Ralph Vaughan Williams OM ( / ˌ r eɪ f v ɔː n ˈ w ɪ l j ə m z / RAYF vawn WIL -yəmz ; 12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal music, and orchestral compositions, including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. He was strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk songs, and his music marked a major change in British music, moving away from the German style that was common in the 19th century.
Vaughan Williams was born into a wealthy family with strong moral values and forward-thinking views on society. He believed in making music accessible to everyone and created many works for amateur and student performers. He did not find his unique musical style until his late thirties. His studies with the French composer Maurice Ravel from 1907 to 1908 helped him develop his sound and move away from German musical influences.
Vaughan Williams is one of the most well-known British composers of symphonies. His music covers a wide range of emotions, from intense and dramatic to calm and joyful. Some of his most famous works include Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910) and The Lark Ascending (1914). His vocal music includes hymns, folk-song arrangements, and large choral pieces. He wrote eight stage works between 1919 and 1951. While none of his operas became widely performed, his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing (1930) was successful and often performed.
Two major events deeply affected Vaughan Williams’ life. He served in the army during the First World War, which had a lasting emotional impact. Twenty years later, in his sixties and married, he experienced a new love affair with a much younger woman, who later became his second wife. He continued composing into his 70s and 80s, completing his final symphony months before his death at age 85. His music remains a common part of British concerts, and most of his major works, along with many smaller ones, have been recorded.
Life and career
Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, as the third child and younger son of Reverend Arthur Vaughan Williams, a vicar, and his wife, Margaret, who was born Wedgwood. His father's ancestors had English and Welsh roots, and many of them worked in the law or the Church. Arthur's father and brother were judges named Sir Edward and Sir Roland Vaughan Williams. Margaret was a great-granddaughter of Josiah Wedgwood and the niece of Charles Darwin.
Arthur Vaughan Williams died suddenly in February 1875. His wife then moved with the children to live in her family home, Leith Hill Place in Wotton, Surrey. A nurse named Sara Wager cared for the children and taught them good manners, as well as ideas about society and philosophy. These views matched the progressive traditions of both sides of the family. When young Vaughan Williams asked his mother about Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species, she said, “The Bible says God made the world in six days. Great Uncle Charles thinks it took longer, but we don’t need to worry about it because it is equally wonderful either way.”
In 1878, when he was five years old, Vaughan Williams began piano lessons with his aunt, Sophy Wedgwood. He showed musical talent early, composing his first piece, a short piano work called “The Robin’s Nest,” that same year. He did not enjoy the piano much and was happy to start violin lessons the next year. In 1880, when he was eight, he took a music course by mail from Edinburgh University and passed the tests.
In September 1883, he went to live at Field House, a preparatory school in Rottingdean, England, 40 miles from Wotton. He was generally happy there, though he was surprised by the social snobbery and political ideas of his classmates. Later, in 1887, he moved to Charterhouse, a public school. His schoolwork and sports were good, and the school supported his musical interests. In 1888, he organized a concert at the school, where he played the violin in a performance of his G Major Piano Trio (now lost).
At Charterhouse, Vaughan Williams became less interested in religion and briefly considered himself an atheist. Later, he called himself an agnostic, meaning he was unsure about religious beliefs, but he still attended church regularly to avoid upsetting his family. He loved the King James Version of the Bible, which his wife, Ursula Vaughan Williams, said was “one of his essential companions through life.” His biographer, Michael Kennedy, described him as “a natural nonconformist with a conservative respect for tradition.”
In July 1890, Vaughan Williams left Charterhouse and began studying at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London in September. He took required lessons in harmony with Professor Francis Gladstone and studied the organ with Walter Parratt and composition with Hubert Parry. He greatly admired Parry and later wrote about him in his Musical Autobiography (1950).
His family had hoped he would stay at Charterhouse for two more years before going to Cambridge University. They doubted his musical talent but allowed him to attend the RCM. They still expected him to get a university education, so in 1892 he temporarily left the RCM and joined Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied music and history for three years.
At Cambridge, he became friends with philosophers G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, historian G. M. Trevelyan, and musician Hugh Allen. He felt less confident than some of his peers but learned a lot and formed lifelong friendships. He also became close to Adeline Fisher, the daughter of Herbert Fisher, a family friend. They became engaged in June 1897 after he left Cambridge.
