News and Information

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

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’.

For more information visit the Albion Music website

Updated 23 March 2021

New from Albion Records  – FOLK SONGS 2

This is the second in a series of four albums recording all 80 of the folk songs in English that Ralph Vaughan Williams arranged for voice and piano or violin. 57 of the 80 songs have not previously been recorded in these arrangements.

Click for track list and more information 

Updated 16 February 2021

David Briggs

Symphony No 5 – Online at the Cathedral of St John Divine, New York

The Ralph Vaughan William Society has commissioned on organ transcription of Vaughan Williams’s 5th Symphony from David Briggs. The plan was to record it in Truro Cathedral at the end of this month, but travel restrictions currently imprison David in New York where he is Artist in Residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

Our own recording in Truro is now deferred to next August, and Thomas Gould will be playing the violin.

Instead, David is giving an online performance of the transcription from the empty cathedral, and you can buy a ticket for the event for only $10.

The concert will take place on 13th October, at 7 pm (UK time), with a pre-concert interview with Kent Tritle, the cathedral’s Music Director, at 6 pm.  The link will continue to work for 48 hours which gives you time to catch up.

The concert includes three works:

Overture to The Wasps (as recorded on our earlier double album)
The Lark Ascending (with Cyrus Beroukhim, violin)
Symphony Number 5

Click here to purchase a ticket>>.

Annual General Meeting 2020

Sunday 18 October 2020 at 15.00 UK time

Please disregard any previous notifications about the AGM taking place at Charterhouse and the original plans for a post-AGM recital by The Vaughan Williams Singers, and please also note the revised starting time (which has been changed to enable more of the Society’s overseas members potentially to participate in the meeting online).

Because of the pandemic restrictions, this year’s AGM will be held online (with Zoom) and also streamed online (through YouTube). We hope this means that many more Society members will be able to attend.

For full details click on the following link: 
https://mailchi.mp/b9ba2b378f9a/agm

Evolution of Sound talks series: Ralph’s Rustic Revolution

Thursday 3 Sept, 2020, 2pm 

Leith Hill Place

Vaughan Williams collected over 800 folk songs from so-called ‘ordinary people’ around Britain in the years before the Great War. His encounters with this vanishing musical resource utterly revolutionised his work as a composer…and his thinking about what a British ‘national music’ should sound like. But what of criticisms that this was all backward-looking rustic romanticism? Music includes the famous Bushes and Briars, the Norfolk Rhapsodies, the opera Hugh the Drover and Five Variants on Dives and Lazarus.

Click for more information and tickets.

(Details may be subject to change)

The Future

(World Premiere)

A visionary masterpiece for chorus and orchestra that’s never been heard before

Special rates are available for Society members.
Contact the Publicity Officer for more details.

Conductor, Martin Yates, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra are to give the World Premiere performances of a major lost work by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The Future is a large-scale visionary masterpiece for soprano, large chorus and orchestra. Two performances are to take place in Glasgow and Edinburgh on 8th and 9th November 2019.

Martin Yates, who is no stranger to Vaughan Williams or to completing the composer’s unfinished works, said “RVW was working on The Future during 1908, between writing Toward the Unknown Region (1906/7) and probably alongside A Sea Symphony which premiered in 1909, and I feel the work very much relates to the profound consciousness of both.”

With its themes of time, space and sea, which were to continue to inspire Vaughan Williams’s works, Matthew Arnold’s portentous poem The Future forewarns of the erosion of the natural world, from a Victorian perspective, as traditional ways become overwhelmed by industrialisation and the growth of civilisation.

“RVW edited the text to suit what he was doing”, explained Martin Yates. “The work was left unfinished in short score with a few instrumental cues, and literally runs out about two thirds of the way through. I have completed and scored it and it has a playing time of 35 minutes. I have no idea why RVW left it incomplete because the music he has written is absolutely first class!”

For the World Premiere performances of The Future, Martin Yates will conduct the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus, with whom he regularly performs and records, and soprano soloist, Ilona Domnich, who has previously featured in his performances of works by Vaughan Williams and Holst. Edinburgh and Glasgow will each host a performance as part of a programme which pairs two popular Vaughan Williams favourites: The Wasps Overture and The Lark Ascending, with soloist Sharon Roffman; Ravel’s Pavane pour un infante défunte and the 1945 version of Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite.

The concerts are being supported by the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust: the body set up to promote knowledge and performance of the composer’s works.

