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Donald Macleod explores a significant friendship and Vaughan Williams's lifelong commitment to amateur music making in England.

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’s life through the years 1914 to 1930.
Vaughan Williams’s former pupil, Ivor Gurney, had served in the war and been shell-shocked, gassed and wounded in the battle at Passchendaele. He had struggled with severe depression and was committed to an asylum in 1922. Ralph and his wife, Adeline, visited Gurney over a period of 15 years until he died in the asylum. Donald also traces the composer’s connection to the Leith Hill Music Festivals, a vitally important thread through Vaughan Williams’ life. They represented his continued and sincere commitment to British music making and to amateur music making in particular. Apart from the interruptions of two world wars, he conducted every festival until 1953 and then continued as guest conductor until 1958, the year of his death.

O vos omnes
Hugh Cutting
The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
Andrew Nethsingha

Job – A Masque for Dancing
´óÏó´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra
Andrew Davis, conductor

3 Poems by Walt Whitman (Nocturne)
Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, tenor
Graham Johnson, piano

3 Choral Hymns
The Choir of Clare College Cambridge
Timothy Brown, conductor

Sir John in Love (excerpt)
Northern Sinfonia Chorus
Northern Sinfonia
Richard Hickox, conductor

Produced by Rosie Boulton