During his time at Cambridge, Vaughan Williams continued lessons with Parry and studied composition with Charles Wood and the organ with Alan Gray. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music in 1894 and a Bachelor of Arts in 1895. After leaving the university, he returned to the RCM to finish his training. Parry had become the director of the college, and Vaughan Williams’s new composition teacher was Charles Villiers Stanford. Their relationship was sometimes difficult but also affectionate. Stanford, who had once been adventurous, had become very traditional and disagreed with Vaughan Williams’s modern ideas. Vaughan Williams refused to follow the styles of Stanford’s favorite composers, Brahms and Wagner, and stood up to his teacher. Despite their clashes, Stanford recognized Vaughan Williams’s talent and wanted to help him improve his music.
At the RCM (1895–1896), Vaughan Williams met Gustav Holst, who became a lifelong friend. Stanford encouraged his students to be self-critical, and Vaughan Williams and Holst became each other’s most trusted critics. Vaughan Williams later said, “What one really learns from a school is not so much from teachers as from classmates… we discussed everything from the lowest note of the double bassoon to the philosophy of Jude the Obscure.” In 1949, he wrote that Holst’s music was influenced by his own, and the same was true in return.
Vaughan Williams had a small income and supplemented it with various musical jobs. Though he did not prefer the organ, the only paid position he held was as a church organist and choirmaster at St. Barnabas in South Lambeth, London, from 1895 to 1899, earning £50 a year. He disliked the job but found it valuable experience.
In October 1897, Vaughan Williams married Adeline. They spent several months in Berlin, where he studied with Max Bruch. After returning to London, they lived in Westminster and later in Chelsea. They had no children.
In 1899, Vaughan Williams passed the exam for a Doctor of Music degree at Cambridge, which was officially given to him in 1901. His song “Linden Lea” was the first of his works to be published, appearing in The Vocalist magazine in April 1902 and later as sheet music. During the early 1900s, he wrote articles for music journals, edited the first volume of Purcell’s Welcome Songs for the Purcell Society, and worked on the English Hymnal, a new hymn book. He later said, “I now know that two…”
Music
Michael Kennedy describes Vaughan Williams's music as a unique mix of simple folk-song harmonies and influences from French composers like Ravel and Debussy. The foundation of his work is melody, though his rhythms are sometimes seen as less refined. Vaughan Williams's music is often called visionary; Kennedy mentions the masque Job and the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies as examples. Vaughan Williams created many different types of music, including songs, operas, and choral works for both amateur and professional performers. His chamber music, though less well-known, includes important pieces like On Wenlock Edge (1909), which combines a song cycle with a string quartet and piano.
In 1955, authors Edward Sackville-West and Desmond Shawe-Taylor wrote that Vaughan Williams's music had a strong, personal style. They noted that his work was not always graceful or colorful, but it consistently showed a clear vision with high artistic quality. They described two main moods in his music: one calm and dreamy, and the other aggressive and dark. The calm mood was more popular, as seen in works like the Tallis Fantasia, Serenade to Music, The Lark Ascending, and the Fifth Symphony. In contrast, the darker moods, found in symphonies like the Fourth and Sixth, and the Concerto for Two Pianos, were more intense and unsettling.
Vaughan Williams is best known for his symphonies. In 1964, Elliott Schwartz wrote that Vaughan Williams, Sibelius, and Prokofieff were the most important symphonists of the 20th century. Vaughan Williams wrote nine symphonies over nearly 50 years of his career. Schwartz noted that each symphony was unique in structure and mood. Music experts often divide the nine symphonies into three groups: early, middle, and late.
The first three symphonies, which Vaughan Williams gave titles instead of numbers, include programmatic elements not found in the later ones. A Sea Symphony (1910), the only one in the series with a full choir, has the choir singing in all movements. It is a long piece, about 80 minutes, and mixes symphonic, oratorio, and cantata styles. A London Symphony (1911–1913) is not clearly about London but instead expresses the composer's personal emotions. It includes sounds like a barrel organ and the chimes of Big Ben. Some listeners heard hints of social commentary in the music, though Vaughan Williams never confirmed this. Schwartz described the symphony as a mix of many different musical elements, much like the city of London itself.
The third of the early symphonies, A Pastoral Symphony (1921), features a solo voice in the finale. Though titled "pastoral," the music reflects a war-torn French countryside, not a peaceful English scene. Some musicians initially misunderstood the piece, thinking it was a simple, rural work. Later, listeners recognized the somber tones and the girl's lament in the finale.
The middle three symphonies are purely orchestral and follow traditional forms. They use sonata structure, specific home keys, and four movements. The Fourth Symphony (1935) surprised listeners with its harsh dissonance, which was very different from the previous symphony. Vaughan Williams denied any programmatic meaning in the work. The Fifth Symphony (1943) was much calmer and brought comfort during wartime. The Sixth Symphony (1948) shocked listeners with its intense and unsettling character, especially the final movement.