Updated 23 October 2019

Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea

Earth & Sky: the choral music of Ralph Vaughan Williams

Wren Chapel,
Royal Hospital,
Chelsea, SW3 4SR
Wednesday 6 November 2019, 19:00
Prices from £15.00 to £30.00
All tickets include a glass of wine in the interval (18 years +)

This performance, in the beautiful setting of the Royal Hospital’s Wren Chapel, promises to be unmissable.

Programme:

Mass in G minor
O Clap your Hands
Te Deum in G Major
England, My England
A Call to the Free Nations
The Airmen’s Hymn
A Hymn of Freedom
The Old 100th
O Taste and See
O Praise the Lord of Heaven
Valiant for Truth
The New Commonwealth
Three Gaelic Songs
Antiphon (Let all the World in Every Corner Sing)

Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea
Benjamin Newlove organ
William Vann conductor

Updated 18 July 2019

Annual General Meeting

Sunday 13 October 2019

St Stephen’s Church, London

Members are invited to the Society’s Annual General Meeting, which will be held in St. Stephen’s Church, Gloucester Road, London SW7 4RL on Sunday, 13 October 2019. Please note the slightly earlier starting time of 2.30 p.m. this year. The meeting will be followed by a recital by Kitty Whately (mezzo soprano) and William Vann (piano) – two of the artists featured on Albion’s recording The Song of Love which will be released in September.
We look forward to seeing you there.

How to get to St Stephen’s Church
St. Stephen’s Church is served by Gloucester Road Tube Station (Piccadilly, District and Circle lines), and bus route numbers 74 and 49. It stands at the junction of Gloucester Road and Southwell Gardens; the entrance is in Southwell Gardens at the West end of the church. Street parking is feasible on a Sunday.

Order of Events

14.00 Tea/Coffee
14.30 Annual General Meeting:

• Welcome by the Chairman
• Apologies for absence
• Chairman’s Annual Report
• Membership Officer’s Report
• Treasurer’s Report
• Adoption of the Annual Report and Accounts of The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society for 2018-2019
• Election or re-election of trustees and Independent Examiner
• Any other business
• 15.30 Recital by Kitty Whately and William Vann
• 16.30 Refreshments / Close

Election and Re-Election of Trustees
The trustees of the Society are as detailed in the annual accounts of The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society.
The Society’s Constitution specifies a minimum number of six trustees, but no maximum. All the present trustees are eligible and present themselves for reelection.
Please send any expressions of interest for consideration for election as a trustee to the Secretary, Martin Murray, at the Society’s registered office: North House, 198 High Street, Tonbridge, Kent, TN9 1BE to arrive by no later than Friday, 29 September 2018 or email us at: rvwinformation@hotmail.com
The Society is assisted by a number of “officers” who do not wish to be trustees. We welcome expressions of interest from members to help support the Society in pursuing its objectives, whether as a trustee or in other ways.

Viola Fantasia

Now available to pre-order

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) learned the piano and violin from an early age, but took to the viola while still at school and continued to play it all his life; this instrument is associated with his most romantic and impassioned music. His contemporary, the great viola virtuoso Lionel Tertis, was the inspiration for two of the works presented here. The Cello and Piano arrangement of the Fantasia on Sussex Folk Tunes has been transcribed for Viola and Piano by Martin Outram, and this is its première recording.

Track list:

Suite for viola and piano
Romance for viola and piano
Six Studies in English Folk Song
Fantasia on Greensleeves
Fantasia on Sussex Folk Tunes
Four Hymns for Tenor, Viola and Piano

Martin Outram ~ viola
Julian Rolton ~ piano
Mark Padmore ~ tenor

Updated 13 April 2019

Ralph Vaughan Williams’s A London Symphony: Dazzle Meets Desperation?

LEITH HILL PLACE: NATIONAL TRUST

Saturday 31st August. 6pm

At Vaughan Williams’s childhood home, writer and broadcaster Andrew Green explores the background to one of the great musical depictions of London.

The last of three talks by Andrew Green linking Vaughan Williams with views around the Surrey Hills.

Tickets (including glass of wine or Pimms): £15.00.

To book in advance
Telephone: 0344 249 1895 or email: leithhillplace@nationaltrust.org.uk. 

Also see www.nationaltrust.org.uk/leith-hill-place/whats-on

Leith Hill Place, Leith Hill Lane, Dorking RH5 6LY. Car park off the main road, above the house. 

