0:00:06 > 0:00:11Ralph Vaughan Williams is the giant of 20th century English music,
0:00:11 > 0:00:17perhaps the greatest composer of symphonies this country has ever produced
0:00:17 > 0:00:20with a magical sound all his own.
0:00:20 > 0:00:24For many people, his music encapsulates Englishness,
0:00:24 > 0:00:29whether he is describing our character, our countryside or larks ascending.
0:00:29 > 0:00:36But there's far more to Vaughan Williams than wistful evocations of the English landscape.
0:00:36 > 0:00:40This film explores the enormous musical range
0:00:40 > 0:00:45of an energetic, red-blooded man of both spirituality and passion.
0:00:48 > 0:00:54Lord, yes, passionate man. Absolutely no doubt about it. Passionate and erotic.
0:00:58 > 0:01:03I fell madly in love with him the moment I met him. Most women did.
0:01:04 > 0:01:06Vaughan Williams died 50 years ago,
0:01:06 > 0:01:11but his young widow Ursula lived on until only last year.
0:01:12 > 0:01:17The story of their secret love affair can now be told.
0:01:17 > 0:01:24It nourished the fires within him, crystallised his moral dilemmas and fertilised his music.
0:01:24 > 0:01:26He was very tall, very beautiful...
0:01:27 > 0:01:30..and he was perfect.
0:01:30 > 0:01:32And I adored him.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41DRAMATIC MUSIC
0:01:44 > 0:01:51Through most of Vaughan Williams's 85 years, one of his abiding passions was women.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54He not only loved them, he liked them.
0:01:54 > 0:01:59And he needed them. They fed his creativity.
0:02:01 > 0:02:06I remember going to a Christmas Party and looking round the room.
0:02:06 > 0:02:11There were a lot of disconsolate men and couples talking to each other.
0:02:11 > 0:02:18And Ralph was on the sofa with five women at his feet, five hanging over the back, a couple on either side.
0:02:18 > 0:02:21He really did have pulling power?
0:02:21 > 0:02:24Oh, absolutely. Yes.
0:02:26 > 0:02:32He used to call the wine waiter over and say to him, "What's the strongest aperitif you've got?"
0:02:32 > 0:02:35The chap would suggest something.
0:02:35 > 0:02:40He'd say, "Two doubles, please." And we started the dinner like that.
0:02:40 > 0:02:45He was determined to make it as nice as possible, I suppose.
0:02:48 > 0:02:53He was a touching man, but he was a touching man too with his hands.
0:02:53 > 0:02:58He gave you a good old pat if you did something. He liked the feeling.
0:02:58 > 0:03:03He'd put a hand on your knee and say, "Come on, we'd better do this."
0:03:06 > 0:03:10But Ursula said, and I'm sure it was true,
0:03:10 > 0:03:12"Nothing from the waist downwards."
0:03:17 > 0:03:24Vaughan Williams was first captivated by Ursula long before they became husband and wife
0:03:24 > 0:03:27when he was 65 and she was 27.
0:03:29 > 0:03:33But at that point she was married and so was he.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36In fact, he'd been married for 40 years.
0:03:36 > 0:03:43As a young man, he'd fallen for the cool, pre-Raphaelite beauty of Adeline Fisher,
0:03:43 > 0:03:45a cousin of Virginia Woolf.
0:03:45 > 0:03:50She played the cello rather better than Ralph played the viola.
0:03:50 > 0:03:54He wrote to a relative to announce their engagement.
0:03:57 > 0:04:03"She is two years older than I am and for many years we've been great friends.
0:04:03 > 0:04:07"And for the last three I've known my mind on the matter."
0:04:07 > 0:04:10# Kissing her hair
0:04:10 > 0:04:16# I sat against her feet
0:04:16 > 0:04:20# Wove and unwove it
0:04:20 > 0:04:22# Wound and found... #
0:04:22 > 0:04:28I do remember she had a lovely voice, a wonderful way of speaking.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31It was a deep, very articulated voice.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35Once you'd heard it, you never forgot it.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41She had this aquiline nose and rather in the air...
0:04:41 > 0:04:45A very thin, long neck, I seem to remember.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49Very aristocratic looking.
0:04:51 > 0:04:55They spent their honeymoon in 1897 in Berlin
0:04:55 > 0:04:58and stayed in Europe for six months
0:04:58 > 0:05:05to escape what Vaughan Williams had already realised were the clutches of Adeline's extensive family.
0:05:05 > 0:05:11# Kissing her hair... #
0:05:11 > 0:05:14One of the things that Ralph resented
0:05:14 > 0:05:19was that she was absolutely oriented on her family.
0:05:19 > 0:05:23She had her mother's obsession with looking after the sick.
0:05:23 > 0:05:30If one of her brothers even started sneezing, she had to go and look after them.
0:05:30 > 0:05:35Vaughan Williams still had to make his mark as a composer
0:05:35 > 0:05:37and find his own voice.
0:05:37 > 0:05:44He had been struggling to prove himself ever since his student days at the Royal College of Music
0:05:44 > 0:05:50under the guidance of two leading composers, Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford.
