Ralph Vaughan Williams was born on October 12, 1872, in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, England, the son of a clergyman.
Ralph was very young when his father died and his widow took her son and his two siblings to live in her family home, Leith Hill Place, Wotton, Surrey.
He was educated at the Royal College of Music in London and Trinity College in Cambridge University, where Hubert Parry was his tutor.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was the dominant English composer of the early 20th century. He broke the ties with continental Europe that for two centuries--notably through Handel and Mendelssohn--had made Britain virtually a musical province of Germany.
Vaughan Williams started with the piano, but his aptitude for the instrument was considered poor. He found his niche when he discovered the violin. The composer said, "I never could play [the piano], and the violin…was my musical salvation."
After leaving Cambridge University, Vaughan Williams became organist of St. Barnabas' Church in London. He held the position from 1895 to 1899 for a salary of £50 a year.
From 1904 to 1906 Vaughan Williams was editor of The English Hymnal, for which he wrote his celebrated tune 'Sine Nomine' for the hymn "For All the Saints'."
Ralph Vaughan Williams was 42 when World War I broke out in 1914. He could have avoided military service, but he volunteered for the medical corps as a private. With the Royal Army Medical Corps he drove ambulance wagons in France and later in Greece. Vaughan Williams had a dangerous time of it, constantly having to go into no man's land under enemy fire to bring back the wounded.
In 1917 Vaughan Williams was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, seeing action in France from March 1918.
He didn't talk much about his war experiences but his Third Symphony, with its lone bugle plaintive solo voice, draws on those terrible years.
After serving in World War I, Vaughan Williams became professor of composition at the Royal College of Music and conductor of London's Bach Choir. He continued to compose until his death in 1958.
Though he studied for a time at both Berlin, and Paris, Vaughan Williams remained unaffected by continental European influence, and developed a national style of music deriving from English choral tradition, especially of the Tudor period, and folksong.
Vaughan Williams began to collect folk songs in the early 1900s and while visiting the Surrey village of Forest Green in 1903 he heard the original song "The Ploughboy's Dream". The young composer and transcribed and arranged it under the title of "Forest Green."
Between 1905 and 1906 Vaughan Williams wrote three "Norfolk Rhapsodies"' based on melodies from that region.
Vaughan Williams' first major composition was the cantata "Toward the Unknown Region" (1905).
Dissatisfied with the music he had written, Vaughan Williams went to Paris in 1909 to work with Maurice Ravel, even though he was three years older than his tutor. His studies with the French composer helped him clarify the textures of his music. From then, his symphonies expressed a wide range of moods.
In 1910 Vaughan Williams completed his first significant composition, the popular "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis". The piece is for a string orchestra divided into two sections. It uses a theme by the famous 16th century composer Tallis.
His "The Lark Ascending" (1914) has been voted the UK's most popular piece of music eight times in an annual poll of Classic FM listeners. A short work for solo violin and orchestra, the melody came to him on the day Britain entered World War I, as he walked along cliffs at Margate, Kent. The violin sounds like a skylark singing in the sky.
In 1934 Vaughan Williams wrote a short piece for flute, harp and string orchestra called Fantasia on Greensleeves which is based on the famous English Renaissance tune "Greensleeves."
As well as nine symphonies, Vaughan Williams also composed the ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing (1930) which has been frequently staged, the opera The Pilgrim's Progress (1948-9), and numerous choral works, songs, and hymns, including an adaption of "To Be A Pilgrim."
Vaughan Williams wrote masses of music for the 1948 movie Scott Of The Antarctic – far more than was used in the film. Never one to waste good material, the composer used the music for his epic "Sinfonia Antartica."
He insisted on the traditional English pronunciation of his first name, "Rafe".
The composer was related to both Charles Darwin and the potter Josiah Wedgwood.
 |
| Vaughan Williams c. 1920 |
Ralph was very young when his father died and his widow took her son and his two siblings to live in her family home, Leith Hill Place, Wotton, Surrey.
He was educated at the Royal College of Music in London and Trinity College in Cambridge University, where Hubert Parry was his tutor.
CAREER
Ralph Vaughan Williams was the dominant English composer of the early 20th century. He broke the ties with continental Europe that for two centuries--notably through Handel and Mendelssohn--had made Britain virtually a musical province of Germany.
Vaughan Williams started with the piano, but his aptitude for the instrument was considered poor. He found his niche when he discovered the violin. The composer said, "I never could play [the piano], and the violin…was my musical salvation."
After leaving Cambridge University, Vaughan Williams became organist of St. Barnabas' Church in London. He held the position from 1895 to 1899 for a salary of £50 a year.
From 1904 to 1906 Vaughan Williams was editor of The English Hymnal, for which he wrote his celebrated tune 'Sine Nomine' for the hymn "For All the Saints'."
 |
| Vaughan Williams in 1913 |
Ralph Vaughan Williams was 42 when World War I broke out in 1914. He could have avoided military service, but he volunteered for the medical corps as a private. With the Royal Army Medical Corps he drove ambulance wagons in France and later in Greece. Vaughan Williams had a dangerous time of it, constantly having to go into no man's land under enemy fire to bring back the wounded.
In 1917 Vaughan Williams was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, seeing action in France from March 1918.
He didn't talk much about his war experiences but his Third Symphony, with its lone bugle plaintive solo voice, draws on those terrible years.
After serving in World War I, Vaughan Williams became professor of composition at the Royal College of Music and conductor of London's Bach Choir. He continued to compose until his death in 1958.
