个人履历

人物生平

代表作

个人履历

拉尔夫·沃恩·威廉斯(Ralph Vaughan Williams 1872－1958)，英国作曲家。

人物生平

威廉斯自幼学习钢琴与小提琴，曾入剑桥大学和皇家音乐院，毕业后当了教堂的琴手与合唱指挥。先后从师于布鲁赫和拉威尔学作曲。第一次世界大战时入伍，退役后一直在皇家音乐院任教。毕生谦逊地工作，品格高尚，待人真诚。深爱民间音乐，曾入居乡间收集民歌，参加农村的节日和音乐赛会，将人民的音乐语汇融入自己的创作，同时又向都铎王期的作家和普塞尔的音乐吸取养料，逐步形成了自己的风格。

拉尔夫·沃恩·威廉斯是属于英国的，就像小酒吧里掷飞镖和王宫卫队换班是属于英国的一样。1872年10月12日诞生于格罗墨斯特邬的下安普勒，而后成为闻名全世界的管风琴演奏者和作曲家，并特别致力于研究英国古乐与民谣，将其转化为新的英格兰风格，引导了英国音乐廿世纪的复兴。他的音乐有英国式的平易、幽默，精力充沛而不失文雅的格调。沃恩威廉斯写过几乎所有形式的音乐：九首交响曲钢琴、小提琴，甚至竖笛协奏曲、弥撒曲、歌剧等等。此外，在一些很短的曲子中，你千万不要错过为小提琴与乐团而写的浪漫曲＜云雀飞翔＞(The Lark Ascending)及绿袖子幻想曲(Fanitaia on Greensleeves)。

在五十多年间写出来的交响曲中，最有名的可能是称为「伦敦」的＜第二号交响曲＞。这件作品写于1913年，是属于标题性的。

代表作

其他代表作有如歌剧《赶车人休格》、《恋爱中的约翰爵士》、管弦乐《三首诺尔福特狂想曲》、《蜂序曲》、《塔里斯主题幻想曲》和九部交响曲等。他的创作奠定了英国现代民族音乐的基础。

Country: England

Genres: Choral, Orchestral, Concerto, Vocal, Chamber, Symphonic, Film, Band, Ballet, Opera, Keyboard

Biography

Ralph Vaughan Williams left a varied oeuvre that includes orchestral works, songs, operas, and various choral compositions. While primarily drawing on the rich tradition of English folksong and hymnody, Vaughan Williams produced well-loved works that fit into larger European traditions and gained worldwide popularity..

Vaughan Williams, who lost his father early in life, was cared for by his mother. Related, through his mother, to both Charles Darwin and the Wedgwoods of pottery fame, he grew up without financial worries. He studied history and music at Trinity College, Cambridge, and finished up at the Royal College of Music, where he worked with Parry, Wood, and Stanford. In 1897, the year he married Adeline Fisher, Vaughan Williams traveled to Berlin to study with Max Bruch, also seeking Maurice Ravel as a teacher several years later, despite the fact that the French composer was three years his junior. In 1903, he started collecting English folksongs; certain characteristics of English folk music, particularly its modal tonalities, in many ways informed his approach to composition. Vaughan Williams further developed his style while working as editor of the English Hymnal, which was completed in 1906. His work on the English Hymnal went beyond editing, for he contributed several new hymn tunes, most notably the Sine nomine, the tune for the hymn For All the Saints. The composer's interest in and knowledge of traditional English music is reflected in his song cycle On Wenlock Edge (1909), based on selections from A.E. Housman's immensely popular volume of poetry A Shropshire Lad. In his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, composed in 1910, Vaughan Williams introduced antiphonal effects within the context of modal tonality, juxtaposing consonant, but unrelated, triads. Composed in 1914, his Symphony No. 2, "A London Symphony" brings to life, with great charm, the sounds of London from dawn to dusk. That year, Vaughan Williams also wrote his pastoral The Lark Ascending, for violin and orchestra. When World War I broke out, the 41-year-old composer enlisted as an orderly in the medical corps, becoming famous for organizing choral singing and other entertainment in the trenches. He was commissioned from the ranks, ending his war service as an artillery officer. The war interrupted the composer's work but did not, it seems, disrupt the inner continuity of his creative development. The Symphony No. 3 ("Pastoral"), composed in 1922, conjures up a familiar world, effectively incorporating folksong motives into sonorities created by sequential chords. While critics detected pessimistic moods and themes in the later symphonies, ascribing a shift to a darker vision to the composer's alleged general pessimism about the world, Vaughan Williams refused to attach any programmatic content to these works. However, the composer created a convincing musical description of a desolate world in his Symphony No. 7 "Sinfonia Antarctica" (1952), which was inspired by the request to write the music for the film Scott of the Antarctic. In addition to his symphonies, Vaughan Williams composed highly acclaimed religious music, as well as works inspired by English spiritual literature, culminating in his 1951 opera The Pilgrim's Progress, based on the spiritual classic by John Bunyan. An artist of extraordinary creative energy, Vaughan Williams continued composing with undiminished powers until his death at 87. ~ AMG, All Music Guide