More than a generation older than his compatriot Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, along with his contemporary Gustav Holst and a few others, was one of the composers who followed the lead of Edward Elgar in helping to bring England back into the mainstream of European musical creativity. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London, and eventually went abroad for lessons with Bruch and Ravel; the latter was three years his junior. Although Vaughan Williams did not imitate these masters, his work with them seemed to give him a large measure of professional self-confidence and spiritual freedom, for on his return to England he began to produce the large body of characterful and important works that were his main preoccupation for the rest of his long life: operas, ballets, nine symphonies (among the most significant contributions to the form in this century), choral and solo vocal pieces, chamber and keyboard works and a good deal of film music. He was keenly aware of the necessity of bringing fresh vigour to England's musical life, and he worked hard as a teacher, conductor and proselytiser. He said that a composer ought to "make his art an expression of the whole life of the community", but Michael Kennedy has pointed out that, paradoxically, Vaughan Williams was "a very personal composer rather than a state laureate ... [His music's] visionary quality..., its broad humanity, and its appeal at several levels make it a remarkable expression of the national spirit in music, just as the man himself personified all that was best in the liberal 19th century tradition." Vaughan Williams died on 26 August 1958, and his ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey, near Purcell's burial place.

Harvey Sachs

Biographical notes (c) 1996, by permission of Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

A selection of major works:

Orchestral: Charterhouse Suite, Concert accademico (violin and orchestra), Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra, Concerto grosso, English Folk Song Suite, Fantasia on a Theme by Tallis, Fantasia on "Greensleeves", Fantasy of "Sussex Folk Tunes", In the Fen Country, Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1, Oboe Concerto, Partita for Double String Orchestra, Piano Concerto, Romance (harmonica, strings and piano), Sea Songs, 9 Symphonies (including No. 1 "A Sea Symphony", No. 2 "A London Symphony", No. 3 "A Pastoral Symphony", No. 7 "Sinfonia antartica"), 5 Variants of "Dives and Lazarus"

Chamber: Phantasy Quintet, 2 String Quartets, Violin Sonata, 6 Studies in English Folk Song (cello and piano), Suite de ballet (flute and piano)

Instrumental solo: Prelude and Fugue (organ), 3 Preludes on Welsh Hymn-Tunes (organ)

Vocal/Choral: 10 Blake Songs, 3 Choral Hymns, Dona nobis pacem (cantata), 3 Elizabethan Songs, The English Hymnal, Epithalamion (cantata), Fantasia on Christmas Carols, Festival Te Deum, Folk Songs of the Four Seasons (cantata), Four Hymns, The House of Life, Hymns, Magnificat, Mass, Motets, 5 Mystical Songs, On Wenlock Edge, 4 Poems by Fredegond Shove, Sancta civitas (oratorio), Serenade to Music, 3 Shakespeare Songs, Songs of Travel, 7 Songs from "The Pilgrim's Progress", Te Deum Stage works:

Operas: Hugh the Drover, The Poisoned Kiss, Riders to the Sea

Incidental music: A Bunyan Sequence, The Wasps