h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Here are a few more details about this amazing piece.

History
Vaughan Williams first met the tune between 1904 and 1906 while he was editing the English Hymnal. Tallis wrote the tune with the melody in the tenor part (rather than the soprano, which is common now) and Vaughan Williams transposed the melody to the soprano line.
The tune is still in the New English Hymnal, albeit (I think) with different words than Vaughan Williams set it to: no. 375 How shall I sing that majesty. The original words were:

"Why fum'th in fight the Gentiles spite, in fury raging stout?
Why tak'th in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about?
The Kings arise, the Lords devise, in counsels met thereto,
against the Lord with false accord, against His Christ they go"
From Just zis Guy's page

Herbert Howells, another English composer, and pupil of Vaughan Williams recalls the first performance:
'In that year I had become an articled pupil of Dr (later Sir) Herbert Brewer. At that time I still feared Dr Brewer as much as I revered him. But round April I was brave enough to ask him whether there was a "new work" at September's meeting. He seemed puzzled, slow to answer. He had, he admitted, heard of the "strange composer... who would be bringing a strange work, something to do with Tallis".'

It was put on right before Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, at the three choirs festival, which was already very well established... & in Herbert Howell's estimation delayed it by about 20 minutes... happily history has forgiven the piece, which made a lasting impression on Howells.


Music
The treatment of the melody follows the seventeenth century fantasia form.

The piece is orchestrated entirely for strings: Two string orchestras and a string quartet. The instrumental groups can be physically separated, and they play different material. Part of what gives the piece of music its magic (a small part, probably) is the changes in timbre between the two string orchestras playing at once, for example when the main theme of Tallis' comes in fully for the first time, as opposed to the solo string quartet (roughly in the middle of the piece). The different groupings come out especially well in the acoustic of Gloucester Cathedral where it premiered.

...Another point is that the melody is modal, part of departure from the German tradition of the nineteenth century. Each scale has a different feel, the modality (Phrygian mode - see entry on scales: ) of this piece makes a change from the major/minor tonality of traditional Western music. The piece is harmonic rather than dissonant.

The piece is also quite hymn-like. By this I mean that it has more block chords with some decoration rather than two or more very different, largely unrelated tunes going simultaneously.

(oops forgot to paste the scales link... http://www.h2g2.com/A355989)

It is less that is works well in Gloucester Cathedral and more that it was composed specifically for the accoustics there. As part of the 3 Cathedrals Festival I think, though I could be wrong about that last bit.)

I knew it was first performed at the three choirs festival, I didn't realise that it was written for it...

yup - but it wasn't until the Beeb performed it again last year for that Television series that everyone realised exactly how clever a piece of music it is.

I still stand by my original critique.

yup - but it wasn't until the Beeb performed it again last year for that Television series that everyone realised exactly how clever a piece of music it is.

I still stand by my original critique.

*remembers now*