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Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958) Background Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, on 21st October, 1872, the son of a vicar. After his initial education at the Charterhouse School in Surrey, he entered the Royal College of Music in 1890, studying with Hubert Parry. Two years later he entered Cambridge University from 1892-95. During this period he met the composer Gustav Holst, and they formed a long-lasting friendship. In 1897 he married, and later that year he went to Germany to study with the composer Max Bruch, who greatly influenced his views on the importance of folk music. He returned to the Royal College of Music in 1905 to study with Charles Villiers Stanford, and in 1908 studied with Ravel in Paris, who added an element of French Impressionism to his style. |
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First masterpieces Vaughan Williams's musical education took place during a time when English folk-song was beginning to be studied seriously by composers, although little was known about how to discern genuine folk-tunes from composed imitations. In 1902, Vaughan Williams began collecting folk-songs, and in 1906 he edited the English Hymnal. His early efforts at composition included highly Germanic songs and chamber music, but he found his true voice with his luscious Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis (1909) for string orchestra. This was followed by On Wenlock Edge (1909), a song-cycle on Housman's 'Shropshire Lad' poems, and the serene, spiritual Sea Symphony (1910) for choir and orchestra (a setting of poems by Walt Whitman). Vaughan Williams completed his Second Symphony (the 'London Symphony'), in 1914. When the war began that year, he enlisted in the Field Medical Corps, and was posted to France and then Greece, where his close friend, composer George Butterworth, was killed in action. Upon his return to England in 1919, he was appointed Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music. New directions In 1922, he completed his Third Symphony, the 'Pastoral' - a work where his intensive study of folk-song is highly evident - and visited America for the first time. Three years later, he completed one of his most elusive yet beautiful works - Flos Campi, a cantata for viola, wordless choir, and orchestra. In 1929, he moved to Dorking, Surrey, and the next year he composed Job - A Masque for Dancing. His first 'absolute' symphony and his most intellectual work to date, the Fourth, was completed in 1935. Audiences accustomed to his lush 'English pastoralist' style were challenged by this boldly progressive creation. He returned to his more Romantic style with the sublime Serenade to Music (1938), for sixteen vocal soloists, choir, and orchestra. The piece is unique in Western music in that the solo vocal parts were specifically written for certain singers of the time. The piece brought Rachmaninov to the verge of tears at its premiere (he later remarked to Sir Henry Wood that he had 'never heard such beautiful music'). The war years When the Second World War began in 1939, Vaughan Williams composed film music to aid the war effort, including music for 'The 49th Parallel', 'Coastal Command', and 'Story of a Flemish Farm'. His Fifth Symphony was completed in 1943. Another 'absolute' symphony, the work is less thorny than its predecessor, and was highly acclaimed by critics at the time. This was followed by the oboe concerto (1944), the great Sixth Symphony (1948), and the Romance for Harmonica, Strings, and Piano (1952), written for Larry Adler. His wife Adeline died on 10th May, 1951. Extracts from his film score 'Scott of the Antarctic' formed the basis of his Seventh Symphony, the 'Sinfonia Antarctica' (1953). He married Ursula Wood in the same year, and completed two more symphonies, the Eighth (1956) and Ninth (1958). He died in his sleep on 26th August, 1958, of a heart attack. Vaughan William's style is a synthesis of Brahmsian discipline, Ravelian texture and orchestral colour, and English folk-song elements. But despite these disparate influences, his music is totally unique. He was a master of all genres, with the possible exception of chamber music, and was able to write in a rich post-Romantic vein tinged with modal harmonies (particularly in the Tallis Fantasia and the Serenade to Music), as well as create intricate symphonic structures to equal anything produced by the Modernists in terms of complexity (such as the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth symphonies). His work represents something rarely found in 20th century art - music that appeals at both emotional and and intellectual levels. Back to top of page |
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