A Comparative Analysis Of The Harmonic Techniques Of Ralph Vaughan Williams And Gustav Holst's Orchestral Works

Ralph Vaughan Williams(1872-1958)and Gustav Holst(1874-1934)were the leaders as well as active practitioners on the second stage of British Music Revival occurred in the early and middle stage of 20 th century.On the one hand,they were deeply committed to the study of British folk music and Renaissance polyphony;on the other hand,they absorbed and learned from modern harmonic techniques.On this basis,they combined folk music materials with modern harmonic techniques to create a unique personal characteristic of music.In this paper,the author uses the comparative analysis as the research method,Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst's orchestral works as the main research object,and the harmonic techniques of these works for the research content to do some analysis,classification and summary.In the first part,through the analysis of the harmonic techniques of the two composers' representative works,the author sorts out the chord construction,harmonic process and some other aspects in order to reveal the inheritance and creativity of the harmonic language.In the second part,the author uses comparative analysis to do a comprehensive study of the mode,tonality and other performance techniques of these works.Using the method called “From Individual to General”,the author attributes its personality and commonality of music phenomenon.In the third part,through the analysis of individual works created by representative composers from Hungary,Spain and China,the author does a comparative study of the combination of folk music material and modern harmonic techniques respectively.Afterwards,the author compares them with the works of Williams and Holst to find out their similarities and differences.Through the analysis of harmonic techniques and other related comparative research of Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst's orchestral works,the author reveals their ideas of music in depth.The ultimate goal of this writing is to make some effort to improve the research about the British Music Revival occurred in the 20 th century,as well as provide some reference for the creation and practice of Chinese folk music.