“Fourth Movement
“The last movement deals almost entirely with the cruder aspect of London, the London of the unemployed and unfortunate. After the opening bars we hear the ‘Hunger March’—a ghostly march past of those whom the city grinds and crushes, the great army of those who are cold and hungry and unable to get work.
“We hear again the noise and bustle of the streets (reminiscences of the first movement), but these now also take on the cruder aspect. There are sharp discords in the music. This is London as seen by the man who is ‘out and under.’ The man ‘out of a job’ who watches the other man go whistling to his work, the man who is starving, watching the other man eat—and the cheerful, bustling picture of gay street life becomes distorted, a nightmare seen by the eyes of suffering.
“The music ends abruptly, and in the short silence that follows one again hears Big Ben chiming from Westminster Tower.
“There follows the epilogue, in which we seem to feel the great, deep soul of London—London as a whole, vast and unfathomable—and the symphony ends as it began, with the river, old Father Thames flowing calm and silent, as he has flowed through the ages, the keeper of many secrets, shrouded in mystery.”
And yet the composer has been quoted as saying:
“The title might run A Symphony by a Londoner—that is to say, various sights and sounds of London may have influenced the composer, but it would not be helpful to describe these. The work must succeed or fail as music, and in no other way. Therefore, if the hearers recognize a few suggestions of such things as the Westminster chimes, or the lavender cry, these must be treated as accidents and not essentials of the music.”
The symphony is dedicated “to the memory of George Butterworth,” a young composer of great promise, Lieutenant of the Durham Light Infantry, who was killed on August 5, 1916, “after successfully taking an enemy trench at the head of a bombing party.” It is scored for these instruments: three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, two trumpets, two cornets-à-pistons, three trombones, bass tuba, a set of three kettledrums, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, jingles (the little cymbals, or plates, fixed in the wooden hoop of a tambourine), tam-tam, glockenspiel, two harps, and strings.