0:05:50 > 0:05:55'One of the first things I showed Stanford was for a string quartet.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59'I wrote feverishly at it and like every composer,
0:05:59 > 0:06:04'I thought it was the greatest work that ever had been written
0:06:04 > 0:06:09'and also this was my swansong, I'd never write anything again.
0:06:09 > 0:06:14'So I went there all het up, thinking my master would fall on his knees
0:06:14 > 0:06:16'and say, "Here's a genius at last!"
0:06:17 > 0:06:23'Stanford turned it over and dismissed it with a curt, "All rot, my boy."
0:06:23 > 0:06:27'That's all I heard about that piece.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30'That's all I can remember. He was quite right.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34'Luckily, the piece was lost years ago.'
0:06:34 > 0:06:41Living with Adeline in Westminster, he combined his composing efforts with research into English folksong
0:06:41 > 0:06:47and edited the music for a pioneering new hymn book, The English Hymnal.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51It resulted in some of his most famous tunes.
0:06:51 > 0:06:53There's nothing like a congregation
0:06:53 > 0:06:58singing a Vaughan Williams hymn. It's stirring. It moves me to tears.
0:06:58 > 0:07:05# Come down, O love divine
0:07:05 > 0:07:11# Seek thou this soul of mine
0:07:11 > 0:07:20# And visit it with thine own ardour glowing... #
0:07:20 > 0:07:24Vaughan Williams himself was an agnostic,
0:07:24 > 0:07:30but he had a passion for giving those who did go to church good tunes to sing.
0:07:30 > 0:07:37He was happy to adapt some from folk songs with what he liked to call "sexular associations".
0:07:37 > 0:07:42# And kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing... #
0:07:42 > 0:07:47Half a century later, living in a much bigger London house,
0:07:47 > 0:07:53he still had his zest for hymns and Christmas carols, as Simona Pakenham discovered.
0:07:53 > 0:07:58She'd been so hooked by his later music that she wrote a book about it
0:07:58 > 0:08:03and a mutual friend, actress Jill Balcon, tried to get them to meet.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06He rang Jill and said, "Who is this Simona Pakenham?
0:08:06 > 0:08:10"Does she wear baggy tweed skirts and flat shoes?"
0:08:10 > 0:08:14- Yes, that was lovely. - "Can I ask her to tea?"
0:08:14 > 0:08:19- "Shall I ask her to tea?"- Jill said, "It's OK, you can ask her to tea."
0:08:19 > 0:08:24Tea is a very discreet thing if you're meeting a new lady friend.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28Ursula was going to be there, but asking someone to tea is OK.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31And I was absolutely terrified.
0:08:31 > 0:08:37I arrived much too early and walked round Regent's Park in a state of great dread.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41Ursula opened the door and Ralph was on the bottom of the stairs.
0:08:41 > 0:08:46He spread out his arms and he said, "My dear, you know my hymn books!"
0:08:46 > 0:08:51He was far more pleased with that than the fact I knew his symphonies.
0:08:51 > 0:08:58# And so the yearning strong... #
0:08:58 > 0:09:02Simona was such a beautiful woman too.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05That would have appealed to him.
0:09:05 > 0:09:11And then the next thing he said was, "You must look at Ursula's petticoat."
0:09:11 > 0:09:17So he heaved up her skirt and she had a bright yellow petticoat with black lace.
0:09:17 > 0:09:21So that was my first meeting with him.
0:09:22 > 0:09:27But I hadn't expected him to be quite so gorgeous as he was.
0:09:27 > 0:09:34# Wherein the Holy Spirit makes his dwelling... #
0:09:34 > 0:09:41By the time he reached his mid-30s, Vaughan Williams had yet to produce a major orchestral score.
0:09:41 > 0:09:48But his first symphony had the self-confidence of someone who had written symphonies all his life.
0:09:48 > 0:09:53It's one of the great beginnings of any work written in any country.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56The opening of the Sea Symphony is mind-blowing.
0:10:02 > 0:10:10# Behold the sea... #
0:10:10 > 0:10:12DRAMATIC MUSIC
0:10:16 > 0:10:19GENTLE, FLOWING STRINGS MUSIC
0:10:27 > 0:10:35# And on its limitless heaving breast, the ships
0:10:35 > 0:10:37# Its limitless heaving breast
0:10:37 > 0:10:43- # See where their white... - See where their white sails
0:10:43 > 0:10:47# Bellying in the wind... #
0:10:47 > 0:10:51You felt the sea almost shifting under you.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55You were there in the blustering waves.
0:10:55 > 0:10:59You entered things through his imagination.
0:11:02 > 0:11:05That was his magic.
0:11:05 > 0:11:08It wasn't just imagination.
0:11:08 > 0:11:13The symphony had taken years of struggle, at one point almost killing him.
0:11:13 > 0:11:20He had been wrestling with it in Yorkshire when he went for a swim off a beach near Robin Hood's Bay.
0:11:25 > 0:11:32The sea was rougher than he thought and he couldn't scramble back on to the rocks.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37The symphony's first audience had no idea how close a shave he'd had.