The Seventh Symphony, Sinfonia antartica (1952), was written for a film about Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott. It has divided critics, as it is not clearly a symphony or a tone poem. The work includes five movements and features wordless vocal lines in the first and last movements. It requires large woodwind and percussion sections, as well as a prominent role for a solo soprano.
Recordings
Vaughan Williams made a few recordings for gramophone and radio. His studio recordings include the overture to The Wasps and the ballet Old King Cole (both from 1925), and the Fourth Symphony (1937). Live concert recordings include Dona Nobis Pacem (1936), the Serenade to Music, and the Fifth Symphony, recorded in 1951 and 1952, respectively. There is also a recording of Vaughan Williams conducting the St Matthew Passion with his Leith Hill Festival forces. In the early 1950s, when long-playing records (LPs) became popular, Vaughan Williams’s music was more widely available on records than most British composers. The Record Guide (1955) listed nine pages of Vaughan Williams’s music on disc, compared to five pages for Walton and four pages each for Elgar and Britten.
Most of Vaughan Williams’s major works and many of his minor ones have been recorded. There are many complete LP and CD sets of his nine symphonies, starting with Boult’s Decca cycle from the 1950s, most of which was recorded while the composer was present. Although his operas are rarely performed, they have been well recorded. The earliest recording of a Vaughan Williams opera was Hugh the Drover, in a shorter version conducted by Sargent in 1924. Since the 1960s, stereo recordings of Hugh the Drover, Sir John in Love, Riders to the Sea, The Poisoned Kiss, and The Pilgrim’s Progress have been made. Most orchestral recordings of Vaughan Williams’s works have been made by British orchestras and conductors. However, well-known conductors from other countries who have recorded his music include Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Charles Munch, Leopold Stokowski, and, most frequently, André Previn, who conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the first complete stereo cycle of the symphonies, recorded between 1967 and 1972. Among British conductors closely associated with Vaughan Williams’s music on disc and in concert after Boult, Sargent, and Barbirolli are Vernon Handley, Richard Hickox, Sir Mark Elder, and Sir Andrew Davis. Record companies with many Vaughan Williams recordings include EMI, Decca, Chandos, Hyperion, and Naxos.
Honours and legacy
Ralph Vaughan Williams refused a knighthood at least once and turned down the position of Master of the King's Music after the death of Edward Elgar. The only official honor he accepted was the Order of Merit in 1935. This honor does not give a special title before his name, so he preferred to be called "Dr. Vaughan Williams." He received many academic and musical honors, including an honorary doctorate of music from the University of Oxford in 1919, the Cobbett medal for helping chamber music in 1930, the gold medal from the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1930, the Collard life fellowship from the Worshipful Company of Musicians in 1934 (following Elgar), an honorary fellowship from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1935, the Shakespeare prize from the University of Hamburg in 1937, the Albert medal from the Royal Society of Arts in 1955, and the Howland memorial prize from Yale University in 1954.
After Vaughan Williams died, The Times wrote an article about his lasting influence. In 1994, a group of fans started the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society. His wife was the first president, and Roy Douglas and Michael Kennedy were vice presidents. The society, which is a registered charity, has supported performances of his music, including full symphony cycles and an opera festival. It has also helped bring attention to his lesser-known works and has its own record label called Albion Records.
Musicians who came after Vaughan Williams did not follow his style, and his music became less popular in the 1960s. Music that used simple melodies and scales, like his, was not favored in favor of more modern styles. However, this changed in the 21st century. In the year marking 50 years since his death, two films about his life were made: O Thou Transcendent: The Life of Vaughan Williams by Tony Palmer and The Passions of Vaughan Williams by John Bridcut. These films helped British audiences reconsider his work. His most famous pieces, such as The Lark Ascending and Tallis Fantasia, became more popular, and people began to recognize his deep emotional talent. Many modern musicians, including John Adams, PJ Harvey, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Anthony Payne, Wayne Shorter, Neil Tennant, and Mark-Anthony Turnage, have said Vaughan Williams influenced their music.
The Royal College of Music asked Sir Gerald Kelly to paint an official portrait of Vaughan Williams in 1952, which is displayed at the college. The Manchester Art Gallery has a bronze sculpture of him made by Epstein in 1952. The National Portrait Gallery has drawings of him by Joyce Finzi (1947) and Juliet Pannett (1957 and 1958). A bronze head of Vaughan Williams by David McFall (1956) is in the National Portrait Gallery and at the entrance to the Music reading room at the British Library. There is a statue of him in Dorking, and a bust by Marcus Cornish is in Chelsea Embankment Gardens, near his former home in Cheyne Walk.