RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS English Composer (1872-1958). Ralph Vaughan Williams free midi download

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
12^th October 1872 --- 26^th August 1958

Ralph Vaughan Williams (born 1872, Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, England died 1958, London), English composer of the
first half of the 20th century, founder of the nationalist movement in English music.

Vaughan Williams studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in London at the Royal College of Music was under two major
figures of the late 19th-century renaissance of English music, Sir Charles Stanford and Sir Hubert Parry. In 1897-1898 he
studied in Berlin under the noted composer Max Bruch and in 1909 in Paris under Maurice Ravel. About 1903 he began to
collect folk songs, and in 1904-1906 he was musical editor of The English Hymnal, for which he wrote his celebrated "Sine
Nomine" ("For All the Saints"). After his artillery service in World War I, he became professor of composition at the Royal
College of Music.

His own studies of English folk song and his interest in English music of the Tudor period fertilized his talent, enabling him to
incorporate modal elements (i.e., based on folk song and medieval scales) and rhythmic freedom into a musical style at once
highly personal and deeply English.

Vaughan Williams compositions include orchestral, stage, chamber, and vocal works. His three Norfolk Rhapsodies (numbers
2 and 3 later withdrawn), notably the first in E minor (first performed, 1906), were the first works to show his assimilation
of folk song contours into a very distinctive melodic and harmonic style. His nine symphonies cover a vast expressive range.
Especially popular are the second, A London Symphony (1914, rewritten 1915, rev. 1918, 1920, 1934), and the seventh
Sinfonia Antarctica (1953), was an adaptation of his music for the film Scott of the Antarctic (1949). Other orchestral works
include's the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910) concerti for piano (later arranged for two pianos and orchestra)
oboe, and tuba; and the Romance for harmonica and orchestra (1952).

Of his stage works, The Pilgrim's Progress (1951) and Job (1931), a masque for dancing, reflect his serious, mystical side.
Hugh the Drover (1924), a ballad opera, stems from his folk song interest. Riders to the Sea (1937) is a poignant setting of
John Millington Synge's play.

He wrote many songs of great beauty, including On Wenlock Edge (1909), set to poems of A.E. Housman and consisting of a
cycle for tenor, string quartet, and piano later arranged for tenor and orchestra and Five Mystical Songs (1911), set to poems
of George Herbert. Particularly notable among his choral works are the Mass in G Minor, the cantatas Toward the Unknown
Stevenion (1907,) and Dona Nobis Pacem (1936, Grant Us Peace), and the oratorio Sancta Civitas (1926, The Holy City). He
also wrote many part-songs, as well as hymn and folk-song settings.

Vaughan Williams had broken the ties with continental Europe that for two centuries through George Frideric Handel, Felix
Mendelssohn, and the lesser German composers had made Britain virtually a musical province of Germany. Although all his
predecessors in the English musical renascence, Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Hubert Parry, and Sir Charles Stanford, remained within
the continental tradition, Vaughan Williams, like such nationalist composers as the Russian Modest Mussorgsky, the Czech
Bedrich Smetana, and the Spanish Manuel de Falla, turned to folk song as a wellspring of native musical style.
Copyright 1994-1998 Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated on 2022
By Steven Ritchie

And now for the Music

(1506)"Slow Air". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie

(1505)"Slow Dance". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie

(698)"Pezzo Ostinato". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie

(656)"Rondo, from the Suite of six Pieces". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie

(656)"Quick Dance". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie

(628)"Suite of six Pieces, Prelude". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie

(612)"Folk Songs from Somerset". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie

(606)"My Bonny Boy, (Intermezzo)". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie

(592)"Linden Lea, A Dorset Song". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie
(593)"The Lake in the Mountains". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie

(603)"March (Seventeen come Sunday)". Sequenced by Reginald Steven Ritchie

Thanks to David Coronel for the music below. Email (davidc@datstore demon co.uk)
New (3705)"In Windsor Forest". Sequenced by David Coronel.

New (3704)"Festival Te Deum". Sequencer Unknown

New (3703)"Drinking Song". Sequencer Unknown

Thanks to David Siu for the music below.
(3117)"Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, (1921 version)". Sequenced by David Siu.

Thanks to Joshua Davidowitz for the music below.
(3124)"Suite for Viola and Orchestra, No.1, Prelude". Sequenced by Joshua Davidowitz.

(3125)"Suite for Viola and Orchestra, No.2, Carol". Sequenced by Joshua Davidowitz.

(3126)"Suite for Viola and Orchestra, No.3, Christmas Dance". Sequenced by Joshua Davidowitz.

Thanks to Philip Decloux for the music below, Email (declouxp @ hotmail.com)
"Symphony No.5, 2nd movement, Presto Misterioso". Sequenced by Philip Decloux.

Thanks to George Pollen for the music below. Website link on my Bookmark page.
(2931)"Theme 5 variants of Dives & Lazarus,(Trad arr Vaughan-Williams)". Sequenced by George Pollen.

(1046)"Sea Songs by Traditional arrangement". Sequenced by George Pollen

(1030)"A Sussex Carol, Trad". Sequenced by George Pollen

(1027)"Linden Lea, Trad". Sequenced by George Pollen

(1015)"Greensleeves, Trad". Sequenced by George Pollen

Thanks to Emily Gray for the music below. Email (HappyMusician@opendiary.com).
(2807)"The Lark Ascending". Sequenced by Emily Gray

Thanks to Gary Goldberg for the music below. Email (GaryG@ix.netcom.com0
(761)"Overture to "The Wasps". Sequenced by Gary Goldberg

(3127)"Wasps". Sequencer Unknown

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