Who was Ralph Vaughan Williams?
Music Composer.
Date and Place of Birth:
12th October 1872, The Vicarage, Down Ampney,
Gloucestershire, England.
Family Background:
Second of three children (two sons and a daughter)
of Arthur Charles Vaughan Williams, a vicar and his wife
Margaret Wedgwood, a relation of Josiah Wedgwood,
the potter.
Education:
Field House School, Rottingdean, Charterhouse
School. Royal College of Music, London under Charles Stanford. Trinity
College, Cambridge.
Chronology/Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams:
1875: Death of his
father. His mother, brother and sister move back to the family house
at Leith Hill Place near Dorking in Surrey.
1879: Learns to
play the violin.
1890: Visits Munich
and hears the music of Richard Wagner for the first time.
1892: Meets his
fellow Composer Gustav Holst at the Royal
College of Music and they become lifelong friends.
1894: Passes his
Bachelor of Music Examinations at the Royal College of Music, London.
1895: Studies History
at Cambridge University. Becomes organist at St. Barnabas's Church
in Lambeth, London.
1897: Honeymoons
in Berlin and studies with the composer Max Bruch.
1901: His first
published composition is "Linden Lea" set to poetry by
William Barnes.
1903: Begins his
lifelong quest to collect English folksongs so they are not lost.
1904: Begins his
work editing the English Hymnal hymn book. The Leith Hill Festival
is founded by his sister.
1905: Becomes Director
of the Leith Hill Festival.
1906: He became
interested in British folk music and wanted to create a national
musical form. This is reflected in the three "Norfolk Rhapsodies".
1907: Composed "In
the Fen Country" which attracted a great deal of attention.
1908: Goes to Paris
to continue his studies with the French Composer Maurice Ravel.
Begins working on "On Wenlock Edge" which has words by
the Bromsgrove poet A. E. Housman.
1909: Writes "The
Wasps", music to accompany Aristophane's drama. Produces "Fantasia
on a Theme of Thomas Tallis".
1910: Completes
the "Sea Symphony" with words by Walt Whitman.(Symphony
No1).
1911: Begins his
Opera "Hugh the Drover".
1914: Finishes his
Second Symphony called the "London Symphony". Enlists
in the Army Field Medical Corps.
1916: Is sent to
Ecoivres in France and then on to Salonika in Greece. His friend
and musician George Butterworth is killed in action.
1917: Promoted to
the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery and sent
back to France.
1918: Becomes Director
of Music of the First Army British Expeditionary Force in France.
1919: After the
end of the First World war he is appointed as Professor of Composition
at the Royal College of Music in London.
1920: Produces a
revised version of the London Symphony.
1922: Finishes his
Third Symphony "The Pastoral". Goes on a visit to America.
1923: The Unaccompanied
Mass in G Minor showed his love of English Tudor music.
1925: His opera
"Hugh the Drover" is performed at the Royal College of
Music by Sir Malcolm Sargent.
1928: His wife Adeline
is now crippled with Arthritis and the couple move to Dorking after
his resignation from the Bach Choir.
1930: Completes
"Job" - A Masque for Dancing.
1932: Is elected
President of The English Folk Dance and Song Society.
1933: First performance
of his Piano Concerto.
1934: Death of his
close friend Gustav Holst. Completion of his Piano Concerto.
1935: Completes
Symphony Number 4. Awarded the Order of Merit.
1939: At the outbreak
of the Second World War he devotes himself to composing film music
(Such as for the "49th Parallel"), writing and going on
lecture tours.
1940: Composes his
first film score for "The 49th Parallel".
1943: Finishes the
Fifth Symphony which receives a very warm response when conducted
by him at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
1944: Writes the
Oboe Concerto.
1948: Completes
the Sixth Symphony.
1949: Completes
his opera "The Pilgrim's Progress".
1952: Meets Larry
Adler and writes the "Romance for Harmonica" for him.
1953: Composes the
"Sinfonia Antartica". (Symphony No 7).
1954: Goes on a
lecture tour of the United States. His Tuba Concerto is performed
in London.
1956: Finishes Symphony
Number 8. "A Vision of Aeroplanes is performed in London.
1958: Finishes Symphony
Number 9.
Written Works:
- 1934: "National
Music".
- 1935: "Beethoven's
Choral Symphony and other Papers."
Major Works:
- 1907: "Toward
the Unknown Region".
- 1909: "Fantasia
on a Theme of Thomas Tallis". "Incidental Music to The
Wasps". "On Wenlock Edge".
- 1910: Completes
the "Sea Symphony". (No1).
- 1914: "London
Symphony". (No 2).
- 1922:Third Symphony
"The Pastoral". "The Shepherds of the Delectable
Mountains".
- 1923: "Old
King Cole".
- 1924:"Hugh
the Drover".
- 1930: "Job"
A Masque for Dancing. "Benedicte".
- 1932: Magnificat.
- 1934: Piano Concerto.
- 1936: "Five
Tudor Portraits". "Dona Nobis Pacem".
- 1943: Fifth Symphony.
- 1944: Oboe Concerto.
- 1948: Sixth Symphony.
- 1951: "The
Pilgrim's Progress".
- 1953: Seventh
Symphony.
- 1949: "The
Pilgrim's Progress"
- 1956: Eighth
Symphony
- 1958: Ninth Symphony.
Marriage:
1. 9th October 1897 to Adeline Fisher, at All
Saint's CHurch, Hove, Sussex. (d. 10th May 1951).
2. To Ursula Wood.
Places of Interest:
LONDON:
Royal Albert Hall.
Memorial Library, Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regents Park Road NW1 7AY.
SURREY:
Statue in Dorking.
Date and Place of Death:
26th August 1958, London, England of a heart
attack in his sleep at Hanover Terrace.
Age at Death:
86.
Site of Grave:
Nave, Westminster Abbey, London, England. (His
ashes were interred next to Henry Purcell).
Westminster Abbey, London
(© Anthony Blagg)
