The music of Ralph Vaughan Williams

[Preacherman]

I've just had the joy of listening to V-W's magnificently haunting "Fantasia On A Theme By Thomas Tallis".  Dear Lord, but that man could write music!  There's probably been no other composer in the last hundred and fifty years who could use strings quite like him.

Anyone else like his music?  If you don't know his works, you're in for a treat!

For more details on his life, see

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/music/muze/index.pl?site=music&action=biography&artist_id=50881

for a fairly good summary/biography and more links.

[RGO]

I've long thought that the segment of "Fantasia" that runs from roughly 2:15 to 3:15 is about the finest minute of music there is.  The movie "Master and Commander" has some of this song in it.

[Norton]

We brass players/band directors have a special affinity for V-W thanks to his tuba concerto, Six Studies in English Folksong and Folk Song Suite.

He was an expert orchestrator in all media and took great pains to understand the instruments he was writing for.  The concerto is an excellent example of this.  In the 1950's, no one would have dreamed of writing for the bass tuba.  Yet, V-W was able to hear the instrument as no on else could and created one of the hallmarks of the literature for that instrument.

I've played the concerto many times, but it's the Six Studies that keep me coming back.  Such wonderfully simple melodies and accompaniment that ooze music.  Every time I play that collection I find something else in there that I missed the last dozen times I played it.

[Preacherman]

RGO, agreed - that's one of the great "minutes" of the Fantasia.  Also, the 10-12 minute portion.  Turn up the volume as high as your ears will bear it, have enough bass to bring out the cello and double-bass parts, and be transported!

I've listened to V-W for years, and I continue to get more out of his music the more I hear it.  Amazing, remarkable man . . .  in some ways, the Beethoven of British music.