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John Barbirolli
John Barbirolli
British conductor and cellist
1
Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
English composer
2
Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult
English conductor
3
Douglas Lilburn
Douglas Lilburn
New Zealand composer
4
Arthur Bliss
Arthur Bliss
British composer
5
William Walton
William Walton
English composer
6
Hubert Parry
Hubert Parry
British composer, teacher and historian of music
7
Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
English composer
8
Herbert Howells
Herbert Howells
English composer, organist and teacher
9
Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
English composer, conductor, and pianist
10
Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
English conductor, organist and composer
11
Arnold Bax
Arnold Bax
English composer and poet
12
Albert Coates
Albert Coates
British conductor
13
Hamilton Harty
Hamilton Harty
Irish composer, conductor, pianist and organist
14
BBC Symphony Orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra
British orchestra based in London
15
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
French Romantic composer
16
Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
French composer
17
Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
French composer
18
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
English composer
19
Charles Groves
Charles Groves
British conductor
20
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson
American composer and critic
21
Paul Dukas
Paul Dukas
French composer
22
Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
German composer and orchestra director
Intro
English composer
Record Labels
Awards Received
Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal
Albert Medal
Member of, past and present
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Vaughan Williams c. 1920

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM (/reɪf vɔːn/ (listen); 12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.

Vaughan Williams was born to a well-to-do family with strong moral views and a progressive social life. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens, and believed in making music as available as possible to everybody. He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Teutonic influences.

Vaughan Williams is among the best-known British symphonists, noted for his very wide range of moods, from stormy and impassioned to tranquil, from mysterious to exuberant. Among the most familiar of his other concert works are Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910) and The Lark Ascending (1914). His vocal works include hymns, folk-song arrangements and large-scale choral pieces. He wrote eight works for stage performance between 1919 and 1951. Although none of his operas became popular repertoire pieces, his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing (1930) was successful and has been frequently staged.

Two episodes made notably deep impressions in Vaughan Williams's personal life. The First World War, in which he served in the army, had a lasting emotional effect. Twenty years later, though in his sixties and devotedly married, he was reinvigorated by a love affair with a much younger woman, who later became his second wife. He went on composing through his seventies and eighties, producing his last symphony months before his death at the age of eighty-five. His works have continued to be a staple of the British concert repertoire, and all his major compositions and many of the minor ones have been recorded.


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