Ralph Vaughan Williams was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.
George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC was an English composer who was best known for the orchestral idyll The Banks of Green Willow and his song settings of A. E. Housman's poems from A Shropshire Lad.
English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his Symphony No. 5 in D major between 1938 and 1943. In style it represents a shift away from the violent dissonance of his Fourth Symphony, and a return to the gentler style of the earlier Pastoral Symphony.
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, also known as the Tallis Fantasia, is a one-movement work for string orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The theme is by the 16th-century English composer Thomas Tallis. The Fantasia was first performed at Gloucester Cathedral as part of the 1910 Three Choirs Festival, and has entered the orchestral repertoire, with frequent concert performances and recordings by conductors and orchestras of various countries.
Serenade to Music is an orchestral concert work completed in 1938 by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, written as a tribute to conductor Sir Henry Wood. It features an orchestra and 16 vocal soloists, with lyrics adapted from the discussion about music and the music of the spheres from Act V, Scene I from the play The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. Vaughan Williams later arranged the piece into versions for chorus and orchestra and solo violin and orchestra.
A Sea Symphony is an hour-long work for soprano, baritone, chorus and large orchestra written by Ralph Vaughan Williams between 1903 and 1909. The first and longest of his nine symphonies, it was first performed at the Leeds Festival in 1910 with the composer conducting, and its maturity belies the relatively young age – 30 – when he began sketching it. Moreover it is one of the first symphonies in which a chorus is used throughout as an integral part of the texture and it helped set the stage for a new era of symphonic and choral music in Britain during the first half of the 20th century. It was never numbered.
Herbert Whitton Sumsion was an English musician who was organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1928 to 1967. Through his leadership role with the Three Choirs Festival, Sumsion maintained close associations with major figures in England's 20th-century musical renaissance, including Edward Elgar, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Although Sumsion is known primarily as a cathedral musician, his professional career spanned more than 60 years and encompassed composing, conducting, performing, accompanying, and teaching. His compositions include works for choir and organ, as well as lesser-known chamber and orchestral works.
Sinfonia antartica is the Italian title given by Ralph Vaughan Williams to his seventh symphony, first performed in 1953. It drew on incidental music the composer had written for the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic.
Songs of Travel is a song cycle of nine songs originally written for baritone voice composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams, with poems drawn from the Robert Louis Stevenson collection Songs of Travel and Other Verses. A complete performance of the entire cycle lasts between 20 and 24 minutes.
Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus is a work for harp and string orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The composition is based on the folk tune "Dives and Lazarus", one of the folk songs quoted in Vaughan Williams' English Folk Song Suite.
Patrick Arthur Sheldon Hadley was a British composer.
Reginald Owen Morris, known professionally and by his friends by his initials, as R.O. Morris, was a British composer and teacher.
Sea Songs is an arrangement of three British sea-songs by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It is based on the songs "Princess Royal", "Admiral Benbow" and "Portsmouth". The work is a march of roughly four minutes duration. It follows a ternary structure, with opening material based on "Princess Royal" and "Admiral Benbow", with "Portsmouth" forming the central section before a return to the opening material featuring the first two songs.
John Noble was an English baritone. He was Ralph Vaughan Williams's favourite in the title role of the composer's opera The Pilgrim's Progress.
Richard Roy Douglas was an English composer, pianist and arranger. He worked as musical assistant to Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton, and Richard Addinsell, made well-known orchestrations of works such as Les Sylphides and Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto, and wrote a quantity of original music.
Fantasia on Christmas Carols is a 1912 work for baritone, chorus, and orchestra by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Roderick Gregory Coleman Williams OBE is a British baritone and composer.
William Walton's music for the 1944 film Henry V has been arranged by several musicians for non-cinematic performances. The first suite was arranged in 1945 by the conductor Malcolm Sargent. In 1963 Muir Mathieson, who had conducted the music for the original film soundtrack, arranged a longer suite, and in 1988 the musicologist Christopher Palmer constructed an hour-long "Shakespeare Scenario" using most of the music Walton composed for the film.
The Lark Ascending is a short, single-movement work by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, inspired by the 1881 poem of the same name by the English writer George Meredith. It was originally for violin and piano, completed in 1914, but not performed until 1920. The composer reworked it for solo violin and orchestra after the First World War. This version, in which the work is chiefly known, was first performed in 1921. It is subtitled "A Romance", a term that Vaughan Williams favoured for contemplative slow music.
