“Songs of Travel” by R. Vaughan Williams: English accent in the romantic theme
Authors: Anfilova Svitlana 
Published: January 2025

Statement of the problem. The reason for studying R. Vaughan Williams’ “Songs of Travel” in this article was the discrepancy between the widespread use of this work in world musical practice and the absence of materials devoted to it in Ukrainian musicology. Currently, the number of studies devoted to R. Vaughan Williams’s work is quite significant. The chronology of their appearance is marked by a certain discreteness, which is a consequence of the reassessment of the composer’s role in the history of British and, in general, European music. Nevertheless, the number even of foreign studies about the “Songs of Travel” on R. L. Stevenson’s poems is obviously limited (W. M. Adams), and in Ukrainian musicology, such research is completely absent. Therefore, it was natural to include “classical” works on creative biography by R. Vaughan Williams in the preparation of this article, which mentions this cycle in the context of creative tasks and events of the corresponding period (U. Vaughan Williams, M. Kennedy, S. Grew). The bibliography is supplemented by the works of L. Foreman, Е. Schwartz, as well as materials related to the specifics of the artistic representation of the travels theme in English romantic poetry (N. Das, С. Langan, R. Jarvis), R. L. Stevenson’s creativity (J. Russell, W. Jones). Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. For the first time in Ukrainian musicology, the purpose of the study is to draw attention to R. Vaughan Williams’ “Songs of Travel” on R. L. Stevenson’s poems, and to provide a comprehensive analysis of the cycle’s musical and poetic features in the context of the disclosing the romantic journey theme by the English composer of the early 20th century. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the expansion of information about the composer’s work in order to include his works, in particular the “Songs of Travel”, into modern domestic scientific and creative practice. For analyzing the work, the biographical, historical-contextual, genrestylistic, axiological research methods were used. Results and conclusion. The cycle “Songs of Travel” (1904) by R. Vaughan Williams written in the first period of his creative way demonstrates the original approach to revealing the romantic travel theme, through the combination of the vocal cycle genre model on mentioned topic (which was formed in the Austro-German musical tradition) with purely English outlooks (the embodiment of the meditative journey concept). The means of embodying the system of figurative and poetic oppositions in music, principles of musical integrity of the cycle, stylistic manner by R. Vaughan Williams as a strictly English composer were characterized. The integrity of the musical space of the cycle is achieved thanks to the techniques of reminiscence and through thematic connections. Remaining within the framework of the tonal system, the composer prefers the third ratio of keys, natural minor over harmonic one; overcomes the classical-romantic functionality with sudden tonal juxtapositions and modulations, a tendency towards modality inherent in English folklore. Together with the characteristic intonation filling of the vocal part, it creates the uniqueness of R. Vaughan Williams’ writing manner, which clearly reveals the national basis of his style as a purely English composer. The concept of a meditative journey, which is indicative of English poetry, and the idea of an inner pilgrimage that is identical to it are realized in the musical and poetic dramaturgy of the cycle through the image of the journey of a romantic hero with his inherent philosophical understanding of the earthly path as a movement towards a high goal, inevitable for the moral maturation and transformation of a person.