0:11:41 > 0:11:43He was already 38.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46That is a late composer.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50Was Mozart not already dead at that point?
0:11:55 > 0:12:01He was on the point of giving up in despair and exhaustion
0:12:01 > 0:12:03and letting himself drown.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07But a freak wave lifted him right on to the shore
0:12:07 > 0:12:12and preserved him for 50 more years and eight more symphonies.
0:12:18 > 0:12:24He was a late developer and he went on developing right on till the end of his life.
0:12:24 > 0:12:261910 was a turning point.
0:12:26 > 0:12:33On top of the Sea Symphony, Vaughan Williams combined his passions for hymns, folk songs and Tudor music
0:12:33 > 0:12:40to create a quite different modern masterpiece - The Fantasia On A Theme Of Thomas Tallis.
0:12:42 > 0:12:49Its first performance in Gloucester Cathedral marked him out as a composer unlike any other.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53GENTLE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
0:12:59 > 0:13:05He used to say that any composer worth his salt had at least one piece in him
0:13:05 > 0:13:09that could not have been written by anyone else.
0:13:09 > 0:13:11This was it.
0:13:20 > 0:13:26I'm sure he had the cathedral acoustic in mind as he wrote this piece,
0:13:26 > 0:13:33with that long, long reverberation time, the beautiful resonance too of a stone building.
0:13:33 > 0:13:35A very important moment for him.
0:13:40 > 0:13:45And we don't know if we're in three-time or four-time.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49That's another thing. There's no conventional rhythm here.
0:13:49 > 0:13:52"TALLIS FANTASIA" CONTINUES
0:13:55 > 0:13:58And now VW lets the orchestra flower.
0:14:07 > 0:14:11It's a work of astonishing originality.
0:14:11 > 0:14:17I seem to remember that at that concert there was Ivor Gurney and Herbert Howells,
0:14:17 > 0:14:22two composers who became important on the English scene.
0:14:22 > 0:14:28They were walking around the streets all night because of the Tallis Fantasia
0:14:28 > 0:14:30which was a totally new world.
0:14:38 > 0:14:40At last, VW was on his way.
0:14:40 > 0:14:45When he turned his musical imagination to his beloved London,
0:14:45 > 0:14:48he had the colours to do it.
0:14:48 > 0:14:53Thanks to lessons he'd had from the young French composer Maurice Ravel,
0:14:53 > 0:14:57he had achieved a distinctive Vaughan Williams sound.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02As a resident for 20 years or more,
0:15:02 > 0:15:07he preferred to call his London Symphony "Symphony By A Londoner".
0:15:11 > 0:15:13This idea of VW as a countryman
0:15:13 > 0:15:16has always been rubbish.
0:15:16 > 0:15:20He was born in the country, but lived most of his life in London
0:15:20 > 0:15:26and he liked London, art galleries, theatres and seeing friends.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29MUSIC: "A London Symphony"
0:15:32 > 0:15:35STRIDENT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
0:15:48 > 0:15:54It was probably the richest and most romantic score of them all in many ways.
0:15:54 > 0:15:58And I heard him say when he was a very old man indeed,
0:15:58 > 0:16:02"I can't score like that now, I can't get that richness."
0:16:02 > 0:16:09His involvement in the Great War led inevitably to a change in the colour and temper of his music.
0:16:09 > 0:16:14At 42, Vaughan Williams was over-age, so he pretended he was 39
0:16:14 > 0:16:19and volunteered for the ranks, to the despair of some of his friends.
0:16:19 > 0:16:26The cantata Dona Nobis Pacem, Give Us Peace, was his own war requiem, though he was no pacifist.
0:16:27 > 0:16:42# Dona nobis pacem... #
0:16:42 > 0:16:45CHORAL HARMONIES
0:16:50 > 0:16:53DRAMATIC MUSIC
0:17:02 > 0:17:05MUSIC REACHES CRESCENDO
0:17:16 > 0:17:27# Dona nobis pacem... #
0:17:27 > 0:17:29He had a great feeling for manly life
0:17:29 > 0:17:35and I think the army made a great impression on him, the absolute goodness of these people.
0:17:35 > 0:17:40He wasn't a natural soldier. He found it difficult.
0:17:40 > 0:17:45He enjoyed the camaraderie hugely and organised music wherever he went.
0:17:45 > 0:17:49But he found looking tidy very difficult.
0:17:50 > 0:17:55Private Vaughan Williams joined the Royal Army Medical Corps
0:17:55 > 0:17:58and was sent to northern France as a wagon orderly.
0:17:58 > 0:18:05He ferried the wounded on stretchers from the front line to makeshift dressing stations.
0:18:05 > 0:18:12It gave him first-hand insight into the realities of war which coloured his music in the years to come.
0:18:13 > 0:18:15SOLEMN, MELANCHOLIC MUSIC
0:18:32 > 0:18:39He described going up night after night with the ambulance wagon at Ecoivres, up the steep hill,
0:18:39 > 0:18:43where in the midst of war he was impressed by what he called
0:18:43 > 0:18:47"the wonderful Corot-like landscape in the sunset".
