Late RomanticRalph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in an English village.
Ralph Vaughan Williams’s life
The big moments of this life, and what was happening in the world at the same time.
A life at a glance
- 1872👶 Birth
Born in Down Ampney on 12 October, son of a vicar
- 1875❤️ Private lifeage 3
Death of his father; grows up with his grandparents, relatives of Darwin
- 1875🌍 Meanwhile
The Palais Garnier opera house opens in Paris
- 1890📚 Trainingage 18
Royal College of Music, then Cambridge
- 1895🌍 Meanwhile
The Lumière brothers’ first cinema show
- 1903🎼 Workage 31
Begins collecting English folk songs
- 1906🎼 Workage 34
Edits The English Hymnal
- 1910🎼 Workage 38
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis; A Sea Symphony
- 1914🎩 Careerage 42
Volunteers at 41 as an ambulance orderly, later an artillery officer
- 1927🌍 Meanwhile
First talking picture (The Jazz Singer)
- 1948🌍 Meanwhile
The long-playing record (LP) goes on sale
- 1958🕯️ Deathage 86
Dies in London on 26 August; buried in Westminster Abbey
Listen to the music
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Ralph Vaughan Williams’s music is still recent: it belongs to its creators and their families. Ask a grown-up to play it for you on the radio or at a concert!
Once upon a time…
Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in an English village. His great-uncle was the famous scientist Charles Darwin! He learned violin and viola and then became a composer.
He travelled through the countryside with a notebook and a phonograph to write down the old songs sung by shepherds and farmers before they were forgotten. He collected more than eight hundred!
At thirty-five he went to Paris for lessons with Ravel, who was younger than him. In The Lark Ascending a violin imitates a lark flying high into the sky.
During the war he was a stretcher-bearer and then an officer. He was still composing his Ninth Symphony at eighty-five!
Ralph Vaughan Williams’s instruments
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