I love Vaughn Williams. Have you heard his rendition of Gloucestershire Wassail Song? So pretty.
In the hilarious movie, The Lady in the Van, Frances De La Tour, playing the composer’s wife, walks around her neighborhood introducing herself to complete strangers by saying “I’m Mrs. Vaughn Williams.”
I love him too. No, I hadn’t but thank you for telling me about his arrangement. It is beautiful.
My first introduction to Vaughn Williams was as a kid when my parents in the late 60’s were lapsed Catholics for a while and we were attending a Lutheran church and they held a performance of parts of his Hodie, Christmas Cantata with a small local orchestra and choir.
My favorite Vaughn Williams pieces are Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and The Lark Ascending and while darker and more modernist, even his Sixth Symphony which was much different from his previous and more pastoral works.
Have you seen this video of Fantaisia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis? While it captures time lapsed video of the Rocky Mountains rather than of pastoral England, I think it captures it perfectly.
R. Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a (Time-Lapse) Theme of Thomas Tallis