0:18:47 > 0:18:50SLOW MARCHING RHYTHM
0:18:56 > 0:19:01# The last sunbeam
0:19:01 > 0:19:08# Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath
0:19:08 > 0:19:12# On the pavement here
0:19:12 > 0:19:18# And there beyond it is looking
0:19:19 > 0:19:26# Down a new-made double grave... #
0:19:27 > 0:19:35A new symphony began to germinate in his mind which he rather misleadingly called The Pastoral.
0:19:39 > 0:19:43People said it suggested a cow looking over a gate
0:19:43 > 0:19:47or VW rolling over and over in a field.
0:19:49 > 0:19:54But if there's any landscape here, it's a French one
0:19:54 > 0:19:57and a disturbing one at that.
0:19:57 > 0:20:02"It's wartime music," he told Ursula later, "not lambkins frisking."
0:20:04 > 0:20:08I think he maybe saw the irony of it,
0:20:08 > 0:20:14that this was or could have been a pastoral scene if it hadn't been blasted by war.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18GENTLE, THOUGHTFUL MUSIC
0:20:37 > 0:20:40It's deeply uncomfortable music actually.
0:20:43 > 0:20:50It gives me that feeling that you're standing somewhere with a cool breeze blowing on the back of your neck
0:20:50 > 0:20:57and you're not sure whether you're really enjoying it or actually it's rather scary.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03DRAMATIC, OMINOUS MUSIC
0:21:08 > 0:21:11BECOMES GENTLER AGAIN
0:21:15 > 0:21:21I wonder why do people keep talking about cowpats and English countryside?
0:21:21 > 0:21:27Because to me it seemed a most ominous, dark and formidable, threatening work even.
0:21:29 > 0:21:35Vaughan Williams uses in this movement a natural horn, a natural trumpet,
0:21:35 > 0:21:42which only plays the notes of the harmonic series, which are a little bit out of tune.
0:21:42 > 0:21:47They don't have piston stops to modify the notes
0:21:47 > 0:21:54and I think he wants to get that open air feeling that you get on folk instruments or on bugles.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58I always think in the slow movement of The Pastoral Symphony
0:21:58 > 0:22:04you're hearing something rather like a Last Post for the dead in the trenches.
0:22:09 > 0:22:12SLOW MOURNFUL MUSIC
0:23:25 > 0:23:31By the time Ralph came back to Adeline in Chelsea, the war had marked them both.
0:23:31 > 0:23:38Ralph grieved for friends like his fellow composer George Butterworth, lost at the front.
0:23:38 > 0:23:43He wrote that he dreaded returning to normal life with so many gaps
0:23:43 > 0:23:50and Adeline had lost a brother in the naval Battle of Jutland, a blow from which she never recovered.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54She wore black for the rest of her life.
0:23:55 > 0:23:59# O my soldiers twain
0:23:59 > 0:24:04# O my veterans
0:24:04 > 0:24:08# Passing to burial...
0:24:11 > 0:24:15# What I have
0:24:15 > 0:24:19# I also give you...
0:24:41 > 0:24:49# And my heart, O my soldiers
0:24:53 > 0:25:00# My veterans...
0:25:13 > 0:25:19# My heart
0:25:19 > 0:25:28# Gives you love... #
0:25:28 > 0:25:30But there were other problems too.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34Even before the war, Adeline had contracted arthritis
0:25:34 > 0:25:40and Ralph now found she was in increasing pain, often confined to a wheelchair,
0:25:40 > 0:25:43though she was only in her 40s.
0:25:43 > 0:25:49It meant in the end he had to forsake London for the Surrey he had known as a boy.
0:25:49 > 0:25:55To make life easier for her, he went into exile, as he once put it, on the edge of Dorking
0:25:55 > 0:25:59where he composed in somewhat sombre surroundings.
0:26:00 > 0:26:04I think it was what one might call
0:26:04 > 0:26:06a high-minded marriage.
0:26:06 > 0:26:10Adeline played a close role in everything he did.
0:26:10 > 0:26:16She listened to all his music on the wireless when she couldn't go to the concerts.
0:26:16 > 0:26:21She wrote a lot of his letters, not for him, but to his dictation.
0:26:21 > 0:26:23He did a great deal for her.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27I mean, I think more than most husbands would do.
0:26:27 > 0:26:34I think he used to really look after her, give her a bath and help her do her hair.
0:26:34 > 0:26:40But it was hopeless. It just got worse. The pain was bad.
0:26:40 > 0:26:48Quite how much of a close, romantic attachment there was after the early years, I'm not sure.
0:26:48 > 0:26:52But I suspect it became less so quite quickly.
0:26:52 > 0:26:57The exile in Surrey was to last almost a quarter of a century.
0:26:57 > 0:27:00He and Adeline never had children,
0:27:00 > 0:27:06but there were usually members of Adeline's family staying with them at the White Gates
0:27:06 > 0:27:10and other guests were somewhat wary.
0:27:17 > 0:27:21- A dark house inside. - Very strange house really.
0:27:21 > 0:27:26A little bit like going into a church. And there was a balcony.
