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PRESIDENT: SIR ANDREW DAVIS CBE

Vaughan Williams 1937
Vaughan Williams 1937

Vaughan Williams 1937 at The White Gates. ©Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust

Albion Music

Albion Music is an affiliated organisation which is dedicated to publishing books on English music and poetry. Its main focus is Ralph Vaughan Williams, alongside other composers. Albion Music will be bringing back to life major books on English music which have been long out of print, as well as commissioning new books on English composers of the 20th century.

Albion Music was formed in 1995 as part of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society but is now totally independent.

To purchase any of the publications below,
please visit the Albion Music website.

Albion Music logo
Book jacket

NEW

The Edge of Beyond – Ralph Vaughan Williams in the First World War

Stephen Connock

The Edge of Beyond – Ralph Vaughan Williams in the First World War is the first book to cover in detail Ralph Vaughan Williams’s experiences in the First World War. The book includes original research on the composer’s period of service in the British Army between 31 December 1914 and his final demobilisation on 15 July 1919. There is also a pivotal chapter, called ‘With rue my heart is laden’, that explores the impact of the war on Vaughan Williams’s music, focusing on the Pastoral Symphony, Sancta Civitas and Riders to the Sea. Stephen Connock refers to these three inspired works as the composer’s ‘Great War Trilogy’.

PAGES 242, including Index and 100 photos, maps and other illustrations
COLOUR  Black and white with full colour front cover
HARDBACK with dust jacket
ISBN 978-0-9956284-5-8
PRICE £25.00 plus P&P (see Albion website)

REVIEWS

‘This immaculately researched handbook to the composer’s war will enhance many a listening experience…This is a milestone work in the Vaughan Williams biographical corpus’.
Andrew Green, BBC Music Magazine, August 2021.
★★★★★

‘…sufficient material was available to enable a well-researched, rounded narrative. From this book we get a sense of VW’s humanity, humility, down to earth attitude and, above all, his firm intention to ‘do his bit’ without fuss or favour.’
John Quinn, Music Web International, 12 May 2021
>To read the full review please click here.

This is a first-rate book which more than deserves a place in any library concerned with the music of this great British composer…

‘Stephen Connock…has produced the definitive account of those greatly significant (war) years in Vaughan Williams’s development, years which other chroniclers have not investigated in anything like the depth and sympathy which is here brought to the subject and its central character’.
Robert Matthew-Walker, Musical Opinion.
July-September 2021, pages 39-40.

For more information about this publication or to purchase
please visit the Albion Music website.

Book Cover there was

NEW

‘THE GREATER LIGHT’
 A Compendium of the Life and Works of Martin Shaw

Stephen Connock and Isobel Montgomery Campbell (Editors)

The Greater Light – A Compendium of the Life and Works of Martin Shaw, edited by Stephen Connock and Isobel Montgomery Campbell, brings back into circulation a number of important works by or about Martin Shaw that have long been unavailable but which reveal much about his life, his work and his ideas. The central contribution here is Shaw’s autobiography Up to Now, a delightfully light-hearted and understated journey through the early years of his life, working with Isadora Duncan, Edward Gordon Craig, John Masefield, John Ireland, Ralph Vaughan Williams and others.

PAGES 442 pages including over 30 photographs
COLOUR Black and white
HARDBACK with dust jacket
ISBN 978-0-9956284-2-7
PRICE £30.00 plus P&P

For more information about this publication or to purchase
please visit the Albion Music website.

Book Cover there was

NEW

TOWARD THE SUN RISING – Ralph Vaughan Williams Remembered

Detailed memories by those who knew him

Stephen Connock began collecting detailed memories in 1996, working in close collaboration with the composer’s second wife, Ursula Vaughan Williams who gave him introductions to people such as: Simona Pakenham, Michael Kennedy, Roy Douglas, Sir David Willcocks, Ruth Gipps, Jill Balcon and Robert Armstrong. The interviews involved those who knew him as relatives, friends or musical colleagues during his long life. Most of this work was undertaken between 1996 and 2003 and, in total, there are now 67 individual recollections. These are what Stephen calls ‘Primary Memories’ – recollections directly commissioned for his book – and 46 have been transcribed in full in Toward the Sun Rising – Ralph Vaughan Williams Remembered.To these ‘Primary Memories’ Stephen added 39 of what he calls ‘Additional Memories’, ranging from Larry Adler to Virginia Woolf. These were taken mainly from published books, magazine articles and broadcasts (UK and USA) and also from unpublished sources in the Vaughan Williams Collection at the British Library in London. These ‘Additional Memories’ are generally provided by people who had died before Stephen began his work. The book brings all this material together in a comprehensive 77 page Introduction.

