‘The Composer in War Time’ Lecture

Colorado College will host a lecture, “The Composer in War Time: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Music of Conflict,” with Eric Saylor, professor of music at Drake University, starting at noon Friday, Nov. 4 in Tutt Library’s Timothy Fuller Event Space.

War formed the backdrop to much of Vaughan Williams’s life and career. His military service in the Great War and his contributions to life on the home front during World War II inspired both immediate creative responses—in works such as the Pastoral and Fifth symphonies, the chamber opera The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains, and Thanksgiving for Victory—and later ones powerfully informed by his experiences, including the oratorio Sancta Civitas, the cantata Dona Nobis Pacem, the Sixth Symphony, and Job: A Masque for Dancing. This talk will explore the nature of Vaughan Williams's military service at the front and at home, exploring how his experience with and understanding of conflict shaped his artistry.

The event is sponsored by the Colorado College Department of History, in collaboration with the Music Department and Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church.

This lecture is part of the McJimsey Memorial Lecture Series, held in remembrance of prof. Robert D. McJimsey. Other lectures in the series include “The Letter and the Spirit: Religious and Visionary Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams” at 4 p.m. Nov. 3 at Grace and St Stephen's Episcopal Church and “The Past We Choose to Remember: Reflection on Academic Music and Anthology,” at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 4 at the UCCS Heller Center.

Music anthologies have been staples of undergraduate music history surveys for generations. What can we learn by looking at them not just as compilations of scores, but as historical objects? In his talk at UCCS, Saylor will demonstrate how such publications powerfully shape our attitudes toward gender, race, geography, and academic values, reflecting and reinventing them for each subsequent generation.

For more information, visit www.gssepiscopal.org/mcjimsey-lecture.