Vaughan Williams Studies (Cambridge Composer Studies) - Softcover

Review of the hardback: '... These ten substantial chapters offer insights into Vaughan Williams as both man and musician. As a collection of essays this is a random rather than a balanced survey, though nonetheless welcome in discussing important issues in depth. The standard of presentation is high, with clear musical examples enhancing detailed analyses of the Tallis Fantasia and Fifth Symphony.' Terry Barfoot, BBC Music Magazine

This collection of essays on Vaughan Williams brings together leading British and American scholars and covers a wide range of topics and approaches, exploring musical language, cultural context, biography, manuscript sources and reception history. Despite Vaughan Williams' seminal importance in British music, international stature as a symphonist, and wider significance as an icon of Englishness, very little new research on his life or music has been published since the mid-1960s. The ten essays presented here examine diverse subjects such as the place of Vaughan Williams in the construction of English national identity this century, the role of rhythm in his symphonies, music for propaganda films, and his unpublished early orchestral pieces; major works such as the Tallis Fantasia and the Fifth Symphony are analysed in depth.