The introverted, contemplative Pastoral Symphony is in a sense the counterpart to its predecessor (the London Symphony, above), much as Sibelius's Sixth is to his Fifth. Written in the aftermath of the Great War, it depicts a ‘pastoral’ landscape far from the country idyll that might be imagined from its title (Peter Warlock crassly likened it to “a cow looking over a gate”), much more the fields of Flanders, scarred and despoiled by the ravages of war. As VW himself wrote: “It's really war-time music – a great deal of it incubated when I used to go up night after night with the ambulance waggon at Ecoivres and we went up a steep hill and there was a wonderful Corot-like landscape in the sunset – it's not really lambkins frisking at all as most people take for granted”. Beneath its tranquil, gently undulating surface its highly personal expression reveals much turbulence and vehement intensity in its emotional response to the tragedy of a war-torn countryside. It was first performed in London under Adrian Boult in January 1922, but was later, as so often with VW, substantially revised.

This symphony was often the butt of the cruel humour of Sir Thomas Beecham. Introducing it to one orchestra, he began: “Gentlemen: a slow movement!”; after playing through the first movement he roared: “Gentlemen: another slow movement!”, and so on for all four. On another occasion (this one is more precisely documented: it was a public rehearsal in Leeds in 1931), the final note in the violins having faded away to nothing as directed, Sir Thomas was still beating. The leader whispered to him, “It's over, Sir Thomas. It's finished.” Beecham replied, alarmingly loudly: “Thank God”. Even at one broadcast concert he permitted himself an indiscreet comment just after the last note had ceased (heard by the entire radio audience, therefore); he turned to the leader and muttered quite clearly: “A city life for me.” Vaughan Williams got his own back: asked once whether he was going to a Beecham concert, he replied: “I am not; and I don't propose to attend any of his concerts until he learns to play my music” (Jefferson 1979:232).