Alain Frogley – författare

Symphony No. 9 in E minor was the last symphony written by Ralph Vaughan Williams and was premiered by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent on 2nd April 1958. It is described in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians as 'the most impressive achievement' of the composer's final decade. This scholarly edition replaces the original 1958 edition, and includes detailed preliminary matter comprising a preface, sources and editorial method, and detailed textual notes.Orchestral material is available on hire/rental.

Symphony No. 9 in E minor was the last symphony written by Ralph Vaughan Williams and was premiered by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent on 2nd April 1958. It is described in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians as 'the most impressive achievement' of the composer's final decade. This scholarly edition replaces the original 1958 edition, and includes detailed preliminary matter comprising a preface, sources and editorial method, and detailed textual notes.Orchestral material is available on hire/rental.

Ever since its première just before the composer's death, Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony has divided critical opinion and remained something of an enigma. Yet the composer thought highly of the work, and went against his usual practice by preserving all the sketches. This study, the first of its kind on a work of Vaughan Williams, analyses the symphony and traces its genesis through hundreds of pages of sketches and drafts; it also offers a general introduction to the composer's working methods. The manuscripts show how the composer worked meticulously to create the complex expressive ambivalence of the finished work, transforming in the process simpler conceptions redolent of his earlier music. Most crucially, however, the sketches reveal an underlying programme, centred on the theme of innocent sacrifice and drawing on Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Stonehenge, and Salisbury Cathedral. Vaughan Williams's new musical path in the symphony, it emerges, was closely allied to the continuing evolution of his visionary agnosticism.

This collection of essays on Vaughan Williams brings together leading British and American scholars and covers a wide range of topics and approaches, exploring musical language, cultural context, biography, manuscript sources and reception history. Despite Vaughan Williams' seminal importance in British music, international stature as a symphonist, and wider significance as an icon of Englishness, very little new research on his life or music has been published since the mid-1960s. The ten essays presented here examine diverse subjects such as the place of Vaughan Williams in the construction of English national identity this century, the role of rhythm in his symphonies, music for propaganda films, and his unpublished early orchestral pieces; major works such as the Tallis Fantasia and the Fifth Symphony are analysed in depth.

An icon of British national identity and one of the most widely performed twentieth-century composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams has been as much misunderstood as revered; his international impact and enduring influence on areas as diverse as church music, film scores and popular music has been insufficiently appreciated. This volume brings together a team of leading scholars, examining all areas of the composer's output from new perspectives, and re-evaluating the cultural politics of his lifelong advocacy for the music-making of ordinary people. Surveys of major genres are complemented by chapters exploring such topics as the composer's relationship with the BBC and his studies with Ravel; uniquely, the book also includes specially commissioned interviews with major living composers Peter Maxwell Davies, Piers Hellawell, Nicola Lefanu and Anthony Payne. The Companion is a vital resource for all those interested in this pivotal figure of modern music.

An icon of British national identity and one of the most widely performed twentieth-century composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams has been as much misunderstood as revered; his international impact and enduring influence on areas as diverse as church music, film scores and popular music has been insufficiently appreciated. This volume brings together a team of leading scholars, examining all areas of the composer's output from new perspectives, and re-evaluating the cultural politics of his lifelong advocacy for the music-making of ordinary people. Surveys of major genres are complemented by chapters exploring such topics as the composer's relationship with the BBC and his studies with Ravel; uniquely, the book also includes specially commissioned interviews with major living composers Peter Maxwell Davies, Piers Hellawell, Nicola Lefanu and Anthony Payne. The Companion is a vital resource for all those interested in this pivotal figure of modern music.