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 Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No. 1 is formally titled A Sea Symphony. It was composed between 1903 and 1909, first performed at the Leeds Festival on 12 October 1910, and is a large-scale choral symphony for soprano, baritone, chorus, and orchestra. The four movements are A Song for All Seas, All Ships; On the Beach at Night Alone; Scherzo: The Waves; and The Explorers. Its texts are drawn from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

Rather than depicting the sea in a purely pictorial way, the symphony uses Whitman’s poetry to explore ideas of voyage, human aspiration, and spiritual discovery. Vaughan Williams described the conception as “symphonic rather than narrative or dramatic,” and the chorus plays a central structural role throughout, alternating between declamatory power and more reflective writing, while the soloists emerge both independently and in dialogue with the larger ensemble.

As Vaughan Williams’s first symphony, A Sea Symphony already shows many features associated with his mature style: expansive melodic writing, modal harmony, and a strong sense of breadth and continuity. The final movement, The Explorers, brings together many of the work’s central musical and poetic ideas in a conclusion that moves from uncertainty toward affirmation.