Vaughan Williams and His World

A biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams, published in collaboration with the Bard Music Festival.Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 1958) was one of the most innovative and creative figures in twentieth-century music, whose symphonies stand alongside those of Sibelius, Nielsen, Shostakovich, and Roussel. After his death, shifting priorities in the music world led to a period of critical neglect. What could not have been foreseen is that by the second decade of the twenty-first century, a handful of Vaughan Williams s scores would attain immense popularity worldwide. Yet the present renown of these pieces has led to misapprehension about the nature of Vaughan Williams s cultural nationalism and a distorted view of his international cultural and musical significance.Vaughan Williams and His World traces the composer s stylistic and aesthetic development in a broadly chronological fashion, reappraising Vaughan Williams s music composed during and after the Second World War and affirming his status as an artist whose leftist political convictions pervaded his life and music. This volume reclaims Vaughan Williams s deeply held progressive ethical and democratic convictions while celebrating his achievements as a composer.

A biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams, published in collaboration with the Bard Music Festival.Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 1958) was one of the most innovative and creative figures in twentieth-century music, whose symphonies stand alongside those of Sibelius, Nielsen, Shostakovich, and Roussel. After his death, shifting priorities in the music world led to a period of critical neglect. What could not have been foreseen is that by the second decade of the twenty-first century, a handful of Vaughan Williams s scores would attain immense popularity worldwide. Yet the present renown of these pieces has led to misapprehension about the nature of Vaughan Williams s cultural nationalism and a distorted view of his international cultural and musical significance.Vaughan Williams and His World traces the composer s stylistic and aesthetic development in a broadly chronological fashion, reappraising Vaughan Williams s music composed during and after the Second World War and affirming his status as an artist whose leftist political convictions pervaded his life and music. This volume reclaims Vaughan Williams s deeply held progressive ethical and democratic convictions while celebrating his achievements as a composer.