Born at Down Ampney

 Born on this day in 1872 was Ralph Vaughan Williams, who became, IMHO, the greatest English composer since Purcell. He was born at Down Ampney in Gloucestershire, where his father was the vicar. Sadly, his father died when young Ralph was only two years old, and his mother took him to her family home, Leith Hill Place, in the Surrey hills. Ralph showed his musical talent early, passing a university correspondence course in music at the age of eight, by which time he had already been composing for some while. 
  Vaughan Williams was out of fashion for rather a lot of his long career, but several of his pieces are now firmly established as popular favourites and mainstays of the Classic FM repertoire – The Lark Ascending, the Greensleeves fantasia, Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus. More likely to turn up on Radio 3 are such larger works as the Fifth Symphony, the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis – and this, the Serenade to Music, a setting for orchestra, chorus and 16 soloists of a famous scene from The Merchant of Venice. A sublimely beautiful piece, it reduced Rachmaninov to tears on its first performance, at the Royal Albert Hall in 1938. Go on, drop whatever you're doing, and surrender to this...