Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Arthur Vaughan Williams died suddenly in February 1875, and his widow took
the children to live in her family home, Leith Hill Place, Wotton, Surrey.[5]
The
children were under the care of a nurse, Sara Wager, who instilled in them not
only polite manners and good behaviour but also liberal social and philosophical
opinions.[6] Such views were consistent with the progressive-minded tradition of
both sides of the family. When the young Vaughan Williams asked his mother
about Darwin's controversial book On the Origin of Species, she answered, "The
Bible says that God made the world in six days. Great Uncle Charles thinks it took
longer: but we need not worry about it, for it is equally wonderful either way".[7]
In 1878, at the age of five, Vaughan Williams began receiving piano lessons from
his aunt, Sophy Wedgwood. He displayed signs of musical talent early on,
composing his first piece of music, a four-bar piano piece called "The Robin's
Nest", in the same year. He did not greatly like the piano, and was pleased to
begin violin lessons the following year.[5][8] In 1880, when he was eight, he took a
correspondence course in music from Edinburgh University and passed the
associated examinations.[8]
In September 1883 he went as a boarder to Field House preparatory school in
Rottingdean on the south coast of England, forty miles from Wotton. He was
generally happy there, although he was shocked to encounter for the first time
social snobbery and political conservatism, which were rife among his fellow
pupils.[9] From there he moved on to the public school Charterhouse in January
1887. His academic and sporting achievements there were satisfactory, and the
school encouraged his musical development.[10] In 1888 he organised a concert in
the school hall, which included a performance of his G major Piano Trio (now
lost) with the composer as violinist.[5]
While at Charterhouse Vaughan Williams found that religion meant less and less
to him, and for a while he was an atheist. This softened into "a cheerful
agnosticism",[11] and he continued to attend church regularly to avoid upsetting
the family. His views on religion did not affect his love of the Authorised Version
of the Bible, the beauty of which, in the words of Ursula Vaughan Williams in her
1964 biography of the composer, remained "one of his essential companions
through life."[11] In this, as in many other things in his life, he was, according to
his biographer Michael Kennedy, "that extremely English product the natural
nonconformist with a conservative regard for the best tradition".[12]
During his time at Cambridge Vaughan Williams continued his weekly lessons
with Parry, and studied composition with Charles Wood and organ with Alan
Gray. He graduated as Bachelor of Music in 1894 and Bachelor of Arts the
following year.[5] After leaving the university he returned to complete his training
at the RCM. Parry had by then succeeded Sir George Grove as director of the
college, and Vaughan Williams's new professor of composition was Charles
Villiers Stanford. Relations between teacher and student were stormy. Stanford,
who had been adventurous in his younger days, had grown deeply conservative;
he clashed vigorously with his modern-minded pupil. Vaughan Williams had no
wish to follow in the traditions of Stanford's idols, Brahms and Wagner, and he
stood up to his teacher as few students dared to do.[20] Beneath Stanford's bluster
lay a recognition of Vaughan Williams's talent and a desire to help the young man
correct his opaque orchestration and extreme predilection for modal music.[21]
In his second spell at the RCM (1895–1896) Vaughan Williams got to know a
fellow student, Gustav Holst, who became a lifelong friend. Stanford emphasised
the need for his students to be self-critical, but Vaughan Williams and Holst
became, and remained, one another's most valued critics; each would play his
latest composition to the other while still working on it. Vaughan Williams later
observed, "What one really learns from an Academy or College is not so much
from one's official teachers as from one's fellow-students ... [we discussed] every
subject under the sun from the lowest note of the double bassoon to the
philosophy of Jude the Obscure".[22] In 1949 he wrote of their relationship, "Holst
declared that his music was influenced by that of his friend: the converse is
certainly true.