The Soothing Voice Of The Nation's Soul

The reappearance of English music on the stage of world music history in the 20 th century is a major event in the development of western music.Ralph Vaughan Williams(1872-1958),as the leader of the revival of English folk music and the leader of the redevelopment of authentic English folk music language,made a lifelong contribution to the development of British nationalist music in the 20 th century.At the same time,as a widely recognized folk musician in the European music circle,Vaughan Williams’ music activities throughout his life are closely related to the exploration of folk music,the creation of nationalist music works and the promotion of nationalist music ideas.Although the music genre of his lifetime involves many aspects,the most notable is his nine large-scale symphonic works.These nine distinctive symphonies span all periods of the composer’s career,and show the characteristics of each period of his creation.Among them,the untitled Symphony No.5 in D Major has become one of the most remarkable landmarks in Vaughan Williams’ wartime works because of its special composition background and the unity between movements.The Fifth Symphony is an untitled orchestral composition of four traditional movements.It is the climax of Vaughan Williams’ development in a particular direction on the road of nationalist music.From the perspective of time,the composing period of Symphony No.5 is completely in the outbreak of war.However,the lyrical features revealed by it in essence declare that it is not the expected "War Symphony" full of antagonism and conflict.From the perspective of creative technique,the choice of theme motive,the treatment of tonality,harmony and rhythm fully reflects Vaughan Williams’ superb skill in combining folk music vocabulary and modern music creation techniques.Taking Vaughan Williams and his Fifth Symphony as the research object,this paper further explores the composer’s nationalist creation view and the deep spiritual connotation revealed by the Fifth Symphony from the perspectives of music history and musicology analysis.Firstly,the article gives a brief overview of the national cultural background and the development course of folk music in the country where the composer lives,in an effort to effectively understand the development of the national social culture and folk music culture created by the composer.Secondly,through the early,middle and late three periods to explore the composer’s life creation experience and the main works;Finally,the analysis of works of music ontology reasoning,including the creation background of "the fifth symphony" material,music structure,theme and the use of all kinds of music performance means and interpretation,and further discusses the value of the work and expressed its deep connotation,in order to highlight the particularity of the object of study and research significance.