The Lark Ascending - Ralph Vaughan Williams
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- A sublime and emotive tone poem composed by Vaughan Williams that tugs at the heartstrings. The composition is based on the eponymous poem about a Skylark by George Meredith.
Violinist: Barry Griffiths
Orchestra:Royal Philharmonic
Conductor: Andre Previn
I am lying on a cliff top on the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path,watching,and listening to more Larks than I have ever seen in one place,the sun is bright and the sea full of sparkles. This is where I want my soul to go when I die.
Wonderful piece of music, I played it at my wifes funeral, still play it every Sunday as part of remembering our life together, it works so well sad but not so sad xx
Hope you continue to cope x
Alan Hinton 素晴らしいよね❗ありがとう。さようなら。長いお別れです。Greetings from Japan . Sayonara！
I first heard this on FM radio in my car, 28 years ago...I pulled over and wept...it is one of the most beautiful, yet sad pieces of music I shall ever hear, I feel...
I have never forgotten this song... I first heard it when I was about 16 or so.. Been looking for it ever since... very glad to hear it again.
I had the privilege of witnessing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform this piece last night. An experience I think very few would ever forget. Simply breathtaking in its astounding beauty.
I have never thought of that but now that I have, it is a lovely thought. The thunderous Merlin engines that are just audible - ripping through the warm air - set amongst the sweet and well-deserved scent of victory. The sun just beginning to retire behind the clouds, painting the chalky cliffs of Dover a gorgeous golden colour in doing so. Lovely. Thank you.
This song reminds me of my childhood. Every night before I went to sleep I would listen to Classic FM. This was my favourite song. It is the only classical song I have ever loved, and is still the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.
My Mom used to love this. It was played at her funeral.
There are those moments which truly touch a man, those moments when your eyes fill with water and your heart gives a flutter and a smile magically appears....this is such a moment.
This moves me, I feel so much emotion when I listen to it. So beautiful, so so beautiful. Reminds me of my grandad who passed away. It was his favourite song and will be mine....'I can row a boat, canoe?' Thanks grandad! :) xx
***** It will be played at mine. It breaks your heart and lifts you up at the same time.
It makes my heart feel light..... I am the lark ascending on a warm summer evening over the beautiful English country side....... Ahhh, peacefully tranquil
Such masterpieces redeem the twentieth century and imbue us with hope for the twenty-first.
This tone poem speaks of the passage of time, this is why it moves us-we emerge unknown and innocent into this world-we scrape a living, no matter how rich or privileged, we all go to the same end...and all that we love and all who love us are left behind-possibly there is something else-but the essential tragedy of mortality and the passing of time is captured here.
I've heard some beautiful music, but this is the best of the best. If given the opportunity to hear just one more piece of music in my lifetime, this would be it. My soul dances every time I hear this.
Wow what a meditation state of you here this song.
Inspired by this breathtaking performance ,
I will dream of nostalgic my late beloved mother .
This is a masterpiece that my late beloved mother was impressed with and shed tears .
I want to give the feeling of thanks again to nostalgic my late beloved mother .
Mother ,
the season of blooming cherry blossoms has come again in Japan .
I remember when I was a little boy and you took me by the hand to go see the cherry blossoms in full bloom .
Mother ,
my tears are a testament of long farewell and sincere tribute to you .
It's time to say goodbye to you .
It's a long farewell ,
Goodbye
From Tokyo of the Land of the Rising Sun 🇯🇵
What did this man do right...to compose one of the most emotion-wrenching pieces I have ever heard. No song has ever provoked me to weep at such unearthly beauty.
I love this piece of music, it always soothes me and 'The Tribe' know it is the music I want to say 'goodbye' to this world to :)
Brings tears to my ears. It's almost painfully beautiful.
I still remember the first time I heard this song too. It made an unforgettable impression of beauty in my heart. There is such a sense of solitude and peace in it.
Best classic song ive ever heard in my life
Beautiful. The music flows through my body and swirls inside me
Got fields of 'em round here, the music is never less beautiful. Well done for a kind reminder. XXX
To stand in a wheatfield in england at spring
as the lark spirals high and begins to sing,
ones heart it doth soar with that song so true
together with the lark to the heavens so blue.
this takes me back to my childhood, warm summer days in field of long grass, wish it was so simple now, but i go back for a while when this is playing. thanks R V W.
We can only thank him and hope folk will love this very English piece for centuries to come.
I cant put into words how this music makes me feel. All I know is that it has a healing effect on my soul. It seems to cajole my dejection and magically turn it into hope. As Oscar Wilde wrote; "Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul."
This is so evocative of so many pastoral wonders.
i wonder if ralph vaughn williams ever realised the amount of pleasure he was about to bring to so many people for many many years to coer when he started to write this piece. in my humble opinion its one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.