394, including index and 110 photographs, B/W

For more information about this publication or to purchase
please visit the Albion Music website.

Book Cover there was

MISTRESS AND MUSE: Ursula – The second Mrs Vaughan Williams

A Biography by Janet Tennant

This is the first biography of Ursula Vaughan Williams (1911 – 2007), a distinguished poet, novelist and librettist and second wife of the internationally-acclaimed composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Drawing on narratives and important insights from a fascinating collection of papers, diaries, letters and photographs that until now have been in Ursula’s family, Janet Tennant presents Ursula’s story – a journey which covers her background and early years in a peripatetic army family through to her becoming Ralph Vaughan Williams’s muse, lover and, ultimately, his inspirational second wife.

393 pages including index and 45 b/w illustrations

For more information about this publication or to purchase
please visit the Albion Music website.

Book Cover there was

THERE WAS A TIME . . .

A pictorial journey from the collection of Ursula Vaughan Williams

With worldwide interest in the life and music of Ralph Vaughan Williams increasing rapidly, this collection of largely unpublished photographs of the composer, his friends and family is timely. The photographs are taken from the collection of Ursula Vaughan Williams. They provide fresh insights into the composer in a way only pictures can do. By providing a section on RVW’s family and friends such as Cecil Sharp, RO Morris, Maud Karpeles and Adeline, his first wife as well as fellow composers such as Sibelius, Holst and Grainger, a rounded picture is provided of RVW’s extraordinary life.

152 pages. Illustrated

For more information about this publication or to purchase
please visit the Albion Music website.

Paradise Remembered

PARADISE REMEMBERED

Ursula Vaughan Williams

Ursula Vaughan Williams Ursula Vaughan Williams brings to her autobiography the same evocative use of language, clarity of expression and vivid imagery which distinguishes her poetry and novels. Born in 1911 in Malta, her early life as the daughter of an army officer took her to many varied locations both at home and abroad. Marriage to Michael Wood, a Gunnery Instructor, maintained her itinerant life style, described here with insight and honesty. Her life was, however, to change irrevocably after her first meeting with the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1938. Their friendship, close artistic collaboration and subsequent marriage in 1953 are described with candour, humour and affection. It is a fascinating story, which describes Ursula’s contribution to Vaughan Williams’ life and works in the 20 years to his death in 1958. It was indeed, a paradise remembered. This is a genteel book, written with enormous charm and humour. The stories can be priceless, such as the moment at the White House when Pat Nixon for some reason seizes Ursula’s free hand in a performance of VW’s Serenade to Music. “I was acutely embarrassed,” writes Ursula, “for I knew how long the Serenade is, and and she didn’t, and 14 minutes is too long to hold hands.”

Michael White – The Telegraph

234 pages. Illustrated

Read Review

For more information about this publication or to purchase
please visit the Albion Music website.

Let Beauty Awake book jacket and CD

LET BEAUTY AWAKE: ELGAR, VAUGHAN WILLIAMS & LITERATURE

A collection of papers from the second joint seminar of the Elgar Society and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, which was held at the British Library

The 160- page hard-back book, edited by Julian Rushton, includes a CD recording of Stephen Connock’s on-stage interview with Richard Hickox, recorded the day before Richard’s death.

Contents:

  • Parry, Elgar, and Vaughan Williams: influences and aspirations (Michael Pope)
  • Elgar’s literary choice (Stephen Johnson)
  • There is music in the midst of desolation (Andrew Neill)
  • Character as form: Elgar’s Falstaff (David Owen Norris)
  • Vaughan Williams and literature: an overview (Roger Savage)
  • “The full juiced apple”: literary furniture in Vaughan Williams’ letters (Hugh Cobbe)
  • “O Farther Sail”: Vaughan Williams and Whitman (Alain Frogley)
  • “Music in the Air”: Vaughan Williams, Shakespeare, and the construction of an Elizabethan Tradition (Byron Adams)
  • “They tolled the one bell only”: the remarkable influence of A. E. Housman (Philip Lancaster)
  • “Triadic magic”: the numinous in early works of Vaughan Williams (Julian Rushton)
  • Epilogue: “The light we sought is shining still” (Michael Kennedy)
  • CD: Stephen Connock talks to Richard Hickox160 pages + CD

For review visit Musicweb

For more information about this publication or to purchase
please visit the Albion Music website.

