Ralph Vaughan Williams

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Lore & Background

Vaughan Williams was born at Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, the third child and younger son of the Reverend Arthur Vaughan Williams. His father died suddenly in February 1875, and his widow took the children to live in her family home, Leith Hill Place. At age five he began piano lessons from his aunt Sophy Wedgwood and composed his first piece, a four-bar piano piece called 'The Robin's Nest'. He went as a boarder to Field House preparatory school in Rottingdean in September 1883, then moved on to the public school Charterhouse in January 1887. While at Charterhouse he organised a concert in the school hall in 1888, which included a performance of his G major Piano Trio (now lost) with the composer as violinist. He studied at the Royal College of Music under Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he befriended philosophers G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, historian G. M. Trevelyan and musician Hugh Allen. His studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Teutonic influences. He served in the army during the First World War, which had a lasting emotional impact. Twenty years later, though in his sixties and devotedly married, he was reinvigorated by a love affair with a much younger woman, who later became his second wife. He went on composing through his 70s and 80s, producing his last symphony months before his death at the age of 85.

Reader's Guide

Vaughan Williams is among the best-known British symphonists, noted for his very wide range of moods, from stormy and impassioned to tranquil, from mysterious to exuberant. His output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century, strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song. He believed in making music as available as possible to everybody and wrote many works for amateur and student performance. Among the most familiar of his other concert works are Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910) and The Lark Ascending (1914). His vocal works include hymns, folk-song arrangements and large-scale choral pieces. He wrote eight works for stage performance between 1919 and 1951. Although none of his operas became popular repertoire pieces, his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing (1930) was successful and has been frequently staged. His works have continued to be a staple of the British concert repertoire, and all his major compositions and many of the minor ones have been recorded.

Did You Know?

• Vaughan Williams composed his first piece, a four-bar piano piece called 'The Robin's Nest', at age five in 1878.
• He studied with Maurice Ravel in 1907–1908, which helped clarify the textures of his music and free it from Teutonic influences.
• He served in the army during the First World War, which had a lasting emotional impact on him.
• He produced his last symphony months before his death at the age of 85.
• His ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing (1930) was successful and has been frequently staged, though none of his operas became popular repertoire pieces.