“I’ve always loved carols,” Vaughan Williams wrote to Cecil Sharp in 1911. Despite being called a “most determined atheist” by Bertrand Russell at University, and in later life “a cheerful agnostic”, the composer never lost his love for Christmas. It dated back to childhood memories of singing carols from Stainer and Bramley’s Christmas Carols New and Old at his home at Leith Hill Place, Surrey. As an adult, his lifelong passion for the Christmas period was demonstrated in his music - the Fantasia on Christmas Carols, On Christmas Night based on Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the cantata Hodie and the nativity play The First Nowell. His passion for collecting folk tunes in various counties of England – armed with a trusty pencil and paper, or at times a phonograph - also led to a plethora of carol settings using these folk tunes, as Vaughan Williams himself said “Every day some old village singer dies, and with him there probably die half-a-dozen beautiful melodies, which are lost to the world for ever: if we would preserve what still remains we must set about it at once.” This week. Kate Molleson explores Vaughan Williams’s experiences of Christmas across his life alongside some of his best loved pieces, and the music he wrote to celebrate the festive period.

Music Featured:

Dives and Lazarus

The First Nowell (extract)Trad. The Murder of Maria MartenFive Variants of ‘Dives and Lazarus’Suite for Viola and Small Orchestra – Group 1The Wasps OvertureI Saw Three Ships Come InWillow WoodFolk Songs of the Four Seasons: Orchestral SuiteTrad. The High-low wellThe Holy Well (version 1)Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas TallisAs Joseph was WalkingA London Symphony (III. Scherzo)Fantasia on Christmas CarolsSymphony 3 (II. Lento)Trad. On Christmas NightSussex CarolThe Lark AscendingHodie (This Day): The OxenOn Christmas Night (extract)Dona Nobis Pacem (III. Reconcilliation)Trad. Ploughboy’s DreamO Little Town of BethlehemPrelude: 49th parallelSymphony No 5 in D Major (III. Romanza)God rest you merry, gentlemenThe First Nowell: IX: In Bethlehem CityOn Wenlock Edge (V. Bredon Hill)Epithalamion (the bridal day) – Procession of the brideHodie (extract)Symphony No 7 (V. Epilogue)Trad. Seven Virgins (Leaves of Life)The Seven VirginsThe First Nowell: XX. The First Nowell

Presented by Kate Molleson

Produced by Sam Phillips for BBC Audio Wales and West

For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for A Vaughan Williams Christmas https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001t9wp

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z