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According to musicologists and critics, the “English Musical Renaissance” or the second Renaissance of English music, as it also called, to distinguish it from the generation of English musicians of the Renaissance, produced many composers in Great Britain during the years 1880 to 1966. This resurgence of nationalistic musical activity was a time of prolific musical output by composers such as Edward Elgar, Arnold Bax, Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Another composer who flourished during the English Renaissance was Edwin York Bowen (1884-1961). His Viola Concerto in C minor, Op. 25 (1907), is the subject of this essay. Bowen’s Viola Concerto was written with Lionel Tertis (1876-1975) in mind. Tertis, the leading violist of the day, made it his life’s mission to popularize the viola as a solo instrument. This essay explores the Concerto from a theoretical point of view. In addition, the piece will be approached from a performance/pedagogical point of view, with the inclusion of a methodology of study based on sixteen specific technical excerpts drawn from the piece.

Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten were two of the most prominent and popular composers in England in the first half of the twentieth century; however, their musical styles represent two different schools of thought, pastoralism and modernism. Despite their differences, they had much in common. They attended the same school; were heirs of a movement to promote English music, the English Musical Renaissance; and greatly admired their predecessor Henry Purcell. This document investigates how these two composers formulated diverse compositional styles even though they shared a common musical heritage.The investigation in this document is two-part. First, the investigation depicts the origin and formulation of both composers' styles through a discussion and comparison of their musical backgrounds, teachers, influences, and ideals. This discussion includes information on their personal training and ideas, as well as influential movements, composers, and teachers. The second portion includes analysis and comparison of Vaughan Williams' and Britten's Festival Te Deums. The document includes a discussion of the origin of the Te Deum text and history of musical settings. Specific elements of the Festival Te Deums are discussed, compared, and traced to possible origins of influence in each composer's heritage. This document includes an analysis of Purcell's Te Deum in comparison to the Vaughan Williams and Britten settings as a demonstration of the affects of a common influence on their music.The influences and ideals of each composer clearly manifest themselves in their respective Festival Te Deums. The analysis confirms there are obvious differences in their respective musical ideas; however, the effects of similar influences on their musical styles are not always similar. Although Vaughan Williams and Britten followed the principles of the English Musical Renaissance and emulated Purcell, each composer was so distinct in his musical interpretation that it is difficult to recognize the similar influences in the music itself. In this way, both remained committed to their heritage, but each developed a unique musical voice.

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Members of the second generation of the English Musical Renaissance have long been associated with a break from the Teutonic influence of their predecessors to create a musical idiom that is quintessentially English. Scholarship has long looked at these composers, who include those born between Vaughan Williams and Moeran, in isolation from the artistic movements and political and social issues of Europe, when in fact they were part of them. This thesis places these composers within these currents by discussing them as part of England’s Lost Generation and within the historical contexts of Europe in the early twentieth century. Though the Lost Generation is often associated with the post-war period, I propose that the phenomenon existed prior to World War I by focussing on England’s aesthetic lostness in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. The Lost Generation of composers inherited a musical culture that had been aesthetically lost for two hundred years and rebelled against it to define a musical idiom that was quintessentially English. After placing the second generation of the English Musical Renaissance within its historical contexts, I call into question previous discussions on English music that define it according to single definitions largely associated with the Pastoral School or the Folk School. Instead, I propose that the music of this generation was stylistically diverse while simultaneously a manifestation of common cultural influences, ultimately rooted in the goal of creating a sense of community. To support this claim, I discuss the various stylistic techniques of individual composers within their collective cultural influences, including the music of England’s past, the landscape, and English literature. Furthermore, I explore the role of musical community, both as a central goal in the creation of a national idiom and as a source of compositional inspiration. By examining the influences and compositional styles of these composers, I conclude that the music of this generation broke from Continental influences by developing a national idiom that was both stylistically unique to the individual composer and tied to common cultural influences that were rooted in the goal of creating a musical community within England. . / Graduate