Music to work by: July 2025

July in Sound: Grit, Grumble, and the English Symphony

This month's selection for the working brain is all-English — but don’t expect pastoral landscapes and genteel seaside holidays. This is the other England: dark satanic mills, air raid sirens, and music that scowls rather than soothes.

We’ve chosen four English composers. In order of birth: Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872), William Walton (1902), William Alwyn (1905), and Malcolm Arnold (1921). Yet despite the spread in birthdates, the pieces themselves span just 33 years. That shared period — from the late 1930s to the early ’60s — was heavy with war, reconstruction, and cultural reckoning. And you can hear it.

🎻 Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 4 in F minor (1935)

Vaughan Williams is best known for music shaped by English folk song and open-air lyricism, which makes this symphony all the more striking. It is angry. It broods, paces, lashes out. At one point, the composer himself said, “I'm not at all sure that I like it myself now. All I know is that it's what I wanted to do at the time.”

That says a lot. And if you’ve ever had a frustrating day where nothing is going quite to plan, this is the perfect soundtrack. There’s also a deep melancholy running underneath the rage - a feeling of something bruised and unresolved. If this one grabs you, you might also like his 6th and 7th symphonies, which keep the edge. The earlier ones, lovely though they are, might feel too genteel in comparison - they make me gnash my teeth!

🪕 William Alwyn: Lyra Angelica (1954)

A harp concerto that isn’t all fairies and rainbows? Yes, please. If you’ve ever met a harpist, you’ll know the instrument requires not just delicacy, but grit. It takes physical strength, calloused hands, immense precision — and a car large enough to transport what is essentially a grand piece of furniture with strings.

Alwyn seems to understand all that. Lyra Angelica is lyrical, yes — but it has weight and resistance too. It says, “This is not a fragile sound. This is something earned.”

My friend Rohan Platts is a phenomenal harpist — also kind and funny, but frankly not someone you'd bother crossing. This piece, like Rohan, is a reminder that beauty and strength often live in the same space.

🧱 William Walton: Symphony No. 1 in B-flat minor (1935)

Walton was a true original. Born in Oldham to a working-class musical family, he became a chorister at Christ Church, Oxford, and was later “adopted” by the eccentric Sitwell siblings. A perfectionist and notoriously slow writer, he laboured over this symphony — so much so that it premiered without a final movement, which was completed a year later.

He was never fully happy with it, which is telling. He once said his symphonies didn’t quite meet his own standards — too loose, too sprawling. But therein lies their power. This symphony doesn’t sound like someone who’s trying to sound like anyone else. It’s brooding, muscular, and rhythmically stubborn — a perfect mirror of Walton himself.

It’s also a good companion piece to long stretches of mentally demanding work. Complex, grounded, and never quite predictable.

🌪️ Malcolm Arnold: Symphony No. 5 (1961)

I recently played in the orchestra for Arnold’s Flute Concerto No. 1 — a brilliant, cheeky piece, though perhaps a little short for these pages. Afterward, my desk partner turned to me wide-eyed and said, “Have you heard the symphonies? They’re… a bit dark.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Arnold is one of those composers who got boxed in. He was prolific — writing over a hundred film scores, including The Bridge on the River Kwai and the original St Trinian’s films — but never quite taken seriously by the classical establishment. When he died in 2006, the ripples were modest.

Part of that may be self-inflicted. He had a wicked sense of humour — just listen to his A Grand Grand Overture, scored for full orchestra, vacuum cleaners, floor polishers… and firearms. (Yes, really - I got to play it a couple of years ago, having never thought I'd ever get the chance. Here is a brilliant version from the last night of the Proms. Link here.)

But there’s no such tomfoolery in the 5th Symphony. It’s taut, unsettled, and serious in tone — a powerful backdrop to focused, complex work. If you only know Arnold as the man behind a few comic film scores, this will be a surprise. A very good one.

These is music with grit. They aren't tidy. They don’t resolve easily. But if your brain thrives on tension, complexity, and a bit of defiance, this month’s playlist will keep you company.