A Life in Music

Vaughan Williams is arguably the greatest composer Britain has seen since the days of Henry Purcell. In a long and extensive career, he composed music notable for its power, nobility and expressiveness, representing, perhaps, the essence of ‘Englishness’.

He was born in 1872 in the Cotswold village of Down Ampney. Educated at Charterhouse school, then Trinity College, Cambridge, he was later a pupil of Stanford and Parry at the Royal College of Music. For a brief period Vaughan Williams studied with Ravel in Paris. At the turn of the century he was among the very first to travel into the countryside to collect folk-songs and carols from singers, notating them for future generations to enjoy. As musical editor of The English Hymnal, he composed many hymns that are now worldwide favourites (Including For all the Saints, Come down O Love Divine). Later he also helped edit the Songs of Praise and The Oxford Book of Carols with similar success.

Vaughan Williams volunteered to serve in the Field Ambulance service in Flanders for the 1914-18 war, during which the loss of close friends such as composer George Butterworth affected him deeply.

Before the war he had met and then sustained a long and deep friendship with the composer Gustav Holst. For many years Vaughan Williams conducted and led the Leith Hill Musical Festival, conducting Bach’s St Matthew Passion on a regular basis. He also became a member of the Board of Professors at the Royal College of Music.

Vaughan Williams was appointed a member of The Order of Merit in 1935, and died on 26 August, 1958. His ashes are interred in Westminster Abbey, near Purcell.

In a long and productive life, music flowed from his creative pen in profusion. Hardly a musical genre was untouched or failed to be enriched by his work, which included nine symphonies, five operas, film music, ballet and stage music, several song cycles, church music and works for chorus and orchestra.