Product Description
A cantata for soprano, tenor, and baritone soloists, SATB choir, and orchestra
All material is also available on hire. ... Read more

Product Description
Composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, a man of strong character and unflagging energy, was for sixty years at the center of musical events in England. Utilizing source materials only recently available, this biography, written by Williams's widow, presents a detailed, fascinating account of his career. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Splendid biography!
Written by his wife, Ursula, this is as authoratative as it gets. Filled with details, annecdotes, facts, histories and stories with a warmth that invites us to know and understand RVW as a person and as a composer.

I came to this book after reading many books about Gustav Holst. In doing so, I quickly learned of his friendship with RVW. The two were great friends. In this book, you get another perspective on that friendship and friendship with others. RVW was a kind, open, down-to-earth individual.

This is a remarakable biography about a remarkable human being. I'm glad he lived and wrote the music he shared with us all. This book helped me to understand the man and his times and his music. Highly recommended! ... Read more

Product Description
This is the authoritative account of Vaughan Williams's musical life-- the story of a great composer's career, and at the same time the story of music in England for over half a century. Kennedy considers the principal works in chronological order, outlining the main features of each and discussing details of the music's structure, often illuminating his point with a musical quotation. He also provides a good deal of biographical data, and so builds up a picture of the composer, as well as providing thumbnail sketches of many of Vaughan Williams's friends and colleagues. Kennedy's extensive knowledge of Vaughan Williams's output also enables him to refer back and forth across the works to pick out lines of development and influence. Along with Michael Kennedy's new preface, the second edition includes a full classified list of Vaughan Williams's works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

*The* standard study of Vaughan Williams's music.
I've known this book for over thirty years.Kennedy approachesVaughan Williams's catalogue both widely and deeply, with plenty ofmusical examples.Since I'm a Vaughan Williams headbanger, a book like this is my equivalent of hagiography.Kennedy assumes (correctly) that Vaughan Williams is one of the major composers of this century, and not just in England, and thus discusses works in a clear-eyed way, without special pleading, emotional ginger-up, or hysterical proselytizing.He gives us the musical "facts" of a work and shows, in purely compositional terms, why it's wonderful -- the most convincing argument of all.I've almost worn out my copy through reading and re-reading.When I listen to a Vaughan Williams work, I usually have the book handy.A classic of music writing.--Steve Schwartz ... Read more

Product Description
This collection is filled with songs that tell of the pleasures and pains of love, the patterns of the countryside and the lives of ordinary people. Here are unfaithful soldiers, ghostly lovers, whalers on stormy seas, cuckolds and tricksters. By turns funny, plain-speaking and melancholic, these songs evoke a lost world and, with their melodies provided, record a vital musical tradition. Generations of inhabitants have helped shape the English countryside ? but it has profoundly shaped us too.It has provoked a huge variety of responses from artists, writers, musicians and people who live and work on the land ? as well as those who are travelling through it.English Journeys celebrates this long tradition with a series of twenty books on all aspects of the countryside, from stargazey pie and country churches, to man?s relationship with nature and songs celebrating the patterns of the countryside (as well as ghosts and love-struck soldiers). ... Read more

Product Description
This three volume series comprises the bulk of the solo songs which Vaughan Williams published with Oxford University Press. The songs span his whole long career; from 1869 to 1958. The majority are suitable for medium voice. ... Read more

Product Description
Quartet in C is in four movements with a total duration of about 25 minutes. The opening Allegro is Dvorák-ish in its lyricism, though there is a darker, more brooding atmosphere towards the close. It is tempting to detect a hint of folk-song in the theme of the Andantino, played by the viola, but that may be stretching hindsight too far. The movement has a wistful melancholy that carries over into the following Intermezzo, a song-like episode containing some of the most virtuosic writing in the work.
The last movement is a theme and six variations with a fugal ending. The theme is ballad-like with a suggestion of 18th century elegance. Modality creeps into the second Adagio variation and there is rhythmic exhilaration in the succeeding Presto. What can be admired in this attractive quartet is its conciseness.
This String Quartet was his first major composition of any kind.

Titles: Allegro * Andantino * Intermezzo * Variazione con finale fugato ... Read more

Product Description
for voice and oboe
Based on the poetry of William Blake, these ten songs provide good recital repertoire mostly suitable for tenor, baritone, alto, and mezzo soprano voices. ... Read more

Product Description
Vaughan Williams' hauntingly beautiful The Lark Ascending is one of his most enduringly popular works. A serene romance, the work takes its title from a poem by George Meredith. The violin's magical evocation of the lark's 'chirrup, whistle, slur and shake', as it soars above delicate orchestral textures, demonstates the composer's mastery of the pastoral idiom.
This edition of the full score, with the parts freshly engraved and edited and available on hire, is produced in collaboration with RVW Ltd. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good buy
Bought the score to follow along with my favorite recording of this piece by conductor/violinist Christopher Warren-Green and the London Chamber Orchestra. String Serenades.

New engraving clear and readable.Very happy.

... Read more

Product Description
Composed for violin and piano in 1914, and reworked for violin and orchestra in 1920, this is one of Vaughan Williams' most enduringly popular works. A serene romance, the work takes its title from a poem by George Meredith. The violin's magical evocation of the lark's 'chirrup, whistle, slur and shake', as it soars above the delicate accompanying textures, demonstrates the composer's mastery of the pastoral idiom. ... Read more

Product Description
The First Movement of Symphony No. 5 of Ralph Vaughan Williams is examined with respect to modal stratification or layers of modal strata defined in each of the principal orchestral parts. When examined with this perspective, this movement can be viewed in light of the concept of extended modal harmonies. Structural and functional pillars of modality lend cohesion to the overall textural fabric of the piece. This music can be described as a departure or, more accurately, another evolutionary branch from the extended tonal techniques of the time of Vaughan Williams, espoused by Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School. This work can therefore be classified as using a modal extended technique in the tradition of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Post-Romantics. Stratification of modal layers is found in five sections of the piece, and structural pillars, or hinges of modal coherence are found. These are graphically illustrated to reveal the formal structure of the piece. Hypotheses regarding the examined data (the notes) are made, from which conclusions about the compositional technique of Vaughan Williams and the structural cohesion and integrity of the piece are formed. ... Read more

Product Description
A lyrical and moving piece for viola and piano. ... Read more

Product Description
for vocal soloists or SATB choir and orchestra
This tender and much-loved work was composed in 1938 in honour of Sir Henry Wood. It was written for 16 soloists and orchestra but may also be sung by four soloists and chorus, or by mixed-voice chorus. This beautifully presented new edition includes an introduction by Michael Kennedy. ... Read more

Product Description
The books in this series are designed to combine music, text, and illustrations as a way of telling stories written specifically for young children. Works by Ralph Vaughn Williams. Camille Saint-Saëns, and others are used as a backdrop for each story.

The invasion of ferocious Stinger wasps at Minibug Bonanzaland causes a state of panic for its inhabitants. The Bee protectors are nowhere to be seen, spiders are struggling to create a big enough web and the ants seem to have disappeared altogether! It is a sad day for the bugs in Bonanzaland. Based on The Wasps Overture by Ralph Vaughan Williams ... Read more