Ralph Vaughan Williams

12 October 1872—26 August 1958

DR. RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, O.M., died at his home in London on 26 August at the age of eighty-five. The world of music mourns his passing, yet one is glad and grateful that he was able to live so long and so full a life; one, moreover, that was so rich in achievement. He was a Gloucestershire man, born at Down Ampney on 12 October 1872, and all his life he had the look and the manner of a countryman. His utterance was downright, his views were robust. In his music he expressed the essential spirit of England as perhaps no other composer has ever done before. He was never one to inhabit an ivory tower; he took an active part in music-making, and an active interest in all causes in which he believed. He went on writing music of an astonishing freshness and vitality to the day of his death; his Ninth Symphony was produced only last April. He was a great man as well as a great musician, revered and beloved wherever he was known. His life and work are familiar to all who, in Purcell’s phrase, “carry musical souls about them.”

The Musical Times
October 1958

Featured Tunes:

as composer:

KINGS WESTON
SINE NOMINE
THE CALL

as arranger:

AR HYD Y NOS
EARDISLEY
EBENEZER
FOREST GREEN
HYFRYDOL
KINGSFOLD
LASST UNS ERFREUEN
PICARDY
RUSPER
ST. GABRIEL (BRAUN)
VENI EMMANUEL
WICKLOW

see also:

AUGUSTINE

Collections of Hymns and Tunes:

The English Hymnal

1st ed. (1906): Archive.org
New ed. (1933)

Church Songs (1911): WorldCat

Five Mystical Songs (1911): Archive.org

Eight Traditional English Carols (1919): PDF

Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire (1920)

Songs of Praise

1st ed. (1925)
Enlarged (1931)

Oxford Book of Carols (1928)

Songs of Praise for Boys and Girls (1929): WorldCat

Hymns for Sunday School Anniversaries and Other Special Occasions (1930): WorldCat

Songs of Praise for Little Children (1932): WorldCat

Songs of Praise for Children (1933): WorldCat

The Daily Service (1936): WorldCat

The Children’s Church (1936): WorldCat

English Traditional Carols (1954): WorldCat

Manuscripts:

A.E.F. Dickinson, “The Vaughan Williams Manuscripts,” Musical Review, vol. 23 (1962), pp. 177–194.

Alain Frogley, “Vaughan Williams and the New World: Manuscript sources in North American libraries,” Notes, vol. 48 (June 1992), pp. 1175–1192.

RVW1 Ralph Vaughan Williams Folk Song Collection, Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, London:
https://www.vwml.org/archives-catalogue/rvw1

Vaughan Williams Folk Song Collection, British Library Archives & Manuscripts (Add MS 54187–54191, 59535–59536):
https://www.bl.uk/

Life & Works:

Edwin Evans, “Modern British Composers: Vaughan Williams,” The Musical Times, vol. 61, nos. 926–928 (April–June 1920), pp. 232–234, 302–305, 371–374: JSTOR

A.H. Fox Strangways, “Ralph Vaughan Williams,” Music & Letters, vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1920), pp. 78–86: JSTOR

A.E.F. Dickinson, An Introduction to the Music of R. Vaughan Williams (London, 1928): WorldCat

Hubert J. Foss, Ralph Vaughan Williams (London: 1950): WorldCat

“Tributes to Vaughan Williams,” The Musical Times, vol. 99, no. 1388 (October 1958), pp. 535–539: JSTOR

A.E.F. Dickinson, Vaughan Williams (London: Faber & Faber, 1963). [See especially chapter 5, “Hymnody”]

Ursula Vaughan Williams, R.V.W.: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Oxford: University Press, 1964): Amazon

Michael Kennedy, A Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 1996): WorldCat

“Obituaries from the national press,” Journal of the RVW Society, no. 12 (June 1998), pp. 8–9: PDF

The English Hymnal:

Ralph Vaughan Williams, “Some reminiscences of the English Hymnal,” The First Fifty Years: A Brief Account of The English Hymnal from 1906 to 1956 (Oxford: University Press, 1956), pp. 2–5: WorldCat

“The English Hymnal, 1906–1956,” HSGBI Bulletin, vol. 4, no. 2 (Summer 1956), pp. 17–26.

John G. Barr, “The hymntunes of Ralph Vaughan Williams for The English Hymnal,” Journal of Church Music, vol. 26 (Nov. 1984), pp. 2–5.

Alan Luff, ed., Strengthen For Service: 100 Years of The English Hymnal (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2005): WorldCat

James Dickinson, “The English Hymnal,” HSGBI Bulletin, vol. 18, no. 5 (January 2007), pp. 152–165.

Hugh Benham, “Thirteen original tunes by Ralph Vaughan Williams for The English Hymnal and Songs of Praise,” Journal of the RVW Society, no. 52 (October 2011).

Jeremy Summerly, “Ralph Vaughan Williams and The English Hymnal,” Church Music Quarterly (June 2022), pp. 12–16.

The English Hymnal

Music & Hymnody:

Francis Toye, “Studies in English music: Vaughan Williams and the folk music movement,” The Listener, vol. 5, no. 128 (24 July 1931), p. 1057.

Robert C. Batchelder, “Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1872–1958,” The Hymn, vol. 10, no. 3 (July 1959), pp. 87–90: HathiTrust

A.E.F. Dickinson, “Vaughan Williams’s musical editorship,” HSGBI Bulletin, vol. 4, no. 12 (Winter 1959), pp. 188–190.

Wayne H. Cohn, “Ralph Vaughan Williams and hymnody,” The Hymn, vol. 19, no. 3 (July 1968), pp. 81–85: HathiTrust

Richard T. Gore, Ralph Vaughan Williams and the Hymn, Papers of the Hymn Society (Springfield, OH: Hymn Society, 1981): HathiTrust

Roy Palmer, Folk Songs Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1983).

John G. Barr, “Two obscure hymn tunes of Ralph Vaughan Williams,” The Hymn, vol. 38, no. 3 (July 1987), pp. 23–27: HathiTrust

Ralph Vaughan Williams, “The influence of folk-song on the music of the church,” National Music and Other Essays, 2nd ed. (Oxford: University Press, 1987), pp. 74–82: Amazon

Dorothy Jones & William E. Studwell, “Propagators of the Christmas carol. The Oxford Book trio: Ralph Vaughan Williams,” The American Organist, vol. 26 (Dec. 1992), p. 67; reprinted in Jones & Studwell, Publishing Glad Tidings (1998), pp. 63–65.

John Bawden, “Vaughan Williams and the hymnals: A new perspective,” Journal of the RVW Society, no. 29 (February 2004), pp. 4–11: PDF

Frank McManus, “Ralph Vaughan Williams and Songs of Praise,” Journal of the RVW Society, no. 52 (October 2011).

Adam Harvey, “English folk songs and other traditional tunes in the works of Ralph Vaughan Williams: A checklist,” Journal of the RVW Society, no. 54 (June 2012).

Matthew Hoch, “The lasting influence of Vaughan Williams on the hymnody of the Episcopal Church, USA,” HSGBI Bulletin, vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring 2021), pp. 39–48.

Michael Tavinor, “Vaughan Williams and his gift to hymnody,” HSGBI Bulletin, vol. 23, no. 8 (Autumn 2022), pp. 314–321.