WORKS
Though he studied for a time at both Berlin, and Paris, Vaughan Williams remained unaffected by continental European influence, and developed a national style of music deriving from English choral tradition, especially of the Tudor period, and folksong.
Vaughan Williams began to collect folk songs in the early 1900s and while visiting the Surrey village of Forest Green in 1903 he heard the original song "The Ploughboy's Dream". The young composer and transcribed and arranged it under the title of "Forest Green."
Between 1905 and 1906 Vaughan Williams wrote three "Norfolk Rhapsodies"' based on melodies from that region.
Vaughan Williams' first major composition was the cantata "Toward the Unknown Region" (1905).
Dissatisfied with the music he had written, Vaughan Williams went to Paris in 1909 to work with Maurice Ravel, even though he was three years older than his tutor. His studies with the French composer helped him clarify the textures of his music. From then, his symphonies expressed a wide range of moods.
In 1910 Vaughan Williams completed his first significant composition, the popular "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis". The piece is for a string orchestra divided into two sections. It uses a theme by the famous 16th century composer Tallis.
 |
| Opening of Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, 1910 |
His "The Lark Ascending" (1914) has been voted the UK's most popular piece of music eight times in an annual poll of Classic FM listeners. A short work for solo violin and orchestra, the melody came to him on the day Britain entered World War I, as he walked along cliffs at Margate, Kent. The violin sounds like a skylark singing in the sky.
In 1934 Vaughan Williams wrote a short piece for flute, harp and string orchestra called Fantasia on Greensleeves which is based on the famous English Renaissance tune "Greensleeves."
As well as nine symphonies, Vaughan Williams also composed the ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing (1930) which has been frequently staged, the opera The Pilgrim's Progress (1948-9), and numerous choral works, songs, and hymns, including an adaption of "To Be A Pilgrim."
Vaughan Williams wrote masses of music for the 1948 movie Scott Of The Antarctic – far more than was used in the film. Never one to waste good material, the composer used the music for his epic "Sinfonia Antartica."
PERSONAL LIFE
He insisted on the traditional English pronunciation of his first name, "Rafe".
The composer was related to both Charles Darwin and the potter Josiah Wedgwood.
Vaughan Williams and fellow composer Gustav Holst first met as students in 1895, and formed a lifelong friendship. They often went on long country walks together, and were great admirers of each other's works.
He married on October 9, 1897 Adeline Fisher, the daughter of Herbert Fisher, an old friend of the Vaughan Williams family. They honeymooned for several months in Berlin, where he studied with Max Bruch.
Vaughan Williams and Adeline lived in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London from 1905 to 1929. There were no children from their marriage.
During the 1920s Adeline became increasingly immobilised by arthritis, and the numerous stairs in their London home caused the Vaughan Williamses to move in 1929 to a more manageable house, "The White Gates", Dorking, where they lived until Adeline's death.
In 1938 Vaughan Williams met Ursula Wood (1911–2007), the wife of an army officer. She was a poet, and had approached the composer with a proposed scenario for a ballet. Despite their both being married, and a forty year age-gap, they fell in love and maintained a secret affair for over a decade.
In 1951 Adeline died, aged eighty. After losing Adeline, Ursula helped Vaughan Williams to refashion his daily existence. On February 7, 1953 they married and settled in London. Their marriage brought him much happiness in his last years.
Vaughan Williams became increasingly deaf in his old age. This was because of the noise of gunfire he had been exposed to when he was serving as a stretcher bearer in World War I.
He went on composing through his seventies and eighties, producing his last symphony months before his death at the age of 85.
Vaughan Williams died suddenly in the early hours of August 26, 1958 at Hanover Terrace, London. Two days later, after a private funeral at Golders Green, he was cremated.
Source Europress Encyclopedia
He married on October 9, 1897 Adeline Fisher, the daughter of Herbert Fisher, an old friend of the Vaughan Williams family. They honeymooned for several months in Berlin, where he studied with Max Bruch.
Vaughan Williams and Adeline lived in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London from 1905 to 1929. There were no children from their marriage.
 |
| Cheyn Walk. By Colin Smith, |
During the 1920s Adeline became increasingly immobilised by arthritis, and the numerous stairs in their London home caused the Vaughan Williamses to move in 1929 to a more manageable house, "The White Gates", Dorking, where they lived until Adeline's death.
In 1938 Vaughan Williams met Ursula Wood (1911–2007), the wife of an army officer. She was a poet, and had approached the composer with a proposed scenario for a ballet. Despite their both being married, and a forty year age-gap, they fell in love and maintained a secret affair for over a decade.
In 1951 Adeline died, aged eighty. After losing Adeline, Ursula helped Vaughan Williams to refashion his daily existence. On February 7, 1953 they married and settled in London. Their marriage brought him much happiness in his last years.
LAST YEARS AND DEATH
Vaughan Williams became increasingly deaf in his old age. This was because of the noise of gunfire he had been exposed to when he was serving as a stretcher bearer in World War I.
He went on composing through his seventies and eighties, producing his last symphony months before his death at the age of 85.
 |
| Vaughan Williams signing the guest book at Yale University in 1954 |
Vaughan Williams died suddenly in the early hours of August 26, 1958 at Hanover Terrace, London. Two days later, after a private funeral at Golders Green, he was cremated.
Source Europress Encyclopedia
No comments:
Post a Comment