Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in
Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, where his father, the Rev. Arthur Vaughan Williams, was vicar. Following his father's death in
1875 he was taken by his mother, Margaret Susan Wedgwood (1843–1937), the great grand daughter of the potter
Josiah Wedgwood, to live with her family at Leith Hill Place, the
Wedgwood family home in the North Downs. He was also related to the Darwins,
Charles Darwin being a great-uncle. Ralph (pronounced "
Rayf") was therefore born into the privileged intellectual upper middle class, but never took it for granted and worked tirelessly all his life for the democratic and egalitarian ideals he believed in.
As a student he had studied piano, "which I never could play, and the violin, which was my musical salvation."
After
Charterhouse School he attended the
Royal College of Music (RCM) under
Charles Villiers Stanford. He read
history and
music at
Trinity College, Cambridge where his friends and contemporaries included the philosophers
G. E. Moore and
Bertrand Russell. He then returned to the RCM and studied composition with
Hubert Parry, who became a close friend. His composing developed slowly and it was not until he was 30 that the
song "Linden Lea" became his first publication. He mixed composition with
conducting, lecturing and editing other music, notably that of
Henry Purcell and the
English Hymnal. He had further lessons with
Max Bruch in Berlin in
1897 and later a big step forward in his orchestral style occurred when he studied in
Paris with
Maurice Ravel.
In 1904 he discovered English
folk songs, which were fast becoming extinct owing to the increase of literacy and
printed music in rural areas. He travelled the countryside, transcribing and preserving many himself. Later he incorporated some songs and melodies into his own music, being fascinated by the beauty of the music and its anonymous history in the working lives of ordinary people. His efforts did much to raise appreciation of traditional English folk song and melody. Later in his life he served as president of the
English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) which in recognition of his early and important work in this field, named its
Vaughan Williams Memorial Library after him.
In
1905 RVW conducted the first concert of the newly founded
Leith Hill Music Festival at
Dorking and thereafter held that conductorship until
1953 when he passed the baton to his successor.
In 1909, he composed incidental music for the
Cambridge Greek Play, a stage production at Cambridge University of
Aristophanes' The Wasps, and the next year, he had his first big public successes conducting the premieres of the
Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis (at The
Three Choirs Festival in
Gloucester Cathedral) and
A Sea Symphony (Symphony No. 1), and a greater success with
A London Symphony (Symphony No. 2) in 1914, conducted by
Geoffrey Toye. Being 40, he could have avoided war service. Having had a public school education he could have tried for a commission. He chose to enlist as a private in the
Royal Army Medical Corps and had a gruelling time as a stretcher bearer before being commissioned in the Royal Garrison Artillery. On one occasion he was too ill to stand but continued to direct his battery lying on the ground. Prolonged exposure to gunfire began a process of loss of hearing which was eventually to cause
deafness in old age. In 1918 he was appointed Director of Music, First Army and this helped him adjust back into musical life.
After the war he adopted for a while a profoundly mystical style in the
Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No. 3) and
Flos Campi, a work for
viola solo, small orchestra, and wordless chorus. From
1924 a new phase in his music began, characterised by lively cross-rhythms and clashing harmonies. Key works from this period are
Toccata marziale, the
ballet Old King Cole, the
Piano Concerto, the
oratorio Sancta Civitas (his favourite of his choral works) and the
ballet Job (described as "A
Masque for Dancing") which is drawn not from the Bible but from
William Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job. He also composed a
Te deum in G for the enthronement of Cosmo Gordon Lang as Archbishop of Canterbury. This period in his music culminated in the
Symphony No. 4 in F minor, first played by the
BBC Symphony Orchestra in
1935. This symphony contrasts dramatically with the frequent "pastoral" orchestral works he composed; indeed, its almost unrelieved tension, drama, and dissonance has startled listeners since it was premiered. Acknowledging that the fourth symphony was different, the composer said, "I don't know if I like it, but it's what I mean." Two years later Vaughan Williams made a historic recording of the work with the same orchestra for HMV (His Master's Voice), one of his very rare commercial recordings. During this period he lectured in America and England, and conducted the Bach Choir. He was appointed to the
Order of Merit in
1935, having previously declined a
knighthood.
His music now entered a mature lyrical phase, as in the
Five Tudor Portraits; the "morality"
The Pilgrim's Progress; the
Serenade to Music (a setting of a scene from act five of
The Merchant of Venice, for orchestra and sixteen vocal soloists and composed as a tribute to the conductor
Sir Henry Wood); and the
Symphony No. 5 in D, which he conducted at the
Proms in
1943. As he was now 70, many people considered it a swan song, but he renewed himself again and entered yet another period of exploratory harmony and instrumentation. Before his death in
1958 he completed four more symphonies, including No. 7
Sinfonia Antartica, based on his 1948 film score for
Scott of the Antarctic. He also completed a range of instrumental and choral works, including a tuba concerto,
An Oxford Elegy on texts of
Matthew Arnold, and the Christmas
cantata Hodie. At his death he left an unfinished Cello Concerto, an
opera Thomas the Rhymer and music for a Christmas play,
The First Nowell, which was completed by his amanuensis Roy Douglas (b.
1907). He also wrote an arrangement of
The Old One Hundredth Psalm Tune for the Coronation Service of
Queen Elizabeth II.
Despite his substantial involvement in church music, and the religious subject-matter of many of his works, he was described by his second wife as "an atheist … [who] later drifted into a cheerful agnosticism." It's noteworthy that in his opera
The Pilgrim's Progress he changed the name of the hero from
Bunyan's Christian to
Pilgrim. He also set Bunyan's hymn
Who would true valour see to music using the traditional
Sussex melody "
Monk's Gate. For many church-goers, his most familiar composition may be the tune
Sine Nomine for the
hymn "
For All the Saints".
During his life he also worked as a tutor for
Birkbeck College.
In the 1950s, the composer supervised recordings of all but his ninth symphony by
Sir Adrian Boult and the
London Philharmonic Orchestra for
Decca. At the end of the sessions for the mysterious sixth symphony, Vaughan Williams gave a short speech, thanking Boult and the orchestra for their performance, "most heartily," and Decca later included this on the LP. He was to supervise the first recording of the ninth symphony (for
Everest Records) with Boult; his death the night before the recording sessions were to begin resulted in Boult announcing to the musicians that their performance would be a memorial to the composer.
He died in
1958 and is buried in
Westminster Abbey.
Vaughan Williams is a central figure in British music because of his long career as teacher, lecturer and friend to so many younger composers and conductors. His writings on music remain thought-provoking, particularly his oft-repeated call for everyone to make their own music, however simple, as long as it is truly their own.
He was married twice. His first wife, Adeline Fisher (daughter of the historian
Herbert William Fisher), died in
1951 after many years of suffering from crippling
arthritis. In
1953 he married the poet
Ursula Wood (
1911-2007), whom he had known since the late
1930s and with whom he collaborated on a number of vocal works. Ursula later wrote Vaughan Williams's biography
RVW: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams, which remains the standard work on his life.
Vaughan Williams appears as a character in
Robert Holdstock's novel
Lavondyss.
