The Column: Ralph Vaughn Williams' 'The Lark Ascending Wins' Again, But Why?

Here comes the unaskable question: What is it with The Lark Ascending? The Vaughan Williams work has again topped the Classic FM Hall of Fame poll. It might have been edged out by the Rach 2 for the last few years, but it is a regular at the lofty summit of the list, voted on by more than 100,000 listeners to the UK radio station. It has also previously been voted Brits' favorite-ever melody featured in the popular BBC Radio show Desert Island Discs. Audiences love it, violinists love it (it is largely a violin showpiece), so it feels strangely subversive to ask, "Why?"

To call to mind a typically testy exchange between the main characters in the TV sitcom Yes Minister, "Why not?," "Why not, but why?" Why not, indeed. There is nothing not to like about The Lark Ascending. A plangent, beautiful solo violin line couched in some of Vaughan Williams' most cushioned orchestral scoring, colors mottled and sensitively balanced. It doesn't seep richness like some of Elgar's more over-egged orchestrations (for all their emotional brilliance), neither does it posit any especially challenging or divisive musical ideas. Or if it does, they're pretty well hidden.

So, why not? But why? Just because it doesn't make us feel bad? Vaughan Williams, himself, reached far deeper in his stark Sinfonia Antarctica, did Englishness far better in his London Symphony, played with textures and colors far more hypnotically in his chamber music, and did the big melodies far better in something like Greensleeves or the Sea Symphony.

These polls are, I think, like one of those reality TV shows--The Apprentice (the less bitchy UK version, at least) tends to be won by the least offensive non-idiot there. Well, Lark Ascending is not an idiot. It is a work on an extremely high level. It just doesn't touch as deeply as some of those others I listed. And maybe the truth is that no one piece can reach that deeply into that many people's souls. We are all different, so the music that really really matters to us will always be select, and selective.

I can't complain that Lark Ascending has, once again, topped the polls. Not too loudly, anyway. I'd just like a more divisive, personal and perhaps profound choice. Public polls don't give you that. But maybe I'm ignoring the big up side to this result. Everyone likes The Lark Ascending (some may even love it), so it's the perfect introduction to classical music, a great leaping-off point. And perhaps that's the real point of this kind of poll.