Ralph Vaughan Williams

Vaughan Williams and Holst

Two great friends who pioneered a new English style with varying success. Not just the composers of Greensleeves and the Planets, Vaughan Williams and Holst followed Elgar’s lead as two of the standard bearers of the English Musical Renaissance. Both were from Gloucestershire but they met as students at the Royal College of Music in London and remained lifelong friends. I ran this course at Crayford Manor (Bexley College) January-March 2001.

Vaughan Williams – from London Symphony to Lark Ascending

In the first half of the twentieth century English music enjoyed something of a renaissance, much of it due to the work of one composer. In a conscious effort to move away from the Germanic elements present in the music of Sullivan, Parry and even Elgar, Vaughan Williams set out to rediscover the “true” music of England, exemplified by a tune many of us have known from birth, Greensleeves. I gave this talk to the DfE Music Society in February 2001.

Vaughan Williams Works

Below is the spreadsheet I created for the class showing Vaughan Williams’s works.  This was created on a different worksheet program so has not fully transferred. Vaughan Williams Works