0:27:26 > 0:27:30I suppose the bedroom had the balcony.
0:27:33 > 0:27:37Adeline was in a wheelchair with a rug over her.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40With a green eyeshade.
0:27:40 > 0:27:45I remember particularly seeing her when she was to have a cup of tea,
0:27:45 > 0:27:49stuffing a handkerchief into the handle of the cup,
0:27:49 > 0:27:53so she could hold on to it and drink it for herself.
0:27:53 > 0:27:58I don't think she was experienced with rumbustious boys of our age.
0:27:59 > 0:28:04So after a bit we were turned out into the garden.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07There might have been a sandwich coming my way
0:28:07 > 0:28:12and I might have carefully tipped a little tea into my mouth,
0:28:12 > 0:28:16but I was there as part of the baggage, not to be shown around.
0:28:18 > 0:28:23Vaughan Williams did regularly escape to London by train
0:28:23 > 0:28:29where he drew sustenance from his female students at the Royal College of Music
0:28:29 > 0:28:32and from other young musicians he worked with.
0:28:32 > 0:28:39The letters he wrote to these younger women were signed "Uncle Ralph" and he put kisses on it.
0:28:39 > 0:28:41It was innocent and light-hearted.
0:28:41 > 0:28:48When he wrote a concerto for the pianist Harriet Cohen, all he asked in return was 10,000 kisses.
0:28:48 > 0:28:53And in his frequent letters he kept a tally of the balance he was owed.
0:28:53 > 0:28:58He needed youth. That was why he got to know us all.
0:28:58 > 0:29:05There's a very charming story about how Vaughan Williams would slowly climb up to the top floor
0:29:05 > 0:29:08of the Royal College of Music
0:29:08 > 0:29:12when a particularly beautiful young violin student
0:29:12 > 0:29:15would be practising.
0:29:15 > 0:29:21He would just climb all that way, look into the window for just a few moments
0:29:21 > 0:29:25and climb all the way back down to his teaching studio.
0:29:25 > 0:29:30He rather shocked me on one occasion because I had a friend.
0:29:30 > 0:29:34He said to her, "How's your love life, my darling?"
0:29:34 > 0:29:41I think he realised I was rather horrified. He said, "They told me everything." And I'm sure they did.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48He was, I think, a Shakespearean character.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51Large, bumbling.
0:29:51 > 0:29:55Spread all over the chair with his huge shoulders
0:29:55 > 0:29:58and a certain amount of tum.
0:29:59 > 0:30:04He had about three shelves on it and on each one was a cat.
0:30:04 > 0:30:06Yes, always with a cat.
0:30:06 > 0:30:13I don't want to be rude, but the resemblance to a sack of potatoes comes to mind.
0:30:13 > 0:30:18He wore a three-piece, heavy, tweed suit, even if it was high summer.
0:30:18 > 0:30:23With his waistcoat skew-whiff and probably a stain on his tie.
0:30:23 > 0:30:27I love the dishevelled aspect of him.
0:30:27 > 0:30:32I think it was because the other professors were so neat and dapper
0:30:32 > 0:30:40and always looked as though they had just shaved. He didn't look like that. He didn't shave a great deal.
0:30:40 > 0:30:43- # Ding...- Dong
0:30:43 > 0:30:48- # Ding...- Dong
0:30:48 > 0:30:53# Ding-dong bell, ding-dong bell, ding-dong bell
0:30:53 > 0:30:56- # Dong...- Ding-dong
0:30:56 > 0:30:58# Ding-dong bell... #
0:30:58 > 0:31:03Musically, Vaughan Williams was just as much Ariel as Falstaff.
0:31:03 > 0:31:05# Ding-dong bell
0:31:05 > 0:31:08# Full fathom five
0:31:08 > 0:31:12# Thy father lies... #
0:31:12 > 0:31:16He knew how to work his charms on the young.
0:31:16 > 0:31:18# Ding-dong bell, ding-dong bell... #
0:31:18 > 0:31:25The singer Robert Tear first sang this setting of Shakespeare 50 years ago
0:31:25 > 0:31:31and was amazed when the composer turned up to hear him and his fellow students rehearse.
0:31:31 > 0:31:34They were just wonderful.
0:31:35 > 0:31:44# Nothing of him that doth fa-a-a-ade... #
0:31:44 > 0:31:49I was 18 and I was singing with the King's College Cambridge Choir.
0:31:49 > 0:31:53We came down to St Bartholomew's Church in Smithfield.
0:31:53 > 0:31:57And there was this haystack of a man,
0:31:57 > 0:32:03hugely big, sitting on a very small chair, looking like a sofa with the stuffing coming out.
0:32:03 > 0:32:06He was enormously impressive.
0:32:06 > 0:32:10# Rich and strange
0:32:11 > 0:32:14# Stra-a-ange
0:32:14 > 0:32:17# Stra-a-ange
0:32:17 > 0:32:21# Stra-a-a-ange
0:32:21 > 0:32:26# Di-i-i-ing
0:32:26 > 0:32:29# Ding-dong bell... #
0:32:29 > 0:32:36We went to introduce ourselves to him and he produced this enormous black ear trumpet
0:32:36 > 0:32:38in which we had to bellow our names,
0:32:38 > 0:32:41a bit like meeting Beethoven!
