Today was one of the year's big cultural anniversaries – the 150th of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams, born on this day in 1872 in the village of Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, where his father (who died two years later) was the vicar. I have opined on this blog that, for me, he was the greatest English composer since Purcell, and I don't see myself changing that opinion. Here, to mark the great day, is one of my favourites, Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, which does wonderful things with the folk tune to which RVW also set the hymn 'I heard the voice of Jesus say' –
Wednesday 12 October 2022
Another Big One
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Purcell set a very high bar, but hearing this wonderful masterwork again, after several years, my first thought was why - why is it hardly ever heard? Variants, not variations? Hardly. The world first heard it in New York at the outbreak of WWII, but every bar is infused by this ageing magician with a heady stench of the English countryside from whence it sprang, as you remind us Nige.
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