The Slow Movement of Vaughan Williams's Third Symphony

Searching for the land. Searching for belonging. In fact, having given up the search. There’s nothing there. When you dig down, you just find the graves of all the actual people who died for nation, country, empire.

You’re standing, unsteadily, falling to your knees in a misty graveyard. It’s like hearing Debussy with heavy black eyeliner. Goth impressionism.

Viola plays, like Rick Wright keyboard at the start of “Shine On.” Meandering. Nearly a tune. Not enough skeletal structure, like there are limbs missing. Pedal point minor chord drone, pianissimo, dark green misty pastoral, rotten, crawling. It’s the second movement. But it’s not a scherzo. There will be no prancing. No hopping. No folk dancing. Just staggering or better crawling through the mud of No Man’s Land into the grave.

(One great thing about this recording: the brass play the fanfare deliberately “bad.”