''The Wasps'' is

incidental music Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as t ...

composed by the British composer

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

in 1909. It was written for the

Cambridge Greek Play The Cambridge Greek Play is a play performed in Ancient Greek by students and alumni of the University of Cambridge, England. The event is held once every three years and is a tradition which started in 1882 with the ''Ajax'' of Sophocles. The ...

production of

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his ...

' ''

The Wasps ''The Wasps'' ( grc-x-classical, Σφῆκες, translit=Sphēkes) is the fourth in chronological order of the eleven surviving plays by Aristophanes. It was produced at the Lenaia festival in 422 BC, during Athens' short-lived respite from the ...

'' at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, and was Vaughan Williams' first of only three forays into incidental music. A later performance of the work was one of only a small number of performances conducted by Vaughan Williams that was committed to a recording.Alain Frogley: Liner Notes, UPC 094638215721. 2007. It was scored for

baritone A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the ...

solo voices, a chorus of

tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...

s and baritones (in two parts each), and

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

. The complete incidental music is lengthy (about 1 hour and 45 minutes) and is not often performed. Vaughan Williams later arranged parts of the music into an orchestral suite (about 26 minutes), in five parts: # Overture # Entr'acte # March Past of the Kitchen Utensils # Entr'acte # Ballet and Final Tableau. The ''Overture'' is quite concise (about 10 minutes) and is a popular independent concert piece today. The main theme is pentatonic. There are close to 30 recordings now available of the overture. The ''March Past of the Kitchen Utensils'' is sometimes separately performed. The entire orchestral suite is also sometimes performed and recorded. The year before he wrote ''The Wasps'', Vaughan Williams spent three months in Paris studying with

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...

, whose influence is apparent in the middle section. Although ''The Wasps'' may reflect something of Ravel, the outer sections are quintessential Vaughan Williams. Except for the opening buzzing, the piece has little to do with wasps or with ancient

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

References

External links

Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) - Overture: ''The Wasps''
concise essay on MusicWeb International

reviewed by MusicWeb International (Hallé HLD7510)

notations by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society
Video - Vaughan Williams - ''The Wasps'' (Orchestral Suite) (26:01).Video - Vaughan Williams - ''The Wasps'' (Complete) (105:29).
1909 compositions Compositions by Ralph Vaughan Williams Orchestral suites Incidental music Adaptations of works by Aristophanes {{classical-composition-stub