Overture to The Wasps

THE COMPOSER — Taking on students was something Maurice Ravel did sparingly (declining to instruct George Gershwin in the 1920s is the best-known example of this reluctance). It just wasn’t something he was particularly drawn to, teaching, but Ravel did have a few important pupils over the years. Notable among them was Ralph Vaughan Williams, who spent three Parisian months with Ravel in 1908. The strange fact that the apprentice was older than the master bothered neither of them, and, from Ravel, Vaughan Williams learned how to shake off the dense rigidity of previous mentors and explore a fresh, lighter approach to every one of his compositional instincts. The two remained friends for many years.

THE HISTORY — After returning home to England, Vaughan Williams was approached by the Cambridge Greek Play Committee to write incidental music for a production of the Aristophanes satire The Wasps. The play was first produced at a festival in 422 BCE. It lampoons the litigious nature of ancient Athens and focuses on the addiction to jury duty of one old, pretentious man. The man’s son attempts to trap him in his house in hopes of curing him. After a few confrontations, physical and mental, an agreement is reached. The old man can continue to pursue his love of jury service, but only at home. The first case they consider as part of this arrangement concerns a dog and some stolen cheese. The verdict, and perhaps the absurdity of the situation, finally shock the old man out of his obsession. Aristophanes is known today as the “father of comedy,” and his scathing attacks on Athenian society were as daring as they were funny. The old trial addict of The Wasps, in fact, was quite openly based on one of Aristophanes’ most ferocious political rivals. It must have been a treat for Vaughan Williams to approach such a subject right after his French awakening. With a new set of tools to rework the impenetrable seriousness of his compositional upbringing, he could approach the sounds of wit in a novel way. This is not to say Vaughan Williams refused to write something suitably British for the Cambridge group. Ravel’s fingerprints might be all over the score, but the folksy charm of his English mate is, too. From both the complete work and the Aristophanic Suite Vaughan Williams later drew from it, only the Overture to The Wasps, with its signature opening insect buzzes, gets performed with any regularity today. It’s a pity. The other movements of the suite, comprising two entr’actes, an amusing middle section (which includes a March Past of the Kitchen Utensils and a Ballet and Final Tableau) are every bit as irreverent and infectious.

THE WORLD — Elsewhere in 1909, the city of Tel Aviv was founded, Joan of Arc was beatified by Rome, Ernest Shackleton claimed the South Magnetic Pole, and British Petroleum had its beginnings as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

THE CONNECTION — Vaughan Williams’ Overture to The Wasps makes its Masterworks series debut this concert season. The work was featured on Great Escapes programs in 1998 and 2004, led respectively by Christopher Confessore and Oscar Bustillo.