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After his wife’s death, Vaughan Williams throws himself back into life and celebrates his eightieth birthday! Donald Macleod presents.

This month, Donald Macleod takes a new look at one of Britain’s best loved composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, as part of Radio 3's 'Vaughan Williams Today' season - marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Over the course of four weeks and twenty programmes, Donald will be delving into Vaughan Williams's life story and work in intriguing detail, and he’ll also be talking to some of the leading authorities on Vaughan Williams to share and explore fresh perspectives on a variety of overlooked and less well known aspects of his life and work, forming a comprehensive and absorbing portrait of a composer whose body of work has had such an enduring impact on British cultural life.

In this, the final week of Composer of the Week’s landmark series, Donald will focus primarily on the years 1948-1958, the final decade of Vaughan Williams’s life. The composer was, by this point recognised as the Grand Old Man of English music, and for a younger generation of British composers had begun to represent the establishment. He was also beginning to feel his age but was still managing to surprise critics with some of his new works, and he showed little sign of slowing down, continuing to lead a busy life, and launching into new endeavours too: foreign travels which included a major tour of the US, a major house move, and, following the death of Adeline, a second marriage. Donald will also be speaking to Vaughan Williams experts Ceri Owen and Alain Frogley about Adeline Fisher and Ursula Wood, Vaughan Williams’s two wives, and about Vaughan Williams’ legacy, and the changing reception to his music since his death.

Today, Donald explores how after his wife Adeline’s death, Vaughan Williams threw himself back into life: meeting Churchill, contributing music for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and travelling to the US to see the Grand Canyon. He also celebrates his eightieth birthday with a whole host of parties, and moves back to the hubbub of London as a newly-wed, with his second wife, Ursula.

Three Shakespeare Songs
Tenebrae
Nigel Short, director

Romance in D flat for harmonica & strings
Larry Adler, harmonica
Eric Gritton, piano
´óÏó´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra
Sir Malcolm Sargent, conductor

Old Hundredth
Gabrieli Roar
Gabrieli Consort and Players
Matthew Martin, Organ
Paul McCreesh, conductor

Silence and Music
Gabrieli Consort
Paul McCreesh. conductor

Symphony 7 ‘Sinfonia Antartica’ - III. Landscape - Lento
Bergen Philharmonic
Sir Andrew Davis, conductor

Turtle dove; Dark-Eyed Sailor; John Dory
A. Stratton McAllister, baritone
Cornell University Chorus
Robert Hull, director

Producer: Sam Phillips