Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney in Gloucestershire, but although he was deeply involved in the folk-song revival, for most of his adult life he lived in London and saw himself as a city man.

Ralph’s father was a vicar, son of an eminent lawyer, and his mother was niece of Charles Darwin, and great-granddaughter of Josiah Wedgwood. Wealthy and cultured, they sent Ralph to Charterhouse, from whence he continued to Trinity College Cambridge via the Royal College of Music. Composing did not come easily to him, so he returned to the RCM to study with Parry, Wood and Stanford, and then went on to study with Max Bruch in Berlin and Maurice Ravel in Paris. It was while he was studying with Ravel that he began composing the first of the Five Mystical Songs.

His slow-burn development delayed his arrival as the leading British composer of his generation. He was consciously an English composer with strong roots in English folk music. He was at pains never to be elitist, an ideal he shared with his friend Gustav Holst. Since the two composers shared so much, they had what they referred to as ‘field days’, which they put aside to criticise one another’s work. Vaughan Williams missed these dreadfully when Holst died in 1934.

Telemann 1681-1721

Georg Philip Telemann

was born in Magdeburg. Like his near contemporary Handel, his family actively discouraged him from making music and as a musician he was virtually self-taught.

He was from a professional family, so he was sent to school; and it was at school his remarkable talent was recognised and he was given opportunities and support. From the age of 16 he made many visits to the courts of Hannover and Brunswick, and by this time he had learned to play the recorder, violin and keyboard instruments, plus the flute, oboe, chalumeau (an early form of the clarinet), viola da gamba, double bass and bass trombone. He would later add the cello to his list, but violin would be his 1st instrument.

When he was 20 he went to Leipzig, ostensibly to specialise in Law in his final year; but he quickly became embroiled in the music of the city, among other things getting commissions to write music for the two main churches. Four years later, after he had thoroughly made his mark in Leipzig , he was appointed Kapellmeister to Count Erdmann II of Promnitz in what is now Poland, and then went on to hold substantial posts in Eisenach and Frankfurt. But it was when he was 40 he landed a plum job in Hamburg where he remained (but for one hiccup) for his remaining 47 years.

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Telemann 1721-67

The plum job

His main positions were Kantor of the Johanneum Lateinschule and Musical Director of the five main churches of the city.

He had been living in Hamburg for about 14 years when he wrote Allein Gott in die Höh sei Ehre , by which time he was securely embedded as a most prominent and influential figure in Hamburg society.

He was also director of the Gänsemarkt opera house, where he mounted performances of his own operas, and those of other composers, particularly Handel’s, to which he added some of his own numbers. He founded a collegium musicum in Hamburg, and also one in Leipzig. It was originally intended that the collegium would give one concert a week during the winter season, but the public demanded two. On top of this he published his own music, wrote poetry and was corresponding agent for the Eisenach court, collecting news from across northern Europe.

Apart from a natural workaholic tendency, some of his workload may have been driven by the need to service the massive gambling debts his 2^nd wife incurred.