Profiles

Son of the local vicar, Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Cotswold village of Down Ampney in October 1872.

Related to both the Darwin and the Wedgwood family Vaughan Williams came from a priviliged background but despite this always saw himself, and his music, as being one with the people.

Educated at at Charterhouse, Trinity College, Cambridge Ralph later became a pupil of composers Stanford and Parry, another Gloucestershire man, at the Royal College of Music.

At the turn of the 20th Century Vaughan Williams spent much time travelling in the countryside, collecting folk songs many of which he used in his later compositions and hymn tunes for The English Hymnal.

During World War One, and despite his background, he volunteered to serve on the Western Front in the Field Ambulance Corps events that deeply affected him, and musically can be heard in his Third Sympany composed in the mid 1920s.

Another Gloucestershire link with Vaughan Williams was his long standing friendship with Gustav Holst. Take a look in the Holst museum in Cheltenham and you'll be able to read a letter written by Ralph to Gustav again in the 1920s.

Refusing many honours which a grateful nation wished to confer on him, Vaughan Williams died in August 1958 and the age 86.

And so it was fifty years on that a weekend of music and song was prepared to celebrate the life of the 'Grand Old Man' as Ralph was known.

One of the highlights of the "Vaughan Williams in Spring Weekend" (2-4 May 2008) was held on the Saturday evening within the ancient surroundings of Gloucester Cathedral.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, along with Gloucester Choral Society conducted by Adrian Partington, performed the whispish "Wasps Overture", the "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" - first performed under Vaughan Williams' baton during the Three Choirs Festival at Gloucester Cathedral in 1910 - and finally and gloriously the "Sea Symphony" - Vaughan Williams' first symphony with words based on the poems of American poet, Walt Whitman.

A wonderful evening in a crowded and enchanted Cathedral; Marvellous music and wonderful memories of a remarkable man and his music.