Ralph Vaughan Williams
(born 12.10.1872, Down Ampney, Gloucestershire; † 26.8.1958, London) gave significant impulses to modern English music both as a scientist and as a composer. Ralph Vaughan Williams was the son of a vicar and, after his father's early death, grew up with his aunt, who also gave him his first music lessons. Serious studies led him to the Royal College of Music in 1890, then to Trinity College in Cambridge. He became friends with Gustav Holst, took lessons with Max Bruch in Berlin in 1897 and first worked as an organist. Fascinated by the power of folk music, Vaughan Williams began collecting and editing English songs ("Bushes and Briars", 1903). At about the same time, he discovered the music of the Tudor period and especially Henry Purcell, whose oeuvre was to have a great influence on his own compositional work in the years that followed.

Ralph Vaughan Williams' first comprehensive work was A Sea Symphony (1910), a cantata for choir, orchestra and soloists with texts by Walt Whitman. Shortly before, he had taken lessons with Maurice Ravel in Paris and had been introduced to the impressionist sound world. Vaughan Williams became a composition teacher at the Royal College of Music in London in 1919, directed the Bach Choir in 1920-28 and subsequently travelled internationally as a lecturer, composer and conductor. His commitment to German emigrants during the Nazi era meant that his works were not performed in Germany until 1945.

The compositions of Ralph Vaughan Williams tend towards a transparent and clearly differentiated tonal language, oriented towards both early music and late Romantic and folk music elements. He wrote a total of nine symphonies, numerous other orchestral works and chamber music, oratorios, choral works, songs (including cycles such as "The House Of Life", 1903 and "Ten Blake Songs", 1957), ballets, stage and film music. His operas, such as "Hugh the Drover" (1910-14) and "Sir John in Love" (1924-28), were not very successful during his lifetime, but the unfinished "The Pilgrim's Progress" (1949) became a much-received work. Vaughan Williams had a great influence on subsequent English composers such as Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett and also provided important inspiration as an essayist ("National Music", 1934).