Vaughan Williams - The Water Mill (1922)

'The Water Mill' is another song by Vaughan Williams where, like 'The Splendour Falls', he writes a simple melodic line whilst using the piano accompaniment to colour the words of the poem, written by Fredegond Shove.

The piano introduction begins with a legato repeating 1 bar phrase in the right hand and staccato broken chord quavers in the left, painting the image of the turning of the water wheel against moving pistons (or similar). This accompaniment is continued throughout the first verse, with the upper line in the right hand doubling the vocal part on occasion. Vaughan Williams sets with vocal line with occasional long notes amongst short notes, allowing him to set emphasis on the syllables which lie on the long notes.

By using this motif repeatedly in the accompaniment Vaughan Williams is able to keep a sense of movement to the song. Occasionally Vaughan Williams will break off from this Water Mill motif in the accompaniment but it always returns, painting the picture of the continuous nature of the scene; regardless of what else is going on, the water wheel keeps turning. An example is in the third verse where the text describes the miller's cat playing in the loft; the accompaniment changes to a more legato line with crochet chords and less movement in the right hand. As the words change to "the wheel goes round", the right hand plays semiquaver rising and descending scales to mimic the rise and fall of water through the water wheel. The accompaniment then changes again to molto marcato quavers in both hands to sound like a ticking clock which then perfectly introduces the vocal line "there is a clock inside the house". The semiquaver passage returns for the vocal line "they play in the twilit pool".

When the text changes to talk about the Miller's daughter's love life, Vaughan Williams uses legato rising broken chords in the accompaniment, reminiscent of Romantic era lieder. He alters the tempo of the music momentarily to match the hesitance of the Miller's daughter. Vaughan Williams then uses triplets instead of quavers to symbolise the tired nature of the scene as everybody prepares for bed. As the vocal line fades out, the piano accompaniment returns to the music of the introduction with no rit by a diminuendo to symbolise the water wheel still turning as the night draws in.