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Born in Down Ampney , Gloucestershire, where his father Arthur Vaughan Williams was rector, he was taken by his mother to live with her family at Leith Hill Place, the Wedgwood family home in the North Downs, after his father's early death in 1875. The other connection was with the Darwins, Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin ( February 12, 1809 April 19, 1882) was an English naturalist whose revolutionary theory laid the foundation for both the modern theory of evolution and the principle of common descent by proposing natural selection as a mechanism. being a great-uncle. Ralph (pronounced "rafe") was therefore born into the privileged intellectual upper middle class, but never took it for granted and worked tirelessly all his life for the democratic and egalitarian ideals he believed in.
After Charterhouse SchoolCharterhouse School is a British public school, located in Godalming in the county of Surrey. It was founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian Monastery in Charterhouse Square, Smithfield (see Charterhouse). Today, pupil he attended the Royal College of MusicLondon The Royal College of Music is one of the most prestigious music schools in the world. It is located in Kensington, London. Founded in 1882 as a successor to the National Training School for Music by the then-Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), the (RCM) under Charles Villiers StanfordSir Charles Villiers Stanford ( September 30, 1852 29 March 1924) was an Irish composer. Stanford was born in Dublin, the only son of John Stanford, examiner in the court of chancery (Dublin) and clerk of the Crown, Co. Both parents were accomplished amat. He read historyHistory is often used as a generic term for information about the past, such as in "geologic history of the Earth". When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of human societies. The term histor and musicMusic often an art/ entertainment, is a total social fact whose definitions vary according to era and culture," according to Jean Molino. 1 It is often contrasted with noise. According to musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez: "The border between music and no at Cambridge, where his friends and contemporaries included the philosophers G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell. He then returned to the RCM and studied composition with Hubert Parry, who became a close friend. His composing developed slowly and it was not until he was 30 that the song "Linden Lea" became his first publication. He mixed composition with conducting, lecturing and editing other music, notably that of Henry Purcell and the English Hymnal. A big step forward in his style occurred when he studied with Maurice Ravel in Paris.
In 1904 he discovered English folk songs, which were fast becoming extinct owing to the increase of literacy and printed music in rural areas. He collected many himself and edited them. He also incorporated some into his music, being fascinated by the beauty of the music and its anonymous history in the working lives of ordinary people.
In 1910 he had his first big public successes conducting the premieres of the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis and A Sea Symphony, and a greater success with A London Symphony in 1914, conducted by Geoffrey Toye . Although at 40, and as an ex-public schoolboy, he could easily have avoided war service or been commissioned as an officer, he enlisted as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps and had a gruelling time as a stretcher bearer before being commissioned in the Royal Garrison Artillery. On one occasion he was too ill to stand but continued to direct his battery lying on the ground. Prolonged exposure to gunfire began a process of loss of hearing which was eventually to cause deafness in old age. In 1918 he was appointed Director of Music, First Army and this helped him adjust back into musical life.
After the war he adopted for a while a profoundly mystical style in the Pastoral Symphony and Flos Campi, a work for viola solo, small orchestra, and wordless chorus. From 1924 a new phase in his music began, characterised by lively cross-rhythms and clashing harmonies. Key works from this period are Toccata marziale, the ballet Old King Cole, the Piano Concerto, the oratorio Sancta Civitas (his favourite of his choral works) and the ballet (described as "A Masque for Dancing") Job. This period in his music culminated in the Symphony in F minor, first played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1935. Vaughan Williams later made a historic recording of the work. During this period he lectured in America and England, and conducted the Bach Choir and an annual festival at Dorking.
His music now entered a mature lyrical phase, as in the Five Tudor Portraits; the "morality" The Pilgrim's Progress; the Serenade to Music (a setting from act five of The Merchant of Venice, for orchestra and sixteen vocal soloists); and the Symphony No. 5 in D, which he conducted at the Proms in 1943. As he was now 70, many people considered it a swan song, but he renewed himself again and entered yet another period of exploratory harmony and instrumentation. Before his death in 1958 he completed four more symphonies and a range of instrumental and choral works, including a Tuba Concerto, An Oxford Elegy on texts of Matthew Arnold and the Christmas cantata Hodie. At his death he left an unfinished Cello Concerto, an opera, Thomas the Rhymer and music for a Christmas play, The First Nowell, which was completed by his amanuensis Roy Douglas (b. 1907). He also wrote an arrangement of The Old One Hundreth Psalm Tune for the Coronation Service of Queen Elizabeth II.
Vaughan Williams is a central figure in British music because of his long career as teacher, lecturer and friend to so many younger composers and conductors. His writings on music remain thought-provoking, particularly his oft-repeated call for everyone to make their own music, however simple, as long as it is truly their own.
He was married twice. His first wife, Adeline Fisher, died in 1951. In 1953 he married the poet Ursula Wood (b. 1911), whom he had known since the late 1930s and with whom he collaborated on a number of vocal works. Ursula later wrote Vaughan Williams's biography "RVW: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams", which remains the standard work on his life.
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