Aug 14: "The Lark Ascending" #1: Vaughan Williams & KES

"The art of music above all other arts is the expression of the soul of a nation"

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Richard King's 2019 book explores British music and its link with the landscape of Britain.

I have a copy of the book and enjoyed reading it when it first came out. I've mentioned it previously on the blog.

I've now revisited it for this blog and there is plenty of relevance to the blog's theme, so there will be a number of posts to follow through the next month or so.

Vaughan Williams is referenced in the prologue and his quote that "Folk music is not a cause of national music, it is a manifestation of it'.

He wrote 'The Lark Ascending' which was premiered in 1920 having been started at the outbreak of the Great War.

It was premiered near Bristol.

Vaughan Williams believed that music was a latent force in all people... "the only means of artistic expression which is natural to everybody."

The soundtrack to the Ken Loach film 'KES' (from Barry Hines' book) has a wonderful soundtrack by John Cameron.

"Kes flies higher" has a link to 'The Lark Ascending' in its structure and feel...

Chapter 1 of the book explores the piece in more detail.

It epitomises an idea of place, and because there are no lyrics it hasn't been (mis)interpreted as Blake's 'Jerusalem' has been.

It invokes a reverie: a country dance observed by a bird in flight, "a lyrical expression of grace and freedom".

King says that Vaughan Williams "achieves a synthesis of air and earth as the skylark shares in the merrymaking taking place below and the intoxicating sense of euphoria is absolute."

Vaughan Williams described folk songs as "an individual flowering on a common stem".

The book is available from all the usual places and comes highly recommended.

Jul 21: Hu are you?

“Our music is a blend of east and west, old and new. We’re building on a history and a sound that has been around for thousands of years.”

Galbadrakh Tsendbaatar, AKA Gala

Iron Maiden organised an event called Eddfest last weekend and a band called 'The Hu' were playing. This is not a misspelling of Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend's band....

The band say they didn’t choose their name as a play on the Who’s, but because “hu” is the root word for human being in Mongolian. “We took the name because of the inclusive nature,” Temka said. “It’s not about being Mongolian. It’s about being human.”

The Hu were profiled in a piece in The Guardian some years ago... with a classic punning title.

There's plenty of classic geography scenery in this video: Black Thunder Part 1

The band’s video for Yuve Yuve Yu likewise stresses the connection between modernity and tradition. It opens with various band members in contemporary settings – an upscale coffee shop in Ulaanbaatar, or at home playing a video game – before Gala opens the door of his urban apartment to enter a vast expanse of mountains and lakes in Mongolia’s remote western region. The images that occupy the rest of the video are so stunning, they could double as a travelogue for the Mongolian tourist board. The band’s second video, for Wolf Totem, unites traditional Mongolian horse riders with leather-clad men on Harleys, suggesting an eastern take on Easy Rider. That connection underscores a bad-ass image that has made the band a natural for metal heads.

Apr 17: Morecambe Bay

Morecambe Bay is the name of a piece of music by Alex Gifford that was included on a compilation album released by Real World records in 1993 called 'Plus from Us'.

Morecambe Bay itself is a large tidal area of sand in the NW of England. 

The area came to prominence in the news for a very sad reason in 2004.

A group of Chinese migrants who were being employed picking cockles on the sand were caught out by the speed of the rising tide. 22 people were drowned in total by the rapid incoming tide.

It's a place I've visited a few times over the years.

It was also the location selected for the AQA GCSE Pre-release material in 2025. Here's an aerial video made by Mr. B.