
• Douglas, Roy (1988). Working with Vaughan Williams. London: The British Library. ISBN 978-0-7123-0148-0.
• Howes, Frank (1954). The Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press. OCLC 459433504.
• Hurd, Michael (1978). The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-211752-6.
• Mellers, Wilfrid (1989). The Double Man: Vaughan Williams and the Vision of Albion. London: Barrie & Jenkins. ISBN 978-0-7126-2117-5.
• Ross, Ryan (2016). Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Research and Information Guide. New York and London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-79271-5.
• Vaughan Williams, Ralph (1921). Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis. London and New York: Boosey & Hawkes. OCLC 663881436.
• Vaughan Williams, Ursula (1964). RVW: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-315411-7.

• Atlas, Allan (2010). "On the Structure and Proportions of Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis". Journal of the Royal Musical Association. 135 (1): 115–144. doi:10.1080/02690401003597797. JSTOR 43741608. S2CID 191641106. (subscription required)
• Atlas, Allan (Autumn 2011). "On the proportions of the passacaglia (fourth movement) of Vaughan Williams's Fifth Symphony". The Musical Times. 152 (1916): 19–32. JSTOR 23037971. (subscription required)