0:32:41 > 0:32:44# Ding-dong bell, ding-dong bell
0:32:44 > 0:32:47# Ding-dong bell, ding-dong bell
0:32:47 > 0:32:51# Di-i-ing Ding-dong bell
0:32:51 > 0:32:54# Ding-dong bell, ding-dong bell
0:32:54 > 0:32:57# Ding-dong bell, ding-dong bell
0:32:57 > 0:33:01# Ding-dong bell, ding-dong bell
0:33:01 > 0:33:07# Di-i-ing...do-o-ong...be-e-ell... #
0:33:10 > 0:33:15It was while teaching students in London in the mid-1920s
0:33:15 > 0:33:21that Vaughan Williams produced a work which demonstrates how much he depended on the young,
0:33:21 > 0:33:24particularly women, to motivate him.
0:33:27 > 0:33:29Flos Campi, or Flower Of The Field,
0:33:29 > 0:33:35was inspired by the ecstatic love poetry of the Biblical Song of Songs,
0:33:35 > 0:33:38verses of which head every movement.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41Flos Campi absolutely got me.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47DRAMATIC, STRIDENT MUSIC
0:33:52 > 0:33:54REACHES CRESCENDO
0:33:57 > 0:34:02I think anyone that doesn't know Vaughan Williams well,
0:34:02 > 0:34:06I would defy them to identify that as Vaughan Williams.
0:34:06 > 0:34:10The origins of Flos Campi intrigued Michael Kennedy
0:34:10 > 0:34:14while he was working on his definitive study of the composer.
0:34:14 > 0:34:17Vaughan Williams gave a clue.
0:34:17 > 0:34:21"Those pimps at the BBC," he said, "think it's religious.
0:34:21 > 0:34:26"In fact, it's the most passionate piece I ever wrote."
0:34:26 > 0:34:31It's almost an erotic work and the reason for it was he was very taken
0:34:31 > 0:34:34with a young girl at the Royal College of Music.
0:34:34 > 0:34:41When Ursula and I did our books together, we exchanged letters and she wrote to me about this.
0:34:41 > 0:34:48She said, "I think Flos is not much mystical, but about Ralph's most sensual-sensuous work.
0:34:48 > 0:34:55"He behaved rather badly to a woman who was obviously in love with him as he used to go and see her a lot
0:34:55 > 0:35:01"to work himself up into the terrific state he needed to be in to write it, but never got involved.
0:35:01 > 0:35:04"Rather a fine tightrope performance.
0:35:04 > 0:35:10"He was much surprised when I said I thought it was immoral to go so far and no further."
0:35:10 > 0:35:17There was another young woman in Surrey who was burnt by the Vaughan Williams flame.
0:35:17 > 0:35:23For years he had been harvesting the efforts of village choral societies and amateur orchestras
0:35:23 > 0:35:26for the Leith Hill Musical Festival.
0:35:26 > 0:35:30Its secretary was Frances Farrer or Fanny as she was known.
0:35:30 > 0:35:35She was more than 20 years Ralph's junior, but they became close.
0:35:35 > 0:35:40It was probably the most important relationship of her life.
0:35:40 > 0:35:43He was obviously very fond of her.
0:35:43 > 0:35:47I think Adeline was considerably an invalid at that time,
0:35:47 > 0:35:51so he needed somebody to keep him company.
0:35:51 > 0:35:57He liked her being so dashing. They went for drives in her car and went very fast round corners probably!
0:35:57 > 0:36:04The family treasures the manuscripts he gave Fanny and his jokingly affectionate letters.
0:36:04 > 0:36:11- He says, "My darling sec," and "Your conductor."- "Your loving conductor." - "Your loving conductor," indeed.
0:36:11 > 0:36:16Making arrangements to meet, "it was so lovely to see you."
0:36:16 > 0:36:18- "Longing to see you again."- Yes.
0:36:18 > 0:36:23Aunt Fan, say her family, was an energetic, get-up-and-go character.
0:36:23 > 0:36:30She ran the festival and sometimes wrote lyrics for Ralph to set to music, but she wasn't a musician.
0:36:34 > 0:36:42So when Ralph was asked to write a piece for amateurs to play at the opening of a village hall in 1925,
0:36:42 > 0:36:47he arranged a folk dance with a simple percussion part for Fanny.
0:36:53 > 0:36:56CHEERFUL MELODIC MUSIC
0:37:06 > 0:37:13Fanny never talked of her friendship with him and wanted his letters burned after her death,
0:37:13 > 0:37:17tell-tale signs, in her family's view, of a broken heart.
0:37:24 > 0:37:29When I was about 12 or something, I wanted a pair of binoculars.
0:37:29 > 0:37:34Aunt Fan had two, so she gave me one. They were lovely binoculars.
0:37:34 > 0:37:40Obviously war surplus and in a lovely leather case, so I thought they were great.
0:37:40 > 0:37:47A week later, she said, "I'll give you a new case for those binoculars. I'll have the other one back."