Complete Poems and Fall of the Leaf book jacket

THE COMPLETE POEMS OF URSULA VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Introduction by Stephen Connock

The 160- page hard-back book, edited by Julian Rushton, includes a CD recording of Stephen Connock’s on-stage interview with Richard Hickox, recorded the day before Richard’s death.

Contents:
Ursula Vaughan Williams began writing poetry in 1921. Her first published collection appeared in 1941 and was followed by two other books, as well as novels. Paradise Remembered, her autobiography, was published by Albion Music Ltd in 2002. In 1996 her poems were brought together in a book entilted the Collected Poems of Ursula Vaughan Williams. Given the success of that volume, Ursula allowed Stephen Connock access to a collection of unpublished poems, which he has included in this edition. The memorable short story, Fall of Leaf, is also included. Ursula Vaughan Williams’ work is distinguished by a stylish and subtle imagination and a remarkable sense of atmosphere. It owes something to Yeats and to Hardy but remains an individual voice of considerable importance in the twentieth century.

444 pages.

For more information about this publication or to purchase
please visit the Albion Music website.

The Ingrave Secret Book Jacket

RALPH’S PEOPLE – THE INGRAVE SECRET

Frank Dineen

This is a story about the meeting between the composer and the 74 year old Charles Potiphar, an Ingrave labourer. The old man sang a beautiful folk song Bushes and Briars to RVW and the effect was overwhelming. It was to influence his music forever and change his life. “Frank Dineen’s book describes the background to his meeting and explores the role of two local women – Kate Bryan and Giorgiana (Locksie) Heatley. With wonderful insights and plenty of illustrations, the book is rich in Essex history. For all those interested in English folk song, the life and music of Ralph Vaughan Williams and in the social history of eastern England, this book will be invaluable.”
Stephen Connock  Vice President, The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society

84 pages. Illustrated.

For more information about this publication or to purchase
please visit the Albion Music website.

In Perspective Book Jacket

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS IN PERSPECTIVE

Lewis Foreman Editor

In this fascinating volume, Lewis Foreman has assembled a team of experts to explore key issues, at once both enhancing enjoyment of the music and our understanding of the man. These studies, first presented at the Vaughan Williams Seminar held at the 1996 Reigate Summer Music Festival, cover a wide and varied field. They include the evolution of British music and the dissemination and reception of Vaughan Williams’s music on the one hand, and detailed studies of symphonies, the Piano Concerto, folk song collecting modality and film music on the other. The previously unknown movement of A Sea Symphony called The Steersman is printed for the first time. VW’s role as friend and teacher is illuminated with particular reference to his women pupils, and his friendship with the composer Gerald Finzi. Vaughan Williams is set in his time by the editor’s wide ranging overview.

Contributors include: Jeremy Dibble, Andrew Herbert, Stephen Lloyd, Anthony Payne, Duncan Hinnels, Tony Kendall, John Huntley, Jenny Doctor and Stephen Banfield.

“Lewis Foreman has for many years explored the music of the early twentieth century, producing, among others, books on Percy Grainger, Havergal Brian, Edmund Rubbra and the standard biography of Sir Arnold Bax. He is known for articles, reviews, concerts and CD programme notes and broadcast talks. As the Music Trustee of the Sir Arnold Bax Trust he was the guiding hand behind the Chandos CD recordings of Bax’s music.”
Stephen Connock  Vice President, The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society

240 pages. Illustrated.

For more information about this publication or to purchase
please visit the Albion Music website.

A Special Flame Book Jacket

A SPECIAL FLAME

The Music of Elgar and Vaughan Williams
Edited by John Norris and Andrew Neill

The eleven essays in this volume on Elgar and Vaughan Williams were presented to an International Symposium held at the British Library in London on 29 – 30 March, 2003.

The idea of the Symposium was to shed further light on the music of two of England’s greatest composers, using presenters who could draw the right connections between Elgar and Vaughan Williams whenever this was possible. Contributors include Michael Kennedy, Lewis Foreman, Byron Adams, Robert Anderson, Hugh Cobbe, Andrew Neill and Stephen Connock.

185 pages.

For more information about this publication or to purchase
please visit the Albion Music website.

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