Vaughan Williams served as an ambulance driver during the war and the slow movement of his Symphony No 3, the “Pastoral”, draws on his memories of life in war-torn France.

Vaughan Williams composed the symphony in 1921 as a cathartic response to his experiences during the First World War. In 1914, aged 42, he joined an ambulance brigade and so witnessed the carnage ...

Inspired by the paradox of beautiful sunsets the composer witnessed over WW I killing fields in northern France, the Symphony #3, the “Pastoral,” by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams is ...

Listening to Vaughan Williams’s Pastoral Symphony and you might be inclined to think of visions of babbling brooks and bucolic meadows. The scenes that inspired it were not as Vaughan Williams ...

Vaughan Williams splits his strings into two groups, the second and smaller of which plays at a distance from the first. Within the main orchestra, there’s also a string quartet that provides ...

It was eight years since his Symphony No. 4 and, given the many periods of intense orchestral composition in Vaughan Williams's career, many were surprised that his follow-up hadn't come sooner. In ...

The composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, born 150 years ago on Oct. 12, is one of those rare artists who are more often loved than deeply known. A few of his pieces—the lush setting of ...

Key Chorale presents “A Sea Symphony” Masterwork by Vaughan Williams Hear the 100+ voices of Key Chorale, guest artists Jamal Sarikoki, Suzanne Karpov, and the Key Chorale orchestra on ...

Vaughan Williams may also have been too late to capture the fever for Captain Scott, his symphony suffocated by a need in British culture to move on from portraying heroes with comic-book-like ...