Vally Lasker’s piano transcription of Vaughn Williams’ London Symphony

On 14 Jun 2026 Duncan Honeybourne performed Vally Lasker’s piano arrangement of Ralph Vaughn Williams London Symphony 

at

South Somerset Music Centre, 

The Methodist School Room, South St, 

Crewkerne TA18 8DB.

Duncan Honeybourne concentrates on 20th and 21st-century British and Irish piano music. He is widely regarded as a leading "champion" and advocate for this repertoire, frequently performing and recording works that are neglected or forgotten.

This performance of the piano version of the London Symphony will showcase undoubted virtuosity and physicality. Arranging an orchestral piece for a solo piano presents some obvious significant challenges, primarily translating a wide range of instrumental timbres, dynamics, and sustained textures into a single percussive instrument. There are extreme contrasts between strings and brass for instance and some long very quiet sustained notes. How will the pianist carry such a length of sustain through? And what about those shimmering string passages? Then, does the piano version focus more on melodic lines and crucial harmonic support while sacrificing inner voices?

In fin-de-siècle London, women composers and musicians did gain some prominence, despite patriarchal restrictions. They flourished through new venues like ladies' orchestras, private salons, and educational institutions like the Royal College of Music. Key figures included Dame Ethel Smyth and Liza Lehmann, women who challenged musical conventions. There is plenty to read about RVW’s life and times and learn about his musical journey and friendship with Holst, but what about the woman behind this amazing piano transcription, Vally Lasker? And also what about Nora Day ? These two women played a fundamental and supportive role in the creative lives of Vaughn Williams and also Gustav Holst. They must have been superb pianists themselves and were wonderful team players. Lasker created piano reductions for rehearsal purposes of works by both Holst and Vaughan Williams. 

Vally Lasker was a musician, conductor, and teacher who was a close assistant to Gustav Holst at St Paul's Girls School. But, like the author’s wife who proof-reads, edits and types up copy, acts as a critic, support and PA, Vally Lasker gets very little mention in books on RVW.  Her early life was closely connected to Gustav Holst. Born in 1885, she was educated at Morley College while Holst was director of music there, and later taught music at St Paul's Girls' School, Hammersmith, as assistant to Holst, who was also head of music. She arranged several works by Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams for piano and was a regular participant in the Whitsun festival established at Thaxted, Essex, by Holst in 1916 for both amateur and professional musicians. She was also a singer in the Whitsuntide Singers, giving concerts for Holst's festivals at Thaxted, Dulwich, Canterbury, Chichester and Bosham. 

Originally, Holst composed The Planets on the piano. The piece was composed in a version for four hands, two pianos and was scored by Vally Lasker and Nora Day, who acted as amanuenses. The help of colleagues was necessary due to neuritis pain which Holst frequently suffered in his right hand. Holst once described the women as his ‘three right hands’ and Imogen Holst, the composer’s daughter, described their role in completing the 198 pages of the full score as ‘invaluable.’ As it was being composed, Vally Lasker and Nora Day played the two piano version to Holst, movement by movement. They continued to play this version in concerts and rehearsals in various parts of the country, and also to visiting conductors, including Adrian Boult.

Lasker and Nora Day frequently performed piano versions of RVW's new orchestral sketches so he could hear the harmonic structure before orchestration. Her other key solo piano arrangements included RVW’s Pastoral Symphony and his Symphony No. 4 in F minor: Correspondence suggests her involvement in arranging or preparing this work for keyboard performance, often in collaboration with the composer for "try-throughs". 

Lasker and her colleague Nora Day frequently played through this work for the  composer before its completion, and she provided a solo piano version for publication and is Returning the actual symphony in question, there are many interesting aspects to explore. For instance, the London Symphony has been described as atmospheric programme music. There are a number of obvious references to the sounds of London within the music. Programmatic Elements  include a stern march, an evocation of the hustle and bustle of city life, the chimes of Big Ben and the “Who will Buy My Lavender” street call. The haunting Epilogue is inspired by the final chapter of H.G. Wells' masterpiece, Tono Bungay, which depicts a journey down the Thames. 

Programme music has sometimes been scorned. I remember at music college it was declared that Beethoven’s Pastoral was the first piece of programme music and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture were examples representing its Romantic height. But music, art, poetry and stories have always had potential to be interlinked.

RVW himself wrote:

 “It has been suggested that this symphony has been misnamed, it should rather be called ‘Symphony by a Londoner’. That is to say it is in no sense descriptive, and though the introduction of the ‘Westminster Chimes’ in the first movement, the slight reminiscence of the ‘Lavender cry’ in the slow movement, and the very faint suggestion of mouth-organs and mechanical pianos in the scherzo give it a tinge of ‘local colour’, it is intended to be listened to as ‘absolute’ music. Hearers may, if they like, localize the various themes and movements, but it is hoped that this is not a necessary part of the music.”

The intention was that the dramatic arc is musical.

Mallarme quote: 

“Paint not the thing but the effect which it produces” 

LH June 2026