Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams (12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958) was an English composer. Over a sixty-year career, he produced nine symphonies, operas, ballets, chamber music, and both secular and religious vocal works. His music was heavily shaped by Tudor-era compositions and English folk songs, and it helped steer British music away from the German-dominated sound of the 1800s. He came from a well-off family with strong moral principles and progressive social beliefs. Vaughan Williams felt a duty to serve others and wanted music to be accessible to everyone, writing many pieces for amateurs and students. He was a slow bloomer musically, not discovering his own style until his late thirties. Studying with French composer Maurice Ravel in 1907–1908 helped him refine his musical textures and shed Germanic influences. Vaughan Williams is one of Britain's most famous symphonists, known for a broad emotional range—from stormy and passionate to calm, mysterious, or joyful. His best-known concert works include Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910) and The Lark Ascending (1914). He also wrote hymns, folk-song arrangements, and large choral pieces. Between 1919 and 1951, he composed eight stage works; none of his operas became staples, but his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing (1930) was a success and has been performed often. Two events deeply marked his personal life. Serving in the army during the First World War left a lasting emotional scar. Twenty years later, though in his sixties and happily married, he was revitalized by a romance with a much younger woman, who later became his second wife. He kept composing into his seventies and eighties, finishing his final symphony just months before his death at 85. His works remain central to British concert programs, and nearly all his major and many minor pieces have been recorded. Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, the third child and younger son of Reverend Arthur Vaughan Williams, the local vicar, and his wife Margaret (née Wedgwood). His father's family had mixed English and Welsh roots, with many members working in law or the church. Judges Sir Edward and Sir Roland Vaughan Williams were Arthur's father and brother. Margaret Vaughan Williams was a great-granddaughter of Josiah Wedgwood and a niece of Charles Darwin. Arthur Vaughan Williams died suddenly in February 1875. His widow moved the children to her family home, Leith Hill Place in Wotton, Surrey. The children were raised by a nurse, Sara Wager, who taught them good manners and liberal social and philosophical views—consistent with the progressive traditions on both sides of the family. When young Vaughan Williams asked his mother about Darwin's controversial On the Origin of Species, she replied that the Bible says God made the world in six days, but "Great Uncle Charles thinks it took longer: but we need not worry about it, for it is equally wonderful either way." At age five, in 1878, Vaughan Williams began piano lessons with his aunt Sophy Wedgwood. He showed early musical talent, composing his first piece—a four-bar piano work called "The Robin's Nest"—that same year. He disliked the piano and was happy to switch to violin lessons the next year. In 1880, at age eight, he took a correspondence music course from Edinburgh University and passed the exams. In September 1883, he became a boarder at Field House preparatory school in Rottingdean, on England's south coast, 40 miles from Wotton. He was mostly happy there, though he was shocked to encounter social snobbery and political conservatism among his classmates for the first time. In January 1887, he moved to Charterhouse public school. His academics and sports were satisfactory, and the school supported his musical growth. In 1888, he organized a concert in the school hall that included his G major Piano Trio (now lost), with the composer playing violin. At Charterhouse, Vaughan Williams lost interest in religion and became an atheist for a time, later settling into "a cheerful agnosticism." He still attended church regularly to avoid upsetting his family. His religious views didn't diminish his love for the King James Bible; its beauty, according to his widow Ursula in her 1964 biography, remained "one of his essential companions through life." Biographer Michael Kennedy described him as "that extremely English product the natural nonconformist with a conservative regard for the best tradition." In July 1890, Vaughan Williams left Charterhouse and enrolled at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London that September.