Elgar : Violin concerto + Vaughan Williams : The lark ascending {sound recording} {2003 Davis/LSO/Hahn}

English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire. An early aptitude for music was encouraged by his parents, and he studied at the Royal College of Music in London as well as in Paris and Berlin. Vaughan William's music is essentially English in character, making him the first truly national composer since the show more sixteenth century. He is especially in touch with the English choral tradition. His first major success was Sea Symphony (1910), a choral piece set to words by Walt Whitman. His interest in choral music contributed to his becoming a leader in the English folk-song movement, and he was an enthusiastic collector of traditional folk songs. In his own work, Vaughan Williams often combined folk melodies with modern harmonies, creating a very distinctive style. Among his orchestral music, the most notable are the beautiful Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1909), London Symphony (1914), Pastoral Symphony (1922), and Sinfonia Antarctica (1952), a tribute to the explorer Robert Falcon Scott. Other well-known works include the ballad opera Hugh the Drover (1911--14) and the opera The Pilgrim's Progress (1948--49). He has also composed works for the ballet, for the stage, and for films. (Bowker Author Biography) show less