Bredon Hill

• This poem tells of a love that is overcome by death. Bredon Hill is on the border between Worcester and Gloucestershire.
• Block chords. This type of homophonic style is particularly apparent in the last song to illustrate the sound of church bells.
• A combination of pizzicato and arco is used to suggest the sound of bells in No. 5 (e.g. bar 100).
• Open harmonics are used for the string chords at the very end of ‘Bredon Hill’. They illustrate another bell effect. To play open harmonics the player lightly touches the string exactly half way along its length, while bowing the string. The resulting sound is an octave higher, as well as being very delicate in quality.
• In ‘Bredon Hill’ the vocal music begins as if it is in the standard major key of G, but again the flat seventh F natural at bar 29 indicates modal writing – in this case an untransposed Mixolydian (G to G). The middle of the song is again more chromatic.
• Even more freedom is given to the soloist at the end of ‘Bredon Hill’, where he is instructed to sing in a totally free tempo, as long as he finishes before the final instrumental section.
• ‘Bredon Hill’ features sustained bell chords with tied semibreves.
• Bars 1-35: Introduction


  1. Vaughan Williams uses the word 'bells' as a starting point

  2. Long pianissimo introduction with slow, tolling seventh chords
• Tenor melody


  • Simple diatonic melody in Mixolydian mode (with its distinctive 'major' quality), recalling happier times
  • Change of harmony for the last line
• Bars 35-51: A: In Summertime...

  1. Repeat of the music of the first verse

  2. Four bars of bell chords at the end
• Bars 52-66: B: The bells would ring...


  1. Bells now peal out more strongly on the unaccompanied piano

  2. Ostinato with right hand triplet chords that extend the LH seventh chords to elevenths
• Bars 66-83: B1: And I would turn...


  Music continues without a break over similar but quieter ostinato bell phrases
• Bars 84-100: C: But when...


  1. Strings return and the music becomes quieter still as his love's death is described

  2. More dissonance in the string introduction (clashing with the piano LH)

  3. Mournful phrases are conjunct
• Bars 100-114: D: They tolled the one bell...

  1. Tolling bell is heard in single isolated notes, with the combination of pizzicato violin and arco violin

  2. Minor third interval becomes more prominent

  3. Harsh dissonance with the D notes sounding against E♭
• Bars 115-end: A1: The bells they sound...


  Music rises to a climax on top A as he begs for the bells to be silent
• Postlude


  1. Instrumental postlude remembers the slow bell music from the beginning of the song

  2. Solo voice ends with pianissimo repeated Gs (the latter two sung monophonically)