Today marks the 150th birthday of one of England's most revered composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who is also widely beloved beyond Britain.A folksong expert who logged long trips collecting ...

The composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, born 150 years ago on Oct. 12, is one of those rare artists who are more often loved than deeply known.

Yet Ralph Vaughan Williams went on to write three more symphonies. King George V gave him the Order of Merit in 1935, but he declined many other honors, knighthood included.

Vaughan Williams was born into a life of privilege on October 12, 1872, in Down Ampney, Glos. He was just two when his father, vicar at the local church, died.

Ralph Vaughan Williams understood what his fate was likely to be. “Every composer cannot expect to have a worldwide message, but he may reasonably expect to have a special message for his own ...

The English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) was a man of contradictions. Though born with what he called 'a very small silver spoon' in his mouth, he did more than anyone to preserve ...

Vaughan Williams to Charles Myers (July 1933), in Letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1895-1958, ed. Hugh Cobbe (Oxford Univ. Press, 2008), p. 234; see A London Symphony, four measures before ...

Today marks the 150th birthday of one of England's most revered composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who is also widely beloved beyond Britain. A folksong expert who logged long trips collecting ...

His ravishing music has become the soundtrack of a nation. Just a few notes of the stirring strains of Ralph Vaughan Williams conjures images of rolling hillsides and church spires.

Collecting traditional tunes from all over the British Isles, Vaughan Williams famously produced gently modal folksong fantasies evoking England's "green and pleasant land." ...

Today marks the 150th birthday of one of England's most revered composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who is also widely beloved beyond Britain. A folksong expert who logged long trips collecting ...