Arts Features

Classical 91.5's 40 for 40

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of WXXI-FM Classical 91.5 (in 2014), we asked you to help us celebrate. Beginning Tuesday, April 15th, we played your top 40 favorite classical works on air throughout the day, and posted more information about your favorites right here on this page. Learn more about each work that you chose as your top 40 favorites on Classical 91.5.

#6 Ralph Vaughan Williams

Classical 91.5 WXXO-FM | By agilchrist

Published August 28, 2016 at 9:33 PM EDT

The Lark Ascending ?

This gorgeousness comes from the visionary 20^th century English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose musical language was profoundly influenced in 1904 when he was asked to edit the English Hymnal. What was to take two months instead took two years, and in completing the project, Vaughan Williams came to love the modal, polyphonic beauty of Tudor composers. He also drew inspiration from poets. In writing The Lark Ascending, the composer quoted a poem by George Meredith which includes these lines:

For singing till his heaven fills,

‘Tis love of earth that he instils,

And ever winging up and up.

Image Credit:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alauda_arvensis_qtl1.jpg?