Ralph Vaughan Williams Artistfacts

Ralph Vaughan Williams song list

Ralph Vaughan Williams Artistfacts

October 12, 1872 - August 26, 1958
Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, England, the third child of a clergyman.
He was educated at the Royal College of Music in London and Trinity College in Cambridge University, where Sir Hubert Parry (of "Jerusalem" fame) was his tutor.
After leaving Cambridge University, Vaughan Williams became organist of St. Barnabas' Church in London. He held the position from 1895 to 1899 for a salary of £50 a year.
Dissatisfied with the music he had written, Vaughan Williams went to Paris in 1909 to work with Maurice Ravel. His studies with the French composer helped him clarify the textures of his music.
The following year Vaughan Williams completed his first significant composition, the popular "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis." The piece is for a string orchestra divided into two sections, using a theme by the 16th century composer Tallis.
His "The Lark Ascending" (1914) has been voted the UK's most popular piece of music several times in an annual poll of Classic FM listeners.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was 42 when World War I broke out in 1914. He could have avoided military service, but he volunteered for the medical corps as a private. With the Royal Army Medical Corps he drove ambulance wagons in France and later in Greece. Vaughan Williams had a dangerous time of it, constantly having to go into no man's land under enemy fire to bring back the wounded.
As well as nine symphonies, Vaughan Williams also composed the ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing (1930), the opera The Pilgrim's Progress (1948-9), and numerous choral works, songs, and hymns, including an adaptation of "To Be A Pilgrim."
Vaughan Williams wrote a huge amount of music for the 1948 movie Scott of the Antarctic – far more than was used in the film. Never one to waste good material, the composer used the music for his epic "Sinfonia Antartica."
Vaughan Williams became increasingly deaf in his old age. This was because of the noise of gunfire he had been exposed to when he was serving as a stretcher bearer in World War I.
He went on composing through his 70s and 80s, producing his last symphony months before his death at the age of 85. (Source The Encyclopedia of Trivia).

Comments

Be the first to comment...

More Songfacts:

Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out The Barrel)Will Glahe

In 1939, a polka craze swept America thanks to "Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out The Barrel)."

BloodstreamEd Sheeran

Ed Sheeran's "Bloodstream" was written after an experience taking MDMA during a wedding celebration in Ibiza; it's basically about all the feelings that he got from that time.

"Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who is about a revolution, but it doesn't have a happy ending, since in the end the new regime becomes just like the old one. Pete Townshend thought that whoever was in power was destined to become corrupt.

Good TimesChic

The disco song "Good Tmes" by Chic was a huge influence on early rap, providing the bassline for "Rapper's Delight."

Dancing QueenABBA

ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson conceived "Dancing Queen" as a dance song with the working title "Boogaloo," drawing inspiration from the 1974 George McCrae disco hit "Rock Your Baby." Their manager Stig Anderson came up with the title "Dancing Queen."

Uptown FunkMark Ronson

The actress Michelle Pfeiffer gets namechecked in the 2014 megahit "Uptown Funk" ("Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold"). When it was released, "Riptide" by Vance Joy was on the charts; that song also mentions her ("Closest thing to Michelle Pfeiffer that you've ever seen").