This is beautiful place to go. It is the beautiful person that I love most and a world that seems just out of reach right now but somewhere I hope to fly to again.
this song really makes you reflex on your pass with some sorrow, but then strangely relaxes you with hope of tomorrow. I guess the best way to describe it would that of a good cry...Painful Bliss
I fell in love with this song when I was 14 my mother would play it in her art studio. it reminds me off being young and the dreams I had then
Nature is so so beautiful and precious and this song is so perfect at springtime when we see our birds and flowers again, life is very tough and I thank God that this music can lift us into that magical world.
Now in the U.S.; but grew up in Angleland! This piece is so dear to me! I see the Skylark ascending in my mind's eye from over four decades ago!!
Soulful and gently elegant.
One of many of Vaughan Williams superb pieces
Always clears my mind and soothes my soul
beautifully paced and shaped--orchestra, conductor and soloist...I think the best I've ever heard...not rushed as sometimes happens...but enfolds with sensitive understanding of the timeless space it evokes....
Thanks I did, lovely poem. The first part of this piece is truly inspiring.
something that brings tears of joy
beautiful!
I'm in the fortunate situation to hear larks when walking on the cliff tops at Barton on sea near where i live, when I walk the dogs.
this music is the nearest you'll get to perfection anywhere, I am torn between having this played at my funeral or the 3rd movement of Scheherazade, as I feel maybe this is maybe a bit too emotional for my family to handle. I'm sitting here with a lump in my throat listening to it, I pity the person who doesn't like it, I feel maybe he or she has no soul.
how could anyone possible DISLIKE this??? i'm convinced; the world is full of STRANGE inhabitants!
Unfortunately, having been born in '96, I didn't get to experience the idyllic rural childhood that many here remember so fondly.
But hearing this beautiful piece, and reading all your comments, I can almost picture it now.
Callum Morgan Come to live in Lincolnshire! Idyllic still .....
+Isobel Kelly-Kelk May it stay ever so. Regards, the Mrs.
+Isobel Kelly-Kelk I do and it is
Isobel Kelly-Kelk I actually come from the county of Lincolnshire :) sadly, my corner of the woods happened to be Grimsby
+Callum Morgan ... bad luck old chap! But you don't have far to go to see the best of our lovely country ... gets yourself out onto the Wolds ... have a cup of tea in Louth or Woodhall Spa ... walk on any one of our spectacular beaches ..... but keep it to yourself - we don't want all and sundry here! ;)
Beautiful music!!!!!❤
Perfeito ! Viagem ! 💧
His west intepretation of east music, culture, spirit is incredible. Because true beauty is in diffrentess. God made us all so beautiful, only if we could see it, and see this beauty in every men, culture, lands, it is, breath taking. Why people look so much on bad things- bad things don't deserve even for short glance. Why looking on it when tere is so much beauty in the world.
....and I thought I was alone.... It is sublimely beautiful! I "took" to it at only one listen!
bellissimo... grazie
If purity and innocence had a voice this piece of music would be it.
I agree with all the superlatives! Stunning, heart tugging. It seems to resonate within us sympathetically tuning in to our emotions!
I wholeheartedly endorse for all and 'lark' this song!
I have been priveledged to play classical guitar for 35 years but this is still my favorite piece of music of all time.....and no guitar in sight ??
This music just touched me in the core when I first heard it. It is peaceful yet full of energy.
Sitting here at my laptop, listening to this sublime piece of music, imagining viewing a sweet bucolic landscape from the edge of a forest, probably somewhere in Britain, on an evening in may, it is quite peaceful and only the wind can be heard gently blowing through the branches, maybe some peasants working or dogs barking in the distance.. a moment of perfection, such beauty ! 😍
In the company of dear ones and in a setting when life is lot simpler :-)
beautiful poetic expression,thank you.
This piece moves my heart...
Played this song at my Grandmothers funeral, very moving.
I share that MEMORY, I am back in the late 40's, a boy of 6 or 7 , I'm wading waste high in wild flower meadows.the air is heavey with their perfume, which has drawn 'hundreds 'of butterflies, and every other kind of winged insect into the hedges and fields. There is total silence apart from natures sounds. the song of the birds. I am within view of my home in Warwickshire, and yet, only 7 miles from Britains second city. What have we done to our once pristine countryside?
It reminds me of when I used to lie in a cornfield in summer and watch and hear a lark ascending from the corn field right up into a clear blue sky. Good days. There is a bypass there now.
I am walking down an untraveled country lane in the summer. With fields and hedgerow ,with birds darting in and out of the uncut wheat. Birds climbing in to the air and then slowly sailing in the breezes.
Are you kidding me with the way this cuts out at the absolute peak of The Lark Ascending's beauty? LOL! That is the ultimate torture!
+jtpinnyc Apologies for that. The recording was uploaded back when there was a 10-minute restriction on the duration of videos. The restriction is much longer now. However, one cannot update an existing video. Will upload the full rendition and specify the link as part of the description. Need a few weeks to that though. Sorry !
+Prasad Boddupalli Great thanks! Because it's such a fantastic version!
+SCOTT WEBB True Scott. Listened to about 10 other versions, and this version by Barry Griffiths takes the cake.
