Early Years and Family
Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in The Vicarage, in Down Ampney, on October 12, 1872 to Arthur and Margaret Vaughan Williams. Ralph’s father; Arthur was the vicar of the All Saints Church in Down Ampney in 1868. Through his mothers side Ralph had two famous great-great-grand fathers; Josiah Wedgwood, the founder of the pottery at Stoke-on-Trent, and Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin. In 1875 Ralph’s father suddenly died, when he was only two years old. His mother moved him and his two siblings to the Wedgwood family home: Leith Hill Place, in Surrey.
Musical Training and Schooling
Music was very important to the family and his early music lessons were given by his aunt Sophy, who was his mothers sister. He wrote his first piano piece when he was six, called The Robin’s Nest . Ralph and his siblings would play duets together and all were good students. It soon came time for Ralph to go to school so he followed his brother Hervey to preparatory school at Rottingdean near Brighton in 1883. He liked the music teachers there very much and was introduced to J.S. Bach. He learned the violin and soon became good enough to know Raff's Cavatina by heart. In 1887 Ralph became a student at Charterhouse school near Godalming in Surrey where he remained until 1890, he was fourteen at the time. Here he organized concerts and wanted to pursue Viola but his family disagreed and chose the organ for him instead.
In 1890 Ralph entered the Royal College of Music. After two semesters he became the student of Sir Hubert Perry. Perry grew Ralph’s musical knowledge and had a certain love of english choral music, which Ralph relied upon later in his life. In 1892, Ralph went to Trinity College, Cambridge to st...
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... an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music at Oxford.
In 1914, Ralph finished his first Opera, Hugh the Drover, a work he had begun writing in 1910. It is a romantic ballad with words by Harold Child charting the love-at-first-sight relationship of Hugh and Mary, the constable's daughter. Vaughan Williams wanted to write a "musical" about English life. It is indeed full of wonderful tunes in Vaughan Williams' most fresh and lyrical style. It even succeeds in setting a boxing match between Hugh and John the Butcher, to whom Mary was about to be unhappily married. The opera was first publicly performed in 1924, with forces of the British National Opera Company conducted by Malcolm Sargent.
Work Cited
Connock, Stephen, MBE. "The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams." The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, 19 Aug. 2001. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 20 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1980)9: 708-709
Grove, George. The Musical Times Volume 47. United Kingdom: Musical Times Publications Ltd. 1906, Print.
John Dowland (1563-1626) was a composer of Renaissance England and considered one of the most prolific and well-known composers of English lute song. A composer and accomplished lutenist, he is probably the most well traveled English composer of his time. Through his travels he was exposed to the musical elements of his Italian, French and German contemporaries. He developed his own musical language, in which he created a unique style for the lute song. As a composer, he focused on the development of melodic material and was able to elegantly blend words and music with a wide range of emotion and technique. For the purpose of this document we will focus on the influence of his Italian travels. John Dowland’s use of chromaticism in his lute songs as can be directly associated with such as “All ye whom love or fortune.” In these pieces, we can see the influence on this genre through his travels to Italy and encounters with such composers as Marenzio.
John Adam was born in Massachusetts in the year 1947 and he was heaved in Vermont and New Hampshire. He attended his classical music trainings in New England and initial career became evidence for his superior success ahead. From his initial age he showed tremendous and brilliant capacity in the contentious music lingo of minimalism.
Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist who was born in Shrewsbury, England on February 12, 1809. He was the second youngest of six children. Before Charles Darwin, there were many scientists throughout his family. His father, Dr. Robert Darwin, was a medical doctor, and his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, was a well-known botanist. Darwin’s mother, Susannah Darwin, died when he was only eight years old. Darwin was a child that came from wealth and privilege and who loved to explore nature. In October 1825 at age sixteen, Darwin enrolled at Edinburgh University with his brother Erasmus. Two years later, Charles became a student at Christ’s College in Cambridge. His father wanted him to become a medical doctor, as he was, but since the sight of blood made Darwin nauseous, he refused. His father also proposed that he become a priest, but since Charles was far more interested in natural history, he had other ideas in mind (Dao, 2009)
film music. On the one side there are the purists, who cry foul at the piecing together of
His father Leopold was a musician himself on the violin, greatly influenced Mozart to start music. Mozart was a child prodigy. At the age of 5, he composed a minuet and learned how to play the harpsichord and the violin. I thought it was stupendous that Mozart’s older sister Maria performed with him around Europe because it was something they both did together for fun.
On June 24, 1842, Arthur Sullivan was born in South London. At an early age, Sullivan’s musicality was easily recognizable, which his father immensely supported, as he was a band conductor. For if it wasn’t for his father’s support and occupation, it’s possible that Sullivan’s introduction to music would not have occurred as early as it did. According to Sullivan, he was “intensely interested in all that the band did” and he “learned to play every wind instrument” (Young 5). With his burgeoning interest in music, Sullivan continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Music until 1858, only to later attend the Conservatory in Leipzig. Over various years, Sullivan fulfilled his passion devoted to music by conducting, until his partnership with librettist W.S. Gilbert began in 1871. Gilbert and Sullivan produced several projects together, including Ruddigore, Yeomen of the Guard, and The Gondoliers, formulating a notable working relationship (Young 5). Following an argument over expenses, a feud burgeoned, and the partnership concluded. With this new platform vacant of Gilbert’s presence, Sullivan transitioned into composing without Gilbert’s assistance (Young 5). Throughout the remainder of his career, Sullivan worked with other librettists, continuing to mostly compose comic operas, such as The Rose of Persia.
Sadie, Stanley. New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The. Vol. II New York: The MacMillan Company, 1928
Charles attended Brentwood School in Essex which is father was headmaster of but in 1894 Charles changed schools to Clifton College before winning a scholarship to Hertford College in Oxford in 1898.
Susskind, Pamela. "Clara Schumann." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie and George Grove. 1980. Print.
this paper I will discuss Gershwin’s life as a child and his upbringing and how his music
At the young age of ten, Bach’s parents died, and he was sent to live with is brother, who was an organist. During his stay with his brother, he studied composition and learned how to play the keyboard on his own (Johann Sebastian Bach). After the death of his brother, Bach went to school in Luneberg and came into interaction with intense musical culture. It was there that he characterized himself as a viola player and a violinist. Moreover, before he was eighteen years old, he left Luneberg and was renowned as a master organist, clavichordist, and also a promising composer. Bach began his professional career playing the viola and violin in the court orchestra in Weimar. However, although he was not unhappy, the organ was his true passion. Subsequently, he was employed in Arnstadt where he wrote virtually all organ music (Carlson and Smith 32).
Hughes, Anselm (1953). "Music of the Coronation over a Thousand Years". Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 79th Sess.: 81–100. Web. 6 Jul 2011.
John Williams Interview for Music Express Magazine. Perf. John Williams. YouTube, 20 Apr. 2012. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.