The Works Of Ralph Vaughan Williams

This catalog was originally published in 1964 as part of Michael Kennedy's The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Now published separately, with minor revisions and corrections to the main catalogue of musical works and to the bibliography of Vaughan Williams's prose writings, this work also includes a list of folksongs from the original volume.

This is the authoritative account of Vaughan Williams's musical life-- the story of a great composer's career, and at the same time the story of music in England for over half a century. Kennedy considers the principal works in chronological order, outlining the main features of each anddiscussing details of the music's structure, often illuminating his point with a musical quotation. He also provides a good deal of biographical data, and so builds up a picture of the composer, as well as providing thumbnail sketches of many of Vaughan Williams's friends and colleagues. Kennedy'sextensive knowledge of Vaughan Williams's output also enables him to refer back and forth across the works to pick out lines of development and influence. Along with Michael Kennedy's new preface, the second edition includes a full classified list of Vaughan Williams's works.

"For this comprehensive account of Vaughan Williams's musical career, the author has had unrestricted access to the composer's private papers. This book includes many letters which illuminate Vaughan Williams's intentions and contains quotations from his writings and from contemporary reactions to his music over nearly sixty years. Besides the straightforward narrative of a full and busy life of music, there is a critical commentary on the works themselves. Special importance is attached to the authoritative catalogue of works which forms the first appendix. All known published and unpublished works are listed here, with full details of instrumentation, revisions, and first performances. Particular attention has been given to accuracy of dates. All the composer's own programme notes are reprinted. For the first time it is possible to have a full picture of Vaughan Williams's creative activities before 1905 as well as of his career after he became firmly established." --Book jacket.

The Choral-Orchestral Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams: Autographs, Context, Discourse combines contextual knowledge, a musical commentary, an inventory of the holograph manuscripts, and a critical assessment of the opus to create substantial and meticulous examinations of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s choral-orchestral works. The contents include an equitable choice of pieces from the various stages in the life of the composer and an analysis of pieces from the various stages of Williams’s life. The earliest are taken from the pre-World War I years, when Vaughan Williams was constructing his identity as an academic and musician—Vexilla Regis (1894), Mass (1899), and A Sea Symphony (1910). The middle group are chosen from the interwar period—Sancta Civitas (1925), Benedicite (1929), Magnificat (1932), Five Tudor Portraits (1935), Dona nobis pacem (1936)—written after Vaughan Williams had found his mature voice. The last cluster—Thanksgiving for Victory (1944), Fantasia (Quasi Variazione) on the ‘Old 104’ Psalm Tune(1949), Sons of Light (1950), Hodie (1954), The Bridal Day/Epithalamion (1938/1957)—typify the works finished or revisited during the final years of the composer’s life, near the end of the Second World War and immediately before or after his second marriage (1953).

Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Research and Information Guide presents the most extensive annotated bibliography of its subject yet produced. It offers comprehensive coverage of the English composer's prose works and accounts for over 1,000 secondary sources from all critical and scholarly eras. A single-numbering format and substantial indexes facilitate efficient searches of what is the most complete bibliography of Ralph Vaughan Williams since Neil Butterworth's guide to research was published by Garland in 1990.

The ground-breaking biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams reveals more than any other the man behind the music. The author examines the considerable range of Vaughan Williams's work, from the English pastoral tradition to Modernism, and shows how Vaughan Williams was influenced by the Boer War, the economic depression after the First World War, the deprivations of the Blitz, and the austerity of the Cold War. He also reveals how the greatest influence on Vaughan Williams's music and creative development was his personal life, involving his seemingly secure marriage and an equally enduring love affair. The author shows how these reflected both the stability and cutting-edge aspects of his music. Like a great symphony, this book ranges from doubt to inspiration. It is the most complete biography of one of Britain's greatest composers and will be of interest to historians, students of music and Vaughan Williams enthusiasts.

This monograph is based on four lectures which the venerable and distinguished British composer delivered at Cornell University. He explains the nature of rhythm, the relation of folk music to the composer, why we make music, the social foundations of music, and more.