Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer
His Music is Famous for Love of English History, Art and Culture
Brief biography of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams - his life, influence and list of major works. Famous for "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis."
English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams is best known for his deep love of his native land's 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 Darwin published his treatise on evolution, The Origin of Species.
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 married twice: first to Adeline Fisher, then after her death, to poet and librettist Ursula Woods.
Early Training and Compositions
He studied at Cambridge and Royal College of Music in London and at Trinity College, Cambridge, then had further lessons with Bruch in Berlin and Ravel in Paris. His other prominent teachers included Parry and Stanford. With his friend Gustav Holst, they initiated systematic study and collection of English folksongs, that also influenced his compositions.
Among his 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 "Greensleaves"; and nine symphonies. His choral poems include Walt Whitman’s Toward the Unknown Region and Housman’s On Wenlock Edge, A Sea Symphony, 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.
Later Compositions
Later in his career he 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.
He was part of the great English music began by Edward Elgar earlier in the 20th-century. Although his works strongly depict English folk songs and dances, and English church music, his musical interests were far wider, for he also composed great symphonies much influenced and in line with European traditions. He died in 1958, buried in Westminster Abbey.
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
- Symphony No.7 "Sinfonia Antarctica"
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)
Sources:
The Great Composers by Wendy Thompson, Hermes House, 2001
The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, Macmilllan Press, 1994
Dictionary of composers by Eric Gilder, Sphere Reference, 1985