Updated 20 June 2019

The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Annual General Meeting 2018

The AGM was held at Denbies, Dorking, on Sunday 14th October 2018. Formal notice of the meeting can be downloaded from below, as well as the Annual Report and Accounts.

Chairman Simon Coombs was unavoidably absent, as he was caring for his wife, Laura. Laura’s death on 26 October is reported in a News item below.

Vice-Chairman John Francis took the chair and – with a view to making this, our first AGM video, more interesting – asked a number of the officers and trustees of the Society to talk about their areas of work and current topics. Inevitably we did not manage technical perfection this first time. We used one camera for Section one which did not focus well, but we changed camera thereafter and achieved better results! This is an opportunity for all Society members to put faces to names and to learn something of what we all do.

We got off to a false start – which accounts for the laughter as John attempts to introduce the meeting in a dignified manner for the second time around. The whole meeting is divided into four sections, so you need to click on them in succession in order to witness the entire event. Here is an outline of what happened in each:

SECTION 1 (a bit blurred, 18’03”)
Click here for You Tube link
Introduction from John Francis, Vice Chairman and Treasurer
Leith Hill Place – Dr. Christopher Batt, trustee
Surrey Performing Arts Library – Graham Aslet, trustee

SECTION 2 (13’35”)
Click here for You Tube link
Concerts – John Treadway, Concert Resources Officer
The Journal – Martin Murray, Hon. Secretary
Newsletter and events – Karen Fletcher, Publicity and Events Officer

SECTION 3 (9’30”)
Click here for You Tube link
AGM planning – Roy Bexon, Trustee
Comprehensive Discography – Jonathan Pearson, Trustee
Selective Discography – John Francis
Albion Records Report – John Francis as Chairman of Albion Records

SECTION 4 (13’42”)
Click here for You Tube link
Recent recordings;
The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society English Song Prize
(to be given at The Wigmore International Song Competition)
– William Vann, Trustee
Membership – Mark Hammett, Membership Officer
The Accounts – John Francis
Formal business of the AGM: adoption of the accounts; election of trustees;
reappointment of the Independent Examiner; final questions.

We are grateful to Derek Butler (https://derekbutler.tv) for post production work in the videos.

Feel free to let John have your comments by emailing him at: johnfrancis@albionrvw.co.uk

 AGM Papers 2018

 Trustees’ Report 2018

Laura Coombs

It is with regret and sadness that we report the death of Mrs Laura Coombs on 26th October 2018, from cancer.

Laura was married to the Society’s Chairman, Simon Coombs, but was also a trustee of the Society – recently working on ‘merchandise’; she leaves behind a number of ideas yet to be fulfilled. She has played an active part in the Society’s meetings and events for many years, and will be much missed by all who knew her.

A full appreciation will follow in the February 2019 edition of the Society Journal.

To send Simon a message, follow this link.

Updated 26 October 2018

Discography

Produced by Jonathan Pearson

Ralph Vaughan Williams Society member, Jonathan Pearson has updated his Vaughan Williams discography. This is a work in progress, a labour of love and the culmination of many years work. Jonathan invites interested parties to comment. It is free to use. The only thing that we ask is that should you use it, please credit Jonathan and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society and to please let Jonathan know by sending an e-mail to: rvwinformation@hotmail.com The Discography is available in two formats. Click below for preferred format.

Updated 9 September 2018

Ralph Vaughan Williams

On the composer’s birthday and 60 years after his death
Celebratory Vocal and Choral Concert

Launching two new recordings from Albion Records:

Earth and Sky: choral premières
A Vaughan Williams Christmas

Friday, 12 October 2018 at 7.00 pm.
St. Stephen’s Church, Gloucester Road
London, SW7 4RL
(Gloucester Road Station, Buses 74 and 49).

Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea
William Vann ~ Director
Gareth Brynmor John ~ Baritone

Works to include:
Five Mystical Songs
Valiant for Truth
Greensleeves
And many more songs and arrangements by Vaughan Williams

All seats unreserved: £20 including a glass of wine or soft drink at the interval.

Updated 14 August 2018

We Will Remember Them: Vaughan Williams’s Secret Salute to the Fallen of the Great War: ‘The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains’

Saturday, September 8th 2018 at 5.30pm

Leith Hill Place (National Trust) near Dorking, Surrey: RVW’s childhood home.

A talk by writer and broadcaster Andrew Green to mark the centenary of the Armistice, focusing on new research linked to Vaughan Williams short opera The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains and the sixtieth anniversary of Vaughan Williams’s death.

