The Times - UK (2022-04-30)

the times | Saturday April 30 2022 saturday review 11

Other larks are available — about 100

species worldwide, each with its own

schtick. Deborah Pritchard’s Calandra, to

be premiered by Jennifer Pike and the BBC

Symphony Orchestra in December along-

side The Lark Ascending, takes its inspira-

tion from another species, the calandra

lark. It’s a bird of eastern Europe, and the

circumstances of the commission, coincid-

ing with the start of the war in Ukraine,

have inspired Pritchard to give her new

work an explicitly political flavour.

Taking a different tack, as part of

the climax of Radio 3’s celebration of

Vaughan Williams, there is a new reimag-

ining of the piece by Hinako Omori,

Conversations with a Lark, to be premiered

as part of Between the Ears: The Lark

Descending. Omori’s piece begins in

the right place: with a recording of a

skylark. Then, as Vaughan Willi-

ams’s soft chords ease into a spa-

cious, almost trance-y backcloth,

Omori embellishes the solo line with

sampled flourishes and squiggles of

the lark’s song.

The trick Vaughan Williams pulls

off with The Lark Ascending is to

achieve a sort of universality. One

can read into it all manner of subtexts

and deeper meanings. Yet strip it of its

historical context, forget everything

you might know or assume about the

circumstances of its composition, and,

simplistic as it might seem, what you

have is straightforward: a musical por-

trayal of a lark, ascending. It’s simplici-

ty itself. And, as anyone who has ever

tried to create something simple will

tell you, that is the hardest thing of all.

In that simplicity lies not only its

strength, but perhaps the secret to its

universal appeal. As the violinist Elena

Urioste puts it: “I don’t think the music

necessarily tells you what to feel. It’s not

sad or happy or lonely or cosy — it’s all or

none of these things. It’s whatever you

need it to be, in whatever state you find

yourself coming to listen to it. It’s a blank

canvas for whatever the listener needs.”

Vaughan Williams Today continues

across BBC Radio 3/BBC Sounds in

May. Conversations with a Lark is on

May 29. Lev Parikian is a conductor

and the author of Why Do Birds

Suddenly Disappear? (Unbound)

utes as I can think of. As is, coinciden-

tally, listening to a really good per-

formance of Vaughan Williams’s

The Lark Ascending.

And by “really good”, I mean one

that makes you forget you’re listen-

ing to a violinist and an orchestra,

and carries you away out of the con-

cert hall and up to that field or heath

to commune with the bird.

I suspect Vaughan Williams,

whose 150th anniversary is being

celebrated this year, would be

startled, possibly bemused, by the

exalted position of this short piece

in the musical pantheon. His cata-

logue isn’t short of weighty works of im-

port and power, after all. Yet the bird reigns

supreme. It has topped the Classic FM hall

of fame 12 times, and is making its 19th ap-

pearance at the Proms this summer. And it

has gone a long way towards defining his

image — erroneously — as a cuddly teddy

bear, all pints of ale and village greens.

Ironic, then, that according to Ursula

Vaughan Williams, her husband would

have struggled to identify a lark. No Messi-

aen he. Yet this doesn’t detract from his

abilities as an observer, which is at the

heart of any birder’s craft.

What he captures is not just the song —

fast, fluttering trills — but the flight too,

the impression of constant upward travel,

that it’s still going, just a bit more, just up

here, nearly there... until it disappears

from sight. And if the solo violin is the

bird, the deceptively simple orchestral

accompaniment is the world it inhabits,

wherever that might be — somewhere

peaceful; an escape.

The solo violinist’s relationship with this

music might be the most intimate of all.

They are, after all, the lark. Their chal-

lenge: to make a virtuosic piece sound un-

virtuosic, entirely natural. To con the audi-

ence into believing they are out there on

the warm summer day, lying on the grass,

allowing the afternoon to drift slowly by,

listening not to a violin, but a bird.

music

What larks: the man (and the

songbird) behind the masterpiece

As the UK celebrates

Vaughan Williams’s

150th, Lev Parikian

chirps for his beloved

Lark Ascending

cheep music Nicola

Benedetti plays The Lark

Ascending at the 2020

Proms. Right: A skylark

warbling in Cheshire

CHRIS CHRISTODOULOU/BBC; ALAMY

T

ake yourself out for a

walk — open grassland

or farmland should do it,

or a heath, or even a

coastal marsh. Stop,

breathe, listen. Some-

where over that field,

invisible, is a distant voice. A faint “skirrup”

— fleetingly heard, then lost. Almost a

mirage, carried away on the wind. Yet as

you walk it gets louder, the skirrup turning

to a jumble of scattery song, until you can

narrow down its source to “somewhere up

there, in the sky”.

This is when you need patience. Because

it will be hard to find. You would have

thought it would be easy. It’s singing, after

all. And the sky is clear. Surely something

making that much continuous noise will

be simple to track down? Apparently not.

You’re just about to give up, and there it

is, a tiny fluttering dot in an ocean of blue.

A moment of triumph.

This is the skylark. Alauda arvensis —

“lark of the fields”. The default British lark,

although its numbers have plummeted

even since my childhood thanks to

changes in farming practice. It’s not the

only breeding British lark. Connoisseurs

will quietly urge you to consider the attrac-

tions of its rarer cousin the woodlark —

similar in colouring, slighter of build and

purveying an equally beguiling flight song,

it too is well worth seeking out.

Seen in the field guides, the skylark —

and even its closest friends would say this,

although not necessarily to its face — isn’t

much to look at. Streaky brown with hints

of grey; white in front. Good camouflage,

of course. Any birder will be familiar with

the moment when stubble becomes bird;

you could have sworn there was nothing

there a second ago, yet there it is, darting

away from you in a flurry of wings.

Yet if its appearance isn’t striking, just

wait till you see it in the air. This is where

it gets its fame — the seemingly endless

song flight of spring and early summer, its

carefree gusto an unfettered celebration

of life and freedom. Not for nothing is the

collective noun “an exaltation of larks”.

Up and up it goes — heavenwards, if

that’s your thing — as high as, what, 50

metres? A hundred? Sometimes it disap-

pears from view. Yet if you stick around

you will see it descend, parachuting down

at an oblique angle, faster than the ascent,

but not precipitous. Once above its nest it

slows down, hovers for a second, then

plunges to the ground.

Why does it fly so high and sing so long?

Partly it’s defending a territory, but it’s also

a display of strength and stamina to show

the female what good genes he has.

Watching a skylark perform its song

flight is as good a way of spending 15 min-

t s a c O s t o a c a h y c s h t t t t

In

fim-

bit rejustup

high flyer The composer of The Lark

Ascending, Ralph Vaughan Williams

You forget

that you’re

listening to

a violinist

and instead

commune

with the bird