0:37:47 > 0:37:51I looked at the case and there, very worn on it, was "RV Williams".
0:37:51 > 0:37:56She didn't want me to know they'd been his binoculars.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04HARMONISED SINGING
0:38:04 > 0:38:07SENSUAL, ENERGETIC MUSIC
0:38:41 > 0:38:44MUSIC REACHES CRESCENDO
0:39:25 > 0:39:27GENTLE VIOLA MUSIC
0:39:44 > 0:39:49After 18 years, Fanny Farrer gave up running the festival
0:39:49 > 0:39:51and moved away.
0:39:55 > 0:39:59She couldn't feel interest in other men.
0:39:59 > 0:40:04She was friendly with lots of them, but wasn't able to go further.
0:40:04 > 0:40:06- She never married?- No.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09He was always there.
0:40:19 > 0:40:23The 4th Symphony in 1934 bewildered his friends.
0:40:23 > 0:40:28There was nothing romantic, nothing pastoral here.
0:40:29 > 0:40:35It came at the time of growing frustration in his home life and the rise of Hitler.
0:40:35 > 0:40:41Vaughan Williams had found a new language, but it was still indisputably his.
0:40:44 > 0:40:49You see, this is a well of passion building up.
0:40:52 > 0:40:57Because this was the way whatever was inside could get out.
0:41:01 > 0:41:04OMINOUS, DRAMATIC MUSIC
0:41:12 > 0:41:17It's an incredibly angry work. It really stirs you up. He was a real human being.
0:41:17 > 0:41:22That's a genuinely modernistic work, shatteringly dissonant.
0:41:24 > 0:41:29I was doing the ironing and I always had the radio on when I was ironing.
0:41:29 > 0:41:33And I suddenly heard this extraordinary music.
0:41:33 > 0:41:38Like nothing that I had ever heard before.
0:41:44 > 0:41:50And yes, in some strange way, it made all the rest of music fall into place.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55MUSIC REACHES CRESCENDO
0:41:57 > 0:42:00This is the way he erupts.
0:42:00 > 0:42:04This is why he had to write music.
0:42:07 > 0:42:11VW always hated his music being given meanings.
0:42:11 > 0:42:15He did discuss this F Minor Symphony with a friend,
0:42:15 > 0:42:19but was cagey about what had been in his mind.
0:42:19 > 0:42:23"I agree with you that all music must have beauty,
0:42:23 > 0:42:26"the problem being what is beauty?
0:42:26 > 0:42:31"So when you say you do not think my F Minor Symphony is beautiful,
0:42:31 > 0:42:35"my answer must be that I do think it beautiful,
0:42:35 > 0:42:41"not that I did not mean it to be beautiful because it reflects unbeautiful times.
0:42:41 > 0:42:45"We know that beauty can come from unbeautiful things.
0:42:45 > 0:42:51"As a matter of fact, I'm not at all sure I like it myself now.
0:42:51 > 0:42:56"All I know is that it is what I wanted to do at the time.
0:42:56 > 0:43:02"I wrote it not as a definite picture of anything external, eg, the state of Europe,
0:43:02 > 0:43:07"but simply because it occurred to me like this. I can't explain why."
0:43:07 > 0:43:12He may have been thinking about what was going on in Germany and in his own life,
0:43:12 > 0:43:19but he was thinking about how he could write this symphony. He was interested in music.
0:43:22 > 0:43:25He was a big man. He had a big voice.
0:43:25 > 0:43:28And he used it, bless his heart!
0:43:28 > 0:43:31If things went wrong, he got very cross.
0:43:31 > 0:43:36He could be frightening, obviously. He had the rage of Zeus.
0:43:36 > 0:43:39He couldn't bear being late.
0:43:39 > 0:43:43He was going somewhere and the train was late coming in.
0:43:43 > 0:43:46When he got into the train,
0:43:46 > 0:43:51he had screwed his gloves up so much that he'd torn them in the middle!
0:43:51 > 0:43:58The famous picture of him haranguing an orchestra! I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of VW in a rage.
0:43:58 > 0:44:00And you hear that in the music.
0:44:00 > 0:44:03ENERGETIC, STRIDENT MUSIC
0:44:08 > 0:44:12One of the soloists didn't arrive for a rehearsal.
0:44:12 > 0:44:18But he left word with a secretary, "Don't worry, I know it backwards."
0:44:18 > 0:44:25And Vaughan Williams immediately was very, very angry. He was very, very angry.
0:44:25 > 0:44:29He said, "Well, I don't want him to sing it backwards!"
0:44:29 > 0:44:33Vaughan Williams was now well into middle age.
0:44:33 > 0:44:40One of his stage works at the time exemplified the tensions in his personal life.
0:44:40 > 0:44:47The virtuous patience of Job is tested through many tribulations at the hands of God and Satan.
0:44:56 > 0:45:03After 30 years of Ralph's high-minded marriage, Job was to become the catalyst for change.
0:45:04 > 0:45:07It's so glamorous
0:45:07 > 0:45:11in its wonderful satanic manner. It's really beautiful.
