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"Where words leave off, music begins." - Heinrich Heine

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams was an English composer and folk song collector. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over nearly fifty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.
He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–08 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music.
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. 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.

Featured on

Max Bruch, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Samuel Barber
Bruch / Vaughan Williams / Barber
Sonoko Miriam Welde
Sergei Prokofiev, Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton
Violin Concerto No. 1 | Viola Concerto | The Lark Ascending
Isabelle van Keulen | NDR Radiophilharmonie
Various composers
A Walk With Ivor Gurney
Tenebrae
Various composers
The House of the Mind
Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Mass in G Minor
The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
Various composers
Silence & Music
Gabrieli Consort
Various composers
Subito
Julia Hwang
Various composers
Music of the Spheres: Part Songs of the British Isles
Tenebrae
Various composers
A Knight’s Progress
The Temple Church Choir / Greg Morris
Various composers
'Sounds sweet airs and the art of longing'
Elisabeth Holmertz/Fredrik Bock/Poul Hoxbro
Various composers
The English Oboe: Rediscovered
James Turnbull
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi
Whither must I wander? English Songs
Pike, David: baritone & Trüb, Isabelle: piano
Cyril Scott, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Songs of Quest and Inspiration
Robbert Muuse & Micha van Weers
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi
Songs and Elegies
Quink Vocal Ensemble
Soundscapes
Mississippi Guitar Quartet
Gerald Finzi, Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Oh Fair to see: Songs by English Composers
Donald Kaasch, Peter Lockwood
English Choral Music
Netherlands Chamber Choir