Description
This digital edition in PDF contains the world premiere edition of the three movements of his Viola Suite as composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams, scored for SATB + piano.
This download contains a score (22p.) and 5 parts (4x4p. en 1x7p.) in one single PDF file.
In 1933, Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a Suite for Two Pipes, followed in 1939 by a Suite for [Four] Pipes. A new piece arose recently: In the archives of The Pipers’ Guild there was a copy of a manuscript containing a Carol, Musette & Christmas Dance for SATB bamboo pipes and piano, which was unplayable due to the difficult-to-read handwriting and contained no clear clues as to its provenance or the composer. However, it later became clear that this was a manuscript, an autograph, by Vaughan Williams himself, and that these pieces are his own arrangements of three movements of his Suite for Viola and Orchestra. That provenance is confirmed by a letter he sent in 1939 to Margaret James, the founder of The Pipers‘ Guild, in which he wrote: “I have been experimenting with music for bamboo pipes and send you herewith the results of my ”trial and error’ [with the] Suite for 4 Pipes and 3 movements of the Viola Suite arranged for four bamboo pipes & pianoforte. I did not, I hope, go beyond the scope you had outlined to me and I did not, I think, use chromatic notes – it was really fun to see how far you can get without using them […]”.
This piece has been recorded on homemade pipes on the CD A 99 years celebration of the international pipers’ guilds (2025) by FR2 and friends – on handcrafted bamboo pipes.
This work is copyrighted © Oxford University Press 1936. All rights reserved.
