Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Harnham Down is a lesser-known orchestral work that reflects his characteristic connection to the English countryside. The piece features a pastoral quality, drawing on elements of folk melody and simple harmonic language...

REPRINT SERIES Ralph Vaughan Williams' Prelude on an Old Carol Tune is a short yet evocative orchestral piece for chamber orchestra, composed in 1953. It is based on the traditional carol On Christmas Night the Joy-Bells Ring, a lesser-known variant of...

REPRINT SERIES Ralph Vaughan Williams’ In Windsor Forest is a five-movement cantata for SATB choir and orchestra (or piano and strings), adapted from his opera Sir John in Love. Based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, the work...

REPRINT SERIES  On Wenlock Edge is a song cycle originally composed for tenor, piano, and string quartet in 1909, which Vaughan Williams later orchestrated for tenor and full orchestra. Based on six poems from A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire...

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Three Portraits from The England of Elizabeth is a suite derived from his music for the 1955 documentary film The England of Elizabeth. This orchestral work, structured in three movements, captures the spirit and historical...

REPRINT SERIES Festival Te Deum for Mixed Chorus, Organ, and Orchestra is a stately and celebratory setting of the traditional Christian hymn of praise. Composed in 1937 for the coronation of King George VI, the work reflects Vaughan Williams's mastery...

REPRINT SERIES   Ralph Vaughan Williams' Magnificat, composed in 1932, is a fascinating and unconventional setting of the biblical text traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary's song of praise. Unlike many settings of the Magnificat, which...

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus is a poignant and richly textured work for string orchestra and harp, composed in 1939. Drawing from the English folk melody “Dives and Lazarus,” which narrates the biblical...

Vaughan Williams composed three Norfolk Rhapsodies in 1905 and 1906, basing them on folk tunes he had collected around the Wash. But only the first of them has remained in the repertory, relished as one of the composer's fondest and most ravishing...

Coastal Command is a 1942 British film made by the Crown Film Unit for the Ministry of Information. The film, distributed by RKO, dramatised the work of RAF Coastal Command.Coastal Command is a documentary-style account of the Short Sunderland and...

Following the composition of Five Mystical Songs in 1911, Vaughan Williams began to compose a smaller scale piece, which was completed in 1914. However, World War I delayed the presentation of the song cycle until 1920. In setting the four hymns to...

Five Tudor Portraits (1935), by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is a work scored for contralto (or mezzo-soprano), baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra. It sets several poems, or extracts from poems, by the 15th/16th-century poet John Skelton, portraying five...

An Oxford Elegy is a work for narrator, small mixed chorus and small orchestra, written by Ralph Vaughan Williams between 1947 and 1949. It uses portions of two poems by Matthew Arnold, "The Scholar Gipsy" and "Thyrsis". The first performance took place...

REPRINT SERIESVaughan Williams often tended to focus on the composition of works in a specific genre at certain periods in his career. In 1913, for example, he wrote incidental scores to no less than seven plays (five by Shakespeare), and in 1920 he...

Job: A Masque for Dancing is a one-act ballet produced in 1931. The scenario is by Geoffrey Keynes, the choreography by Ninette de Valois, and the music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The ballet is based on the Book of Job from the Hebrew Bible and was...

Dona nobis pacem (English: Grant us peace) is a cantata written by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1936 and first performed on 2 October of that year. The work was commissioned to mark the centenary of the Huddersfield Choral Society. Vaughan Williams produced...

First composed between 1897-1898, it was premiered in April 1901 and is considered one of Vaughan William's earliest orchestral works. This attractive work already shows evidence of the composer's emerging musical style and sure grasp of orchestral...

REPRINT SERIESThe 'Running Set' was a folk dance of British origin that at the time of this work's composition could still be found in areas of the United States. Vaughan Williams wrote this piece for a massed performance of the dance at the Royal Albert...