Ralph Vaughan Williams

Roger Savage (University of Edinburgh)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Newman University), Louise McDonald (Newman University)

Dates

Born 12 Oct 1872
Died 26 Aug 1958
Activity 1892-1958

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Composer

Resources

Ralph Vaughan Williams was the outstanding English composer of the generation between that of Parry, Stanford and Elgar before him and that of Walton, Tippett and Britten afterwards; also a conductor, composition teacher, lecturer on “national music”, folk-song collector and editor of works by Henry Purcell.

Descended on both sides of his family from the ranks of “the great and the good” stretching back several generations (Charles Darwin was a great uncle), Vaughan Williams was born into comfortable circumstances at Down Ampney in Gloucestershire in 1872. However, he lived almost all his life - with his first wife Adeline Fisher from 1897 until her death in 1951 and with his second Ursula Wood from 1953 until his own d…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

5455 words

Citation: Savage, Roger. "Ralph Vaughan Williams". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 August 2003 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4529, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here