Interview, Midori Komachi on the violin works of Vaughan Williams

In this anniversary year, much attention has been lavished on the well-known repertoire favourites from Vaughan Williams's wide-ranging output - his symphonies and orchestral works, his solo vocal music, and even (with the reverberations of Covid lockdowns still making themselves felt on recordings) some highly effective transcriptions for smaller forces.

His chamber music, though, has enjoyed rather less limelight, despite being an equally important facet of his work as a composer. Midori Komachi and Simon Callaghan set out to counter this unbalanced perception of Vaughan Williams with their recording of his complete works for violin and piano - the original version of the ever-present Lark Ascending, a shamefully rarely-heard violin sonata, and more.

I spoke to Midori to learn more about the significance of these works, and what they might tell us about the composer that his orchestral compositions do not.

It’s sometimes been said that Vaughan Williams turned to the viola for his most romantically-charged compositions. Do you think the violin has a similar “niche” within his music?

There is no doubt that the soaring lyrical line of the violin is a hallmark of many of his works, and even in his larger orchestral works, the solo violin appears frequently. While the viola can perhaps be regarded to represent some of the inner emotions, his writing for the violin exudes an outward reach to something far away; transcending the confines of time and space. With folk-infused melodies and technical writing that often ascends to very high positions for the left hand, Vaughan Williams created a violin-timbre that is both familiar and original.

A Vaughan Williams violin sonata sounds like the sort of thing that should be a centrepiece of the violin repertoire, but in reality it’s relatively rarely heard. What do you think has kept it from being more widely programmed?

The main reason is probably due to the technical demands of the piece. I can definitely say that this is one of the most challenging Sonatas! In writing the liner notes for this CD, I researched the manuscripts and the compositional process, and this has led me to believe that it was his intention from the beginning to push the boundaries of technical and musical ideas. Such ferocity comes as a surprise when we are more familiar with the style of writing in The Lark Ascending. But thinking about the fact that the Sonata was written 40 years after The Lark, and that the composer had experienced two World Wars during these years, everything in this piece comes across as something humane. Throughout all the complex, interweaving lines, the 'struggle' becomes very real - but in the end, there is a moment when all of this has emancipated and finally, there is a sense that we can ‘let go’ of the past. Although it may seem difficult to listen to at first, it is the journey towards this very moment which makes this piece so powerful.

I hope that through this album and especially through this Sonata, listeners can discover the full range of Vaughan Williams’s musical expression.

Conversely, The Lark Ascending is an undoubtedly fine work that is virtually ubiquitous in the concert-hall. What is it about this piece that has made it so constantly successful – perhaps more so than anything else Vaughan Williams ever wrote?

The sense of fragility and intimacy that is created from the violin’s ascending passages is unlike any other piece. This really comes across effectively also in the orchestral version and in a large concert hall. But I believe Vaughan Williams was able to create this intimate sound world, because it was originally written for violin and piano. As Vaughan Williams marked the cadenzas with sur la touche (technique to play at the fingerboard, to create a hushed sound), and Frederick Grinke had noted in his score (the violinist who had performed this piece with Vaughan Williams conducting) that the piece should not be played too brilliantly, it is the simplicity that draws listeners into the sound – and in a way, this vulnerability speaks directly to the listeners too.

Most people, if asked, would probably describe Vaughan Williams as a primarily orchestral composer. Do you think there’s scope for a reappraisal of this and perhaps more appreciation of his chamber music?

Absolutely – in addition to his symphonies, his writing for chamber music developed drastically throughout his life, as we can see in the works for violin and piano. While his symphonic writing had an influence upon his chamber music, there is also a point to make regarding the opposite direction – that works like The Lark were able to create such a unique sound world only through chamber music settings, and when we hear these solo string parts in the symphonies, the basis of all of this is coming from chamber music.