Vaughan Williams

Fantasia on Greensleeves, Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Judd. Naxos DDD 8.555867.

Ralph Vaughan Williams was considered to be the natural successor to Sir Edward Elgar, and his music does flow in that amazingly lyrical manner associated with Elgar.

Vaughan Williams was a country- born boy from Gloucestershire. His father died when he was still very small and the family moved to Surrey.

A conventional upper middle class upbringing took him to Charterhouse and Cambridge, However, music was his passion and he studied at the Royal College of Music. At Cambridge he graduated with degrees both in history and music.

Vaughan Williams wrote Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis in 1910. The first performance of the piece was conducted by him at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral that year. The Great War in 1914 was to hamper his composing and he enlisted as a private in the RAMC, but before he left the country his work The Lark Ascending was performed. The opera Sir John in Love was based on Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and was written in 1928, This arrangement of Fantasia on Greensleeves was done by Ralph Greaves in 1934.

The Concerto Grosso was written specifically for the 21st anniversary of the Rural Schools Music Association in 1950 and played by nearly 400 string players.

This performance, by New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, is done with grace, verve and attention to detail.

This is summer concert music, stylish and so English. Close your eyes and you could be sipping champagne in the park of a country house, or drinking Earl Grey tea during an indolent summer afternoon in the garden.

Annie Dendy