Vaughan Williams famously remained all but silent about his horrific experiences on the Western Front in the Great War. Andrew Green’s analysis of the text of his short 1922 opera The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains strongly suggests that this is his tribute to the fallen of the Great War and an offering of consolation to the bereaved…while also containing memories of the pastoral landscape in which Vaughan Williams served in 1916 and 1918.

Booking: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/events/fcdc3df8-a797-4724-8bdc-6326b07eb3d9/pages/details

Updated 25 July 2018

A Weekend of Celebration

7th/8th July 2018

St. Martin’s Church, Dorking

The William Cole Church Music Trust at St. Martin’s Church is putting on a weekend of celebration on 7th/8th July 2018.  On 7th July at 12 noon, Dan Collins, countertenor from “The 16” is singing a selection of Vaughan William songs. This recital is free with retiring collection and lasts about 40 minutes. In the evening “The Martineau Singers” are singing a selection of songs related to Vaughan Williams and his associates. Tickets are available on the door at £10 a ticket. On Sunday evening St. Martins choir are performing Choral evensong, again with a Vaughan Williams theme.

Updated 27 May 2018

Toward the Sun Rising

Ralph Vaughan Williams Remembered

Stephen Connock

It might surprise many members of the RVW Society that a book of recollections about Vaughan Williams should emerge sixty years after the composer’s death. Its author, 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. There were even then, a great many people around in the mid-1990s who still remembered him.

Stephen began to tape-record the recollections of these individuals and then, with the welcome help of John Whittaker, a member of the RVW Society, began to film contributors. 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 Introduction. In this 77-page Note, recollections are placed in a broadly chronological order, touching on the main developments in Vaughan Williams’s life. This section also includes separate paragraphs on Adeline Fisher, Ursula Wood, the First and Second World Wars, Vaughan Williams as teacher and conductor and brief comments on Vaughan Williams and religion as well as politics.

Alongside the ‘Memories’, other material has been added, mainly from unpublished sources in the British Library and from Stephen Connock’s collection of the letters of Ursula Vaughan Williams which she gave him for use in this book. Toward the Sun Rising also includes 110 photographs and a number of other illustrations, mostly given to the author by Ursula Vaughan Williams. Some of these have not been published before. Available from Albion Music Ltd, the price is £30.00 plus £5.00 postage and packing.
https://www.albionmusic.com

Updated 14 April 2018

The Vaughan Williams Society Exhibition at Leith Hill Place

The new Ralph Vaughan Williams Society exhibition is now open. Check opening times with Leith Hill Place.

Updated 30 March 2018

Surrey Performing Arts Library – update and how to support a solution

Many of our members will know the Surrey Performing Arts Library, situated at Denbies, in Dorking. A number of our AGMs have been held there. It is a superb resource, containing thousands of books, documents, manuscripts, CDs, videos and sheet music. More importantly, it holds a comprehensive archive of Vaughan Williams material which has been zealously put together by Society member and former chief librarian, Graham Muncy. The archive contains books, magazines, photographs, vinyls and CDs, as well as some genuine ephemera donated by local citizens and the composer’s wife, Ursula. The collection also includes material that was used over the last hundred years at the Leith Hill Musical Festival of which VW was the conductor. Now, with the recent cut backs and Surrey County Council’s financial woes, the library is facing closure. More worrying is the possibility that the Vaughan Williams Collection will be dispersed. A number of options have been put forward but time is running short. Please click on the link below to read the options and to lend your support. Click this link to visit the website

Updated 23 February 2018

Vaughan Williams’s letters

If you are familiar with Hugh Cobbe’s Letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams 1895–1958, you will understand the gargantuan nature of the task. If in doubt, examine the handwriting (not his worst!) in VW’s letter to Holst below and you will appreciate the scale of the achievement. Now, all RVW’s extant correspondence is being published on-line. The work goes far beyond the published book – a lot of the work was done before the publication so that there were 3,288 letters to select from for the publication. However, quite a few letters have come to light since then so that the current total is 4,358. The editors of the project are now Katharine Hogg and Colin Coleman. Hugh Cobbe OBE is formerly Head of Music Collections at the British Library and editor of Letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams 1895–1958 and Chairman of the RVW Trust, of the National Folk Music Fund, a former chairman of the Gerald Coke Handel Foundation, and a Past President of the Royal Musical Association. Visit the website: http://vaughanwilliams.uk/letters-table

