Ralph Vaughan Williams

Music / Composers Datebook:  October 12

Brief biography of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, his life, influence and list of major works - symphonies, tone poems, sacred music and operas. His work is much a part of great English music began by Elgar.  He is mainly famous for Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.

Ralph Vaughan Williams is best known for his deep love of the English countryside, English history, art and literature, all expressed in his music. With his affinity in English folk music, his roots surfaced, having been the great-nephew of the naturalist Charles Darwin. He was about seven, when the latter published his treatise on evolution, The Origin of Species. 

Brief Biography 

Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney on December 12, 1872, son of a clergy, and his mother related to Darwin. When his father died, the family moved to Surrey. 

He studied at Cambridge and Royal College of Music in London and at Trinity College, Cambridge, then had further lessons with Max Bruch in Berlin and Maurice Ravel in Paris. His other prominent teachers included Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford. With his friend Gustav Holst, they initiated systematic study and collection of English folk songs that also influenced his compositions. 

He married twice: first to Adeline Fisher in and to poet and librettist Ursula Woods, after Adeline’s death.  He died in London, August 26, 1958.

Brief Profile of Works

Among Ralph Vaughan Williams works are the orchestral Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, considered by many as his most famous work; the opera Sir John in Love, featuring the Elizabethan song "Greensleeves"; and nine symphonies. His choral poems include Walt Whitman’s "Toward the Unknown Region" and Housman’s "On Wenlock Edge", A Sea Symphony (text from Walt Whitman of the same name), and A London Symphony.

His other works include Ninth Symphony, sacred music for unaccompanied choir, the ballad opera Hugh the Drover, and the  morality opera The Pilgrim’s Progress. 

The Mass in G minor is RVW's choral work written in 1921. It is the first Mass written in a distinctly English manner since the sixteenth century. Vaughan Williams dedicated it to his friend Gustav Holst and the Whitsuntide Singers, but it was first performed by the City of Birmingham Choir on 6 December 1922. The work is written for unaccompanied double choir and four soloists, and divided into five movements: Kyrie, Gloria in excelsis, Credo, Sanctus Osanna I - Benedictus - Osanna II, and Agnus Dei.

Later in his career, Vaughan Williams wrote two film scores: one for The 49th Parallel (alias "The Invaders") which was a World War II saga, and "Sinfonia Antartica", developed from his film score for Scott of the Antarctic, a dramatization of the first British expedition to the South Pole.

Ralph Vaughan Williams was part of the great English music began by Elgar earlier in the 20th-century. Although his works strongly depict English folk songs, dances, and church music, his musical interests were far wider, for he also composed great symphonies much  influenced and in line with European traditions. 

List of Major Works (Excluding Operas):

Symphony No.1 "A Sea Symphony"

On Wenlock Edge, Song-Cycle

Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, for strings

Symphony No.2 "A London symphony"

The Lark Ascending, for violin and orchestra

Symphony No.3 "Pastoral"

Old King Cole, Ballet

Serenade to Music

Job: a Masque for Dancing, Ballet

Symphony No.4

Serenade to Music, for voices and orchestra

Symphony No.5

Symphony No.6

In Windsor Forest, Cantata

Fantasia on Greensleeves, for orchestra

Mass in G minor, choral

Symphony No.7 "Sinfonia Antarctica" 

Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, for harp and string orchestra.  (The composition is based on the folk tune "Dives and Lazarus", one of the folk songs quoted in Vaughan Williams' English Folk Song Suite.)

Operas by Vaughan Williams

Hugh the Drover

Sir John in Love, including "Greensleeves"

Riders to the Sea

The Pilgrim's Progress

Thomas the Rhymer (unfinished at his death) 

 

Greensleeves' traditional song with lyrics, sung by Celtic Ladies - here. YouTube, uploaded by Joshua Howard. Accessed October 12, 2020)

Image Credit:

Ralph Vaughan Williams. Karadar.com / Public Domain

Resources: 

The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, Stanley Sadie, Editor.  London:  Macmilllan Press, (1994)

Dictionary of composers by Eric Gilder, Sphere Reference (1985)

Note: My original article was published at Suite101.com, November 18, 2007. / Tel 

(c) October 2015. Updated October 12, 2020. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.