Ralph Vaughan Williams

Synopsis

English composer, teacher, writer and conductor. According to Grove's Dictionary, "The most important English composer of his generation."

• 1872 born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, England.
• 1879 began to study piano and composition with his Aunt Sophy, beginning violin shortly afterwards, then switching to viola.
• 1890-1896 studied music and composition at the Royal College of Music and at Trinity College, Cambridge. His teachers included Charles Villiers Stanford, Hubert Parry, and Charles Wood. Parry became a friend and mentor, and Vaughan Williams also developed a close friendship with Gustav Holst.
• 1896 studied organ under Sir Walter Parratt, along with Leupold Stokowski, who became a life-long friend.
• 1897 studied composition in Berlin with Max Bruch.
• 1903-1910 discovered and collected over 800 English folk songs and carols, which were disappearing rapidly.
• 1905 began nearly 50 years as the principal conductor of the Leith Hill Musical Festival, where his performances of Bach's St. Matthew Passion became national events.
• 1906 spent many months collecting and editing hymns for the "English Hymnal," including 40 adapted from folksongs as well as some he wrote himself. This activity was accompanied by a pastoral and modal period in his own compositions.
• 1907-1908 studied composition for 3 months with Maurice Ravel.
• 1914 enlisted in WWI as a private in the medical corps, where he served carrying stretchers. Eventually he was promoted to lieutenant. He finished his war service as director of music for the First Army of the British Expeditionary Force.
• 1919-1920 joined the faculty of the Royal College of Music, and became director of the Bach Choir. During this period he composed in a somewhat mystical style.
• 1924 a new phase in his music began, characterised by lively cross-rhythms and clashing harmonies.
• 1930's and 1940's his compositions entered a mature, lyrical phase.
• 1946 composed his famous 6th symphony, a cacophonous work that some attributed to the experience of WWII
• 1956-57 composed and premiered his 9th symphony, just 3 months before his death.
• 1958 died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Vaughan Williams' most popular organ works by far are his "3 Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes," especially "Rhosymedre."

For details, see the Wikipedia article on Ralph Vaughan Williams.

List of Organ Works

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Opus	Title	Year
Op. ??	3 Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes	1920
Op. ??	Prelude and Fugue in C minor for organ alone/ for organ and orchestra	1921/1930
Op. ??	Passacaglia on B–G–C for organ	1933, unpublished
Op. ??	2 Preludes on Welsh Folk Songs	1956
Op. ??	Title	year
Op. ??	Title	year
Op. ??	Title	year

Background and General Perspectives on Performing These Organ Works

Comments on Vaughan Williams' compositional style from the Wikipedia article cited above:

"Vaughan Williams's music has often been said to be characteristically English, in the same way as that of Gustav Holst, Frederick Delius, George Butterworth, and William Walton."

"ostensibly familiar and commonplace, yet deep and mystical as well as lyrical, melodic, melancholic, and nostalgic yet timeless."

"one is never quite sure whether one is listening to something very old or very new."

"His style expresses a deep regard for and fascination with folk tunes, the variations upon which can convey the listener from the down-to-earth...to the ethereal."

And from Oxford Music Online:

"Rather than expunging non-diatonic elements, Vaughan Williams reintegrated them through modally enriched diatonic means, creating a musical tension not compromised by chromatic saturation."

"Vaughan Williams's path to musical maturity was long and hard – not least because he rejected comfortable solutions – but by the eve of World War I he had developed one of the most distinctive musical personalities of the century."

Registration and Organs

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See the footnote in the "Notes" section at the bottom of the page

Fingering and Pedaling

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Articulation and Phrasing

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Ornamentation

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Tempo and Meter

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Scores and Editions

3 Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes (NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN; PLEASE DO NOT COPY): http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/0/07/IMSLP102656-PMLP210033-RVaughan_Williams_3_Preludes_founded_on_Welsh_Hymn_Tunes.pdf

Prelude and Fugue in C minor (NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN; PLEASE DO NOT COPY): http://imslp.org/wiki/Prelude_and_Fugue_in_C_minor_(Vaughan_Williams,_Ralph)

2 Organ Preludes on Welsh Folk Songs (NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN; PLEASE DO NOT COPY): http://imslp.org/wiki/2_Organ_Preludes_(Vaughan_Williams,_Ralph)

Recordings

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Free Online

3 Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes, played by Christopher Allsop, organ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUxD6lGquUU

• No. 1 in G modal minor ("Bryn Calfaria")
• No. 2 in G major ("Rhosymedre")
• No. 3 in C major ("Hyfrydol" by. R.H. Pritchard)

Prelude and Fugue in C minor for organ and orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2mwTFacKEU

Pay to Listen

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Other Resources

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Notes

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