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Donald Macleod charts how Vaughan Williams was freed from a creative block by a period of study with Ravel in Paris.

Ralph Vaughan Williams is one of the UK's most significant musical figures. This month, Donald Macleod takes a fresh look at this much-loved composer as part of Radio 3's 'Vaughan Williams Today' season, marking the 150th anniversary of his birth Donald will be telling Vaughan Williams's life story and exploring his music in fascinating detail over the course of four weeks and twenty programmes. Interleaved with Donald's in-depth narrative accounts, some of our leading authorities on Vaughan Williams will be joining him to share new perspectives. They'll be unpacking the overlooked and less well-known aspects of a composer whose body of work and diverse interests have made such an enduring imprint on British cultural life.

The first week of this landmark series focuses on Vaughan Williams's formative years, and his earliest works. It could be said that Vaughan Williams was pre-destined to be a leading figure in the musical life of Great Britain. He was born in 1872 with, in his own words, "a small silver spoon in his mouth" and his mother was part of the Wedgwood and Darwin dynasties. Charles Darwin was Vaughan Williams' great uncle. Raised, after his father's early death, in the matriarchal family home Leith Hill Place in Surrey, young Ralph was encouraged in the pursuit of knowledge from an early age. The values he was exposed to growing up are reflected in his social awareness later on. He wrote music for every kind of setting, from the concert hall to the village hall. We鈥檒l follow his development from his very first attempt at writing music, Robin's Nest, to the assurance of his London Symphony.

It was a bold decision on Vaughan Williams's part to seek out Ravel. After a sticky start, the year he spent there proved to be a transformative and liberating experience.

On Wenlock Edge
I: On Wenlock Edge
III: Is my team ploughing?
Andrew Kennedy, tenor
Simon Crawford-Phillips, piano
Dante Quartet

The sky above the roof
Carolyn Sampson, soprano
Joseph Middleton, piano

L鈥檃mour de Moy
Quant li louseignolz jolis, arr. Vaughan Williams
Roderick Williams, baritone
William Vann, piano

String Quartet no 1 in G minor
I: Allegro moderato
Maggini Quartet

Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis
I: Largo sostenuto
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Mirga Gra啪inyt臈-Tyla, conductor

Phantasy Quintet
IV: Burlesca, alla moderato
The Nash Ensemble

A London Symphony
Scherzo
London Symphony Orchestra
Richard Hickox, conductor