Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos. 7 And 8

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Cat No: 8550737

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099573726

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Description
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)Sinfonia antartica (Symphony No.7)Symphony No.8 in D minorRalph Vaughan Williams was born in the Gloucestershire village of Down Ampneyin 1872, the son of a clergyman. His ancestry on both his father's and mother'sside was of some intellectual distinction. His father was descended from afamily eminent in the law, while his maternal grandfather was a Wedgwood and hisgrandmother a Darwin. On the death of his father in 1875 the family moved tolive with his mother's father at Leith Hill Place in Surrey. As a child VaughanWilliams learned the piano and the violin and received a conventional uppermiddle class education at Charterhouse, after which he delayed entry toCambridge, preferring instead to study at the Royal College of Music, where histeachers included Hubert Parry and Walter Parratt, later Master of the Queen'sMusick, both soon to be knighted. In 1892 he took up his place at TrinityCollege, Cambridge, where he read History, but took composition lessons fromCharles Wood. After graduation in both History and Music, he returned to theRoyal College, where he studied composition with Stanford, and, perhaps moresignificant, became a friend of a fellow-student, Gustav Holst. The friendshipwith Holst was to prove of great importance in frank exchanges of views on oneanother's compositions in the years that followed.In 1897 Vaughan Williams married and took the opportunity to visit Berlin,where he had lessons from Max Bruch and widened his musical experience. InEngland he turned his attention to the collection of folk-music in variousregions of the country, an interest that materially influenced the shape of hismusical language. In 1908 he went to Paris to take lessons, particularly inorchestration, from Ravel, and had by now begun to make a reputation for himselfas a composer, not least with the first performance in 1910 of his firstsymphony, A Sea Symphony, setting words by Walt Whitman, and his Fantasiaon a Theme of Thomas Tallis in the same year. The even tenor of his life wasinterrupted by the war, when he enlisted at once in the Royal Army Medical Corpsas a private. 1914 was also the year of the London Symphony and of his rhapsodicwork for violin and orchestra, The Lork Ascending. Three years later,after service in Salonica that seemed to him ineffective, he took a commissionin the Royal Garrison Artillery and was posted to France. There he was also ableto make some use of his abilities as a musician.After the war Vaughan Williams returned to the Royal College of Music, now asa professor of composition, a position he retained until 1938. In these years hecame to occupy a commanding position in the musical life of the country, with aseries of compositions that seemed essentially English, the apparent successorof Elgar, although his musical language was markedly different. The war of 1939brought the challenge of composition for the cinema, with notable scores for The49th Parallel in 1940 and a number of other film
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