Five Variants on 'Dives and Lazarus' Notes

I arrange pieces I fall in love with. This has long been a favorite of mine, but it takes a particular audience to play this piece for, since it is about a 13 minute piece that is essentially slow. The dynamics and tempo changes are extremely important to make this piece work. I put many of the counter melodies in the third C flute part and Alto, while the harp part is mainly in the alto and bass lines. These parts are as important as flute 1.

Ralph Vaughan Williams collected English folk songs, and used a good many in his own compositions. “Dives and Lazarus” is an old English ballad retelling the parable from the Gospel of Luke about a rich man (the literal meaning of “Dives”) and his brutal treatment of his servant Lazarus, until Lazarus found himself in the Bosom of Abraham after death, and Dives in Hell. The composition is based on the folk tune "Dives and Lazarus". Vaughan Williams explained, "These variants are not exact replicas of traditional tunes but rather reminiscences of various versions in my own collection and those of others." The original tune in question, called ‘Dives and Lazarus’, is referenced in sixteenth-century writings but could well have been written earlier than that.

In 1939 Vaughan Williams, commissioned to write a piece for the New York World’s Fair, created a work for strings and harp that was not a traditional “theme-and-variations” but a set of “variants” of the tune, rich in harmony and color, with subdivided parts and passages originally for solo violin and cello as well as massed string choir. Vaughan Williams was 67 when he composed it, almost 30 years after his most famous work for strings, the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.

The structure, key and tempo markings for the work are:

Introduction and Theme: Adagio, B modal minor

• Introduction & Theme: Adagio, B modal minor

• Variant I: B modal minor

• Variant II: Allegro moderato, B modal minor

• Variant III: D modal minor

• Variant IV: L'istesso tempo

• Variant V: Adagio, B modal minor.

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