0:45:22 > 0:45:27This 1930 ballet is based on drawings by William Blake.
0:45:28 > 0:45:35Rather like Milton in Paradise Lost, Blake portrayed Satan as an attractive, handsome figure.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40Gosh, it's masculine stuff, that!
0:45:45 > 0:45:52- You feel Vaughan Williams has sympathy for Satan!- Oh, yes! But everybody likes Satan really.
0:45:52 > 0:45:56He certainly does, as far as I can tell.
0:46:04 > 0:46:11The sheer power of this music first drew the young and beautiful Ursula to Vaughan Williams.
0:46:19 > 0:46:26It was at the Old Vic, where I was a drama student and we were allowed to go on Mondays free
0:46:26 > 0:46:29so I went to the ballet every Monday
0:46:29 > 0:46:32and was rewarded with Job, which knocked me sideways.
0:46:37 > 0:46:43I knew the Blake drawings and I had heard very little music in my life.
0:46:43 > 0:46:48So it was a surprise, a revelation and, in a way, a shock.
0:46:57 > 0:47:03Directly because of Job, Ursula eventually contacted Vaughan Williams with a new ballet scenario.
0:47:03 > 0:47:08He turned it down with a "Dear Madam" letter. She was now married.
0:47:08 > 0:47:11But she persisted until she met him.
0:47:11 > 0:47:15I think she wrote him a fan letter, didn't she?
0:47:15 > 0:47:19And managed to get him to take her out to lunch.
0:47:19 > 0:47:26The date was fixed for March 31st, 1938, in a letter from Ralph.
0:47:27 > 0:47:33But, ironically, the way things turned out, the handwriting was not Ralph's, but Adeline's.
0:47:37 > 0:47:43Ursula anticipated the encounter by writing a poem that was strangely prophetic.
0:47:44 > 0:47:49"Fleshed at this meeting moves her aware and sensual
0:47:49 > 0:47:54"Threading between casual moments and things, to loves
0:47:54 > 0:47:57"Destined by some choice
0:47:57 > 0:48:00"Made with both mind and voice
0:48:00 > 0:48:02"but blindly.
0:48:04 > 0:48:06"Minds like a bird in air
0:48:06 > 0:48:09"A comet which scars in flight
0:48:09 > 0:48:14"The distance and delight to find such freedom there
0:48:14 > 0:48:21"But will not stare behind to trace the path we find blindly.
0:48:21 > 0:48:27"I am two fools, I know For loving and for saying so."
0:48:29 > 0:48:32March 31st dawned.
0:48:32 > 0:48:38A day that would complicate both their lives for many years and change them forever.
0:48:38 > 0:48:44Events unfolded in London, which was still the place where Ralph's heart beat fastest.
0:48:44 > 0:48:50He'd arranged to collect Ursula from her parents' flat. She was impressed that he kept the taxi waiting
0:48:50 > 0:48:53and by his green pork pie hat.
0:48:54 > 0:48:58He was very tall and he was very beautiful
0:48:58 > 0:49:01and he was perfect.
0:49:03 > 0:49:09Some 60 years later, Ursula spoke for the only time about what happened on that momentous day.
0:49:10 > 0:49:15It was in a research interview for a book, never heard before.
0:49:37 > 0:49:43She later told friends that in the taxi "voice, eyes, hands were somehow familiar,
0:49:43 > 0:49:49"so that I felt I was meeting again someone I'd known before and this recognition was the same for him."
0:49:50 > 0:49:55After the lunch, the taxi stopped short,
0:49:55 > 0:50:02they touched hands and, at that point, there was a romantic embrace
0:50:02 > 0:50:04and a passionate kiss.
0:50:19 > 0:50:25Now I'm unclear as to whether he initiated the passionate kiss
0:50:25 > 0:50:27or she initiated it,
0:50:27 > 0:50:33but, whatever the situation, she certainly enjoyed it
0:50:33 > 0:50:36and told me he was a terrific kisser.
0:50:56 > 0:50:58He was, you know, like that.
0:50:58 > 0:51:02It was instantaneous. I'm sure it was.
0:51:02 > 0:51:07Ambushed by love is the word. You never know when it'll hit you.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30He was loving. He was really loving.
0:51:30 > 0:51:32And I adored him.
0:51:32 > 0:51:37She responded to their first meeting by sending him some of her poetry.
0:51:37 > 0:51:43He told her, "I loved having your poems. The one about your hair particularly."
0:51:43 > 0:51:48'When I unplait my hair at night I touch it as a stranger might.'
0:52:00 > 0:52:06It was now some five years since Ursula's marriage to an army officer, Michael Wood.
0:52:06 > 0:52:12He was often away on duty and she rented a small flat in London.
0:52:12 > 0:52:16Living in the same block was her friend Jean Stewart:
0:52:49 > 0:52:55The Serenade to Music later that year was ostensibly VW's tribute to the conductor Henry Wood.
0:53:03 > 0:53:09But those sounds of music had a settled romantic glow that spoke of personal experience.
0:53:14 > 0:53:21I think the occasion of that work was his meeting and love of Ursula.
0:53:27 > 