A Study Of British Pastoral Symphonic Works In The Early 20th Century (1910-1930

In this paper,Vaughan Williams’ s Pastoral Symphony and Holst’s Egertown Wilderness are studied from the English pastoral music in the early 20 th century.Through the study of relevant literature and the analysis of musical works,the author tries to get the technical characteristics of the composition of English pastoral music in this period and the connotation of musical thoughts.Pastoral music was originally a ditty sung by shepherds when they grazed their animals.Later,it was passed down after being created by people with certain musical accomplishment and music profession.In the process of creating pastoral music,the composer does not realize the hardship of rural people’s life,so the pastoral music is a kind of false and divorced from real life.It is beautified by the author,and there is a certain gap with the real world.For these two works,the composer expressed the destruction of beautiful countryside due to the influence of war,industrialization and urbanization.Therefore,the pastoral music at this time is not to praise the beauty of the pastoral music,but to reveal the inner contradictions of people in the real society through the pastoral music.This paper is divided into three chapters.The first chapter traces the source of English pastoral music.This chapter expounds the geographical location of Acadia and the myth of Pan,and concludes that the environment of the birth of pastoral music is in the middle zone of the Peloponnese Peninsula,which is geographically remote and separated from the outside world.Thus shepherds used madrigals to relieve their inner sorrows or to express themes of love between men and women and themes of daily life.Later,the author expounds the reasons for the popularity of pastoral music in the early 20 th century,and concludes that the beautiful countryside was destroyed due to the influence of war,industrialization and urbanization.Therefore,the pastoral music at this time is not to praise the beauty of the pastoral music,but to reveal the inner contradictions of people in the real society through the pastoral music.The second chapter is the analysis of the music text of the two works,respectively from the background of music creation and the technical characteristics of composition to analyze the music works of melody,orchestration,music structure and the pastoral image implied by dance music.In the third chapter,the author tries to understand pastoral music from the perspective of psychology in the philosophy of music,and tries to understand the emotion and meaning in the music works more objectively.