Updated 22 December 2017

Beyond My Dream: Music for Greek Plays

“Music of undeniable beauty.” The Globe, 25 May 1912 In 1911, Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote music for three plays by Euripides – The Bacchae, Electra and Iphigenia in Tauris – then newly translated into English verse. Isadora Duncan had danced for the composer and asked him to write music for her to dance to within The Bacchae, and he also worked with the translator, Gilbert Murray. A planned production of Iphigenia in Tauris did not come off, but there was a public performance of the music alone in May 1912. It was described at the time as being music of ‘undeniable beauty’ and Gilbert Murray wrote that the music was set ‘in my judgement extraordinarily well’. The mezzo soprano soloist, Heather Lowe in her recording debut, sometimes sings and sometimes recites the words of the choruses, accompanied by female voices (and additional soloists) from Joyful Company of Singers and by Britten Sinfonia conducted by Alan Tongue. Alan Tongue transcribed the music from parts and scores in the British Library, realising some of it from short score. Albion Records is proud to present more than an hour of unknown but lovely music, from the early maturity of Vaughan Williams, now recorded for the first time. Order Now. Shipping from 18 November 2017.

Updated 14 November 2017

Vaughan Williams in Norfolk Vol 2 CD-ROM

Digital book with embedded MIDI files, by Alan Helsdon This is Volume 2 of the Vaughan Williams in Norfolk CD-ROM (MTCD253), that was published in 2014.  It covers the three Norfolk collecting trips Ralph Vaughan Williams made in April 1908, October 1910 and December 1911.  He met some 22 singers and collected 93 songs from them.  As before, they are presented in staff notation, with full texts, and with link to MIDI sound files of the tunes, and there’s a very substantial page of information on the singers. MTCD254   £12.00 Visit: http://www.mtrecords.co.uk/mt_rec.htm

Updated 28 January 2018

I Love My Love

A Folk Song Collection Arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Cecil Sharp, Lucy Broadwood, Percy Grainger, Gustav Holst, Ethel Smyth and others The English Singers, Glasgow Orpheus Choir, Fleet Street Choir, onchita Supervia, Steuart Wilson, Frederick Ranalow, Leon Goossens, Adrian Boult, Malcolm Sargent, Hugh Roberton.

Updated 9 August 2017

‘Discoveries’ nominated for Grammy

Our recent CD Discoveries (Three Nocturnes, A Road all Paved with Stars, Stricken Peninsula and Four Last Songs) has been nominated for ‘Best Classical Compendium’ in the forthcoming round of Grammy Awards. This is really thrilling news, and all the people who were involved in the long process of conceiving, recording and finally releasing Discoveries are to be warmly congratulated.

This is not the first time an Albion recording has been nominated: our very successful recording The Solent (Andrew Kennedy, Roland Wood, Paul Daniel and the RLPO) was nominated in the same category a couple of years ago. It didn’t win, but we were pleased (as we are once again) to be nominated. Here is the full list of nominees in that category (and I would describe at least some of the competition as pretty stiff – we are in seriously good company): “Daugherty: Tales of Hemingway; American Gothic; Once Upon A Castle” — Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor; Tim Handley, producer “Gesualdo” — Tõnu Kaljuste, conductor; Manfred Eicher, producer “Vaughan Williams: Discoveries” — Martyn Brabbins, conductor; [Andrew Walton, producer]“Wolfgang: Passing Through” — Judith Farmer & Gernot Wolfgang, producers; (Various Artists) “Zappa: 200 Motels – The Suites” — Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Frank Filipetti & Gail Zappa, producers

Updated 7 December 2016

A Road all Paved with Stars

(Study score arranged by Adrian Williams) Jointly commissioned by The Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust and Oxford University Press, A Road All Paved with Stars is a single-movement orchestral work incorporating the finest music of Vaughan Williams’s opera The Poisoned Kiss. Using material from the most memorable songs and sections, including Blue larkspur in a garden, Love breaks all rules, and of course the ‘Kiss’ climax and its aftermath, Adrian Williams has created an orchestral synthesis befitting the composer’s own musical vision. Orchestration: 2fl(II+picc), 2ob, 2cl, 2bn, 4hn, 2tpt, 2tbn, tba, timp, 3perc, hp, str RRP £12.95 (20% discount for RVW Society members) Contact Mark Caddick: Tel: +44 (0)1865 355052 Mobile: +44 (0)7850 289551 Email: mark.caddick@oup.com http://www.oup.com/uk/music 

Updated 28 July 2016