蜜芽传媒

This month, Donald Macleod takes a fresh look at one of Britain鈥檚 most popular composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, as part of Radio 3's 'Vaughan Williams Today' season - marking the 150th anniversary of the composer鈥檚 birth. Alongside programmes which delve into Vaughan Williams' life story and music in fascinating depth, over the course of four weeks and twenty programmes, Donald will also be talking to some of the leading authorities on Vaughan Williams to share and explore share new perspectives on a variety of overlooked and less well known aspects his life and work, forming a comprehensive and absorbing portrait of a composer whose body of work has had such an enduring imprint on British cultural life.

In the third week of this landmark series, Donald will focus on the years 1931-1947, a dramatic period in not just Vaughan Williams鈥檚 life, but in the wider world too, encompassing the second World War. Vaughan Williams was 67 when Britain and France declared war on the Reich, so too old for active service, but he threw himself into contributing wherever he could to the war effort. Musically, this was another period when the composer suffered from a crisis of failing inspiration and creative drought as the political turmoil deepened around him, but it would also give rise to some of his finest music, including three of his best regarded Symphonies 鈥� numbers 4, 5 and 6.

Today, Donald explores how Vaughan Williams threw himself into the war effort 鈥� writing music for propaganda films, collecting aluminium for aircraft, volunteering as an Air Raid Warden, filling sandbags, and as part of his efforts 鈥渄igging for victory鈥� becoming an advocate of 鈥榓ctivated sludge鈥�. Meanwhile a new creative and romantic force enters the composer鈥檚 life.

Vaughan Williams
Epithamalion - Song of the Winged Love
Joyful Company of Singers
Britten Sinfonia
Alan Tongue (conductor)

Vaughan Williams
Bushes and Briars
Gabrieli Consort
Paul McCreesh (director)

Vaughan Williams
Symphony no. 5 in D major - IV. Passacaglia
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Andrew Manze (conductor)

Vaughan Williams
Dona Nobis Pacem - I. Agnus Dei, II. Beat! Beat! Drums!, III. Reconciliation
Thomas Allen (baritone)
Judith Howarth (soprano)
Corydon Orchestra and Singers
Matthew Best (conductor)

Vaughan Williams
Coastal Command Suite: Finale
RTE Symphony Orchestra
Andrew Penny (conductor)

Vaughan Williams
5 variants of Dives and Lazarus
Hall茅 Orchestra
Mark Elder (conductor)

Producer: Sam Phillips