What are the key signatures of ANY of R. Vaughan Williams Symphonies?

Question

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote nine symphonies, and I need to know the keys for all of them. I can't find the key for the first anywhere. Even if they don't actually have an official key, do you know which keys the start/end in, or are played in for the majority of the piece?

Answer 1

Here they are. I've pasted the list below from the website cited.
You're right that the key of the first three symphonies is
not often given.

In fact the Sea Symphony is in D major [even though it opens with a brass chord of B flat minor!]

The London Symphony is in G major.

The Pastoral is also in G; but definitions are more difficult in that this is commonly a G with a flat seventh, and so is properly in the myxolydian mode rather than in a straightfowardly diatonic G major.
This is a characteristic feature of RVW's music, traceable to English folk song. He doesn't give a key signature at the opening. You could try comparing it with the opening of Sibelius 6 [which is also modal, in a dorian D.]
I expect wikipedia has something useful about modes and key structures.

The key of Sinfonia Antartica is hard to define, especially without a full score in fornt of me. The opening melody rises through Eflat F G A B C D E F# and again, no key signature is given. Michael Kennedy's book The Works of RVW doesn't seem to state what key he thinks it's in either. There is a sense of a tonal centre, but it's fairly fluid.

However, here is a relatively clear list from agentsmith:

Symphony no.1 "A Sea Symphony" (1903 - 9)
Symphony no.2 "A London Symphony" (1912 - 3)
Symphony no.3 "A Pastoral Symphony" (1918 - 21)
Symphony no.4 in F minor (1931 - 4)
Symphony no.5 in D (1938 - 43)
Symphony no.6 in E minor (1944 - 7)
Symphony no.7 "Sinfonia Antartica" (1949 - 52)
Symphony no.8 in D minor (1953 - 5)
Symphony no.9 in E minor (1956 - 7)