But it was his own fault. Many feel that music that powerful must mean something . Mellers tries to get at what. It may turn out true at some deep level, but in the darkness of current physiological ignorance, such a claim becomes pretentious. Instead, as with Cooke, he notes conventions of musical expressivity throughout the centuries.
Music is, after all, something made.
A composer invents a turn that seems appropriate to him. Others note the invention or assimilate it without conscious thought and extend it in their own work, creating an emotional cluster from a family of such invention. Michael Kennedy, following certain remarks about the Fifth Symphony and the Bunyan opera provided by composer himself, identified many of Vaughan Williams's key gestures, notably the opening to the hymn Sine Nomine . Sine Nomine , Toward the Unknown Region , the Sea Symphony , the Tallis Fantasia , The Lark Ascending , Sancta Civitas , Job , Serenade to Music , Symphonies 3 through 9, Hodie , The Pilgrim's Progress , and the 10 Blake Songs . In Mellers's view, Vaughan Williams's output becomes a vision of his country, of humanity in general, and of the noblest occupation of the mind.