The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams

Alain Frogley has taught at Oxford and Lancaster universities, and since 1994 at the University of Connecticut; in 2008 he was Visiting Professor at Yale University. In 2005–6 he was a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. A specialist in the music of the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly that of Britain and America, he has also worked extensively on Beethoven. His research has centered on sketch studies, reception history and musical nationalism; his most recent work explores music and the modern city. Frogley is the editor of Vaughan Williams Studies (1996) and the author of Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony (2001); he has also contributed to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Aidan J. Thomson taught at the universities of Oxford and Leeds before being appointed Lecturer in Music at Queen's University Belfast in 2003. His main research interests are the music and culture of early twentieth-century Britain and Ireland, particularly the relationship between reception, criticism and analysis. His publications include articles and book chapters on Elgar (in 19th-Century Music, The Cambridge Companion to Elgar, Edward Elgar and His World, Elgar Studies, and Musical Quarterly), Ethel Smyth and Arnold Bax. He has served on the councils of the Royal Musical Association, the North American British Music Studies Association, and the Society for Musicology in Ireland, and is currently the reviews editor of the Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland.

'The fourteen chapters take a variety of differing approaches to the process of exploring Vaughan William's life, work and broader cultural and social surroundings, so that the total result gives a genuine sense of 'something for everyone' … A thoughtful and informative companion.' Malcolm Hayes, BBC Music Magazine

• Chronology; Introduction Alain Frogley and Aidan J. Thomson; Part I. 'Who wants the English composer?': Forging a Path, 1890–1925: 1. The composer and society: family, politics, nation Julian Onderdonk; 2. Vaughan Williams's musical apprenticeship Byron Adams; 3. Becoming a national composer: critical reception to c.1925 Aidan J. Thomson; Part II. Works by Genre: 4. History and geography: the early orchestral works and first three symphonies Alain Frogley; 5. The songs and shorter secular choral works Sophie Fuller; 6. 'An Englishman and a democrat': Vaughan Williams, large choral works and the English festival tradition Charles Edward McGuire; 7. Folksong arrangements, hymn tunes, and church music Julian Onderdonk; 8. Music for stage and film Eric Saylor; 9. Chamber music and works for soloist with orchestra Christopher Mark; 10. The later symphonies Julian Horton; Part III. Activism, Reception, and Influence: 11. The public figure: Vaughan Williams as writer and activist David Manning; 12. Vaughan Williams, Boult, and the BBC Jenny Doctor; 13. Fluctuations in the response to the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams Michael Kennedy; 14. Vaughan Williams and his successors: composers' forum Peter Maxwell Davies, Piers Hellawell, Nicola LeFanu and Anthony Payne in conversation with Aidan J. Thomson; Select bibliography; Index of Vaughan Williams's works.