Sublime beauty!!! There's a passion that is not unlike Rachmaninoff's compositions. Soul touching...
in an often ugly world this is pure beauty
Beth Dodd そうだね‼️素晴らしいよね‼️Greetings from Japan. Sayonara！
this makes me nostalgic for a time and place i never knew.
Beautiful, on BBC4 this Friday evening.
I just listened to Daphnis and Chloe Suite 2 and now this!!! Heaven...
This song is so beautiful. :) So relaxing and brings back so many memories.
Brings to mind sitting on the Downs, the wind rippling through the grass and the faint sound of the sea as an undertow.....
Very soothing piece. A good way to relax.
Maravilhosa!
just watched on tv makes me want to know more !
In Man on Wire, this song is played when Phillipe Petit mounts the wire in his back garden. I find it really beautiful that the music gives the impression that he is the lark... I don't know why, but every time I hear this song, I picture the tightrope walker beginning his act and becoming the lark. It's just a beautiful idea!
amazing amazing amazing!
It's a undescribible piece of work
Birds are here to remind us there is freedom, that life cannot be trapped, the bird of the soul who is trapped in the body and all those screens and monitors that don´t let us see heaven and prairy, or see people laugh or laugh also of yourself, or remain quiet sitting in the sand watching those birds dance freely in the air when you can only think about your earthly problems, where your soul sees a paradise your earthly mind can only see unsurmountable heights
Una de las más coerentes trayectorias musicales.Siempre me inspiró su trascendente área melódica en contante búsqueda de la ensoñación y lo ignoto.
Since many of you wanted the uncut version, here is the CD that contains the rendition. Sorry, I uploaded this composition back in 2009, when there was a 10 minute restriction on the duration of youtube videos. www.amazon.com/Breathe-Relaxing-Strings-Various-Artists/dp/B0009K7R2K/
This defines the word 'sublime'.
Perfection
Its a section of "the lark ascending" by George Meredith. The poem that inspired this piece. Look it up and read it whilst you listen, thats the way to do it.
Takes you back to peace and harmony.
Indescritível a sensação! Uma das peças mais maravilhosas que já ouvi.
I just heard a version of this violin solo played by Nigel Kennedy on WQXR as part of their gratitude project for Thanksgiving weekend.
Words fall short.
Truly beautiful......
My father adored this....thinking......that's all...
I think of a bone weary RAF Pilot sitting exhausted after his 3rd or fourth sortie of the day. A cuppa, teettering unsteadily on his knee as he contemplate a few small songbirds soaring effortlessly, high above in the clear English air. A welcome, however brief respite from the world. As the birds soar higher and higher and then finally out of view, he slides into a welcome yet fitfull rest.
@Alandalus105 oh, my gosh....so perceptive of you, and I mean that most sincerely....this music takes one to a land of smiles and tears--they run like two quiet currents in a evocative landscape called England--or any quiet space with green meadows--perhaps Iowa or Vermount...where one has time to think, weep, or smile. I lost both my parents this past 2 years, so I am on that hill with VW's music as tender consolation. It helps.
and I thought I was alone.... It is sublimely beautiful! I "took" to it at one listen! My preferred version is played by Ione Brown and conducted, I believe by Adrian Blount. Have you considered another RVW orchestral piece for your 'going away' get together? That being the 3rd movement of the 5th symphony? It elicits an equal measure of salt water from me as the Romance for Strings and Orchestra (The Lark Ascending). I love these works of art deeply!
this is england, my hope, my love, my country, I will never leave
I love it.
brilliant!
VW has seemed to absorb some of his friend Butterworth into his work! This tender, pastoral, quiet musical arrow to the heart...a love of the green land called England. The main theme could have only been written by an Englishman. Heart breaking.
A masterpiece.
no, i had a very nice childhood in the 50s and life was so much better then .playing out in the country side, and it was like that then. and no i am not a moron i am a grandmother who has seen life at it best not the ratrace we now live in.
RVW has wrung quite a bit of salt water from me as well. Dives and Lazuras, the Romanza of the 5th Symphony and the 3rd, Norfolk Rhapsody #1.....
fantastic######
to MCPOCHRIS021 and bella donna:
I enjoyed your comments very much. Imagining a WWII Spitfire ranging fields and meadows is akin to a lark rising and falling from bush and grass. To lay upon Pembrokeshire Path with time in your eyes to see beauty is heavenly.
Both poets, you are.
Yes, you are right. Some things are great today, but some things are not. I remember regularly swimming in a stream in the summer of 1959 and jumping off a wall into newly mown hay that we had stacked up. We seemed to know when it was time to go home for food (!) but would any parent now give us the freedom we had? No.
@AphoticCosmos i just pictured all that and i never want to snap out of it.
so curious how this piece became SO poplar...more so than Rachmaninoff in a recent Brit survey on FM classical....It is beautiful! What do others envision listening to this? Spitfires? Tottering tea cups on a pilot's knee? I strangely could smell the creosote on the railroad tracks near the glass recycle depot (ok that was quite odd - that must have been 1976).