Cities and Country

Donald Macleod follows Vaughan Williams as he puts on an oratorio during riots, enjoys walking with friends and makes a move to the country.

All this month, Donald Macleod takes a fresh look at this much-loved composer as part of Radio 3's 'Vaughan Williams Today' season, celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth. He’ll unpack Vaughan Williams's life story in fascinating detail over the course of four weeks and leading authorities on the composer will join him to share their new perspectives. They'll be exploring some of the overlooked aspects of his life and music, as well as the qualities that have left such an enduring imprint on British cultural life.

This week Donald chronicles Vaughan Williams’ life through the years 1914 to 1930.

Vaughan Williams’s oratorio Sancta Civitas was first performed in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, on the 7th of May, 1926, the fourth day of the General Strike. The transport network was crippled, the printing presses ground to a halt and food deliveries were held up. Riots broke out across the country. The composer continued to regularly escape from the capital to go on walking tours with friends like fellow composer, Gustav Holst. They particularly enjoyed walking in Dorset or Wiltshire, where there was a special joy in “an infinity of larks rising above the bleached grass” on Salisbury Plain. Early in October 1927 Adeline Vaughan Williams had a bad fall in their house in Cheyne Walk. They needed to move home and thought about buying flat in London, but Adeline longed to live in the country so they began to look for a house near Dorking. It meant that Vaughan Williams would have to give up conducting the Bach Choir, which was a source of deep sadness to him.

Old King Cole
Northern Sinfonia
Richard Hickox, conductor

Sancta Civitas
Philip Langridge, tenor
Bryn Terfel, bass-baritone
Choir of St Paul's Cathedral
London Symphony Chorus
London Symphony Orchestra
Richard Hickox, conductor

Merciless Beauty, Three Rondels by Geoffrey Chaucer
Ian Partridge, tenor
Music Group Of London

Flos Campi
Paul Silverthorne, viola
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Paul Daniel, conductor

Produced by Rosie Boulton