{"product_id":"vaughan-williams-9780190918569","title":"Vaughan Williams","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eA new biography of which paints the most well-rounded and factually accurate portrait of the composer to date\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRalph Vaughan Williams ranks among the most versatile, influential, and enduringly popular British musicians of his era. Throughout his wide-ranging career-as composer, conductor, editor, scholar, folksong collector, teacher, author, administrator, and philanthropist-Vaughan Williams worked tirelessly to improve the standards and quality of British musical life. His dedicated work ethic and fastidious attention to musical detail helped him forge a compelling and original expressive idiom grounded in a profound understanding of musical history and tradition, popularized in concert staples like the \u003cem\u003eTallis Fantasia\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Lark Ascending\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eA London Symphony\u003c\/em\u003e, the \u003cem\u003eSongs of Travel\u003c\/em\u003e, and the \u003cem\u003eSerenade to Music\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDrawing upon both recent scholarship and newly accessible scores and correspondence, author Eric Saylor interweaves in \u003cem\u003eVaughan Williams\u003c\/em\u003e an exploration of the composer's life - including new insights about his early career, military service in the Great War, and relationships with the women he loved and married - with chapters surveying his enormous body of music, spanning hymn tunes to operas, keyboard etudes to solo concerti, wind band music for amateurs to perhaps the finest symphonic cycle of the twentieth century. The resulting portrait reveals Vaughan Williams's complex artistry and dynamic personality, a portrayal often at odds with the avuncular persona of \"Uncle Ralph\" familiar to the public. This contemporary reassessment of the composer's life and works provides a concise and engaging overview of both, positioning Vaughan Williams as an artist of rare skill, sensitivity, and human insight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEric Saylor\u003c\/strong\u003e is Professor of Music History at Drake University. He is the author of \u003cem\u003eEnglish Pastoral Music: From Arcadia to Utopia, 1900-1955 \u003c\/em\u003e(2017), co-editor of \u003cem\u003eBlackness in Opera\u003c\/em\u003e (with Naomi André and Karen M. Bryan, 2015) and \u003cem\u003eThe Sea in the British Musical Imagination\u003c\/em\u003e (with Christopher Scheer, 2012), and former President of the North American British Music Studies Association.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50387219480850,"sku":"9780190918569","price":42.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_b7657dc4-4889-4c61-8ece-761e9c31e569.jpg?v=1728873472","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/vaughan-williams-9780190918569","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}