John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress was a fascination of Vaughan Williams. This work from 1942 sets the great speech of Mr Valiant-For-Truth, perhaps prompted by the death of Dorothy Longman, a close friend of RVW.
He uses a unaccompanied altos as a narrator, and then responds to the text as appropriate, leading to the sounding trumpets. The fondness RVW had for the text eventually resulted in an operatic adaptation of The Pilgrim’s Progress in 1951.
After this it was noised abroad that Mr Valiant-for-truth was taken with a Summons by the same Post as the other, and had this for a Token that the Summons was true, That his Pitcher was broken at the Fountain. When he understood it, he called for his Friends, and told them of it. Then said he,
I am going to my Father’s, and tho’ with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the Trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My Sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my Pilgrimage, and my Courage and Skill to him that can get it. My Marks and Scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought his Battles who now will be my Rewarder.
When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the Riverside, into which as he went he said,
Death, where is thy Sting?
And as he went down deeper he said,
Grave, where is thy Victory?
So he passed over, and all the Trumpets sounded for him on the other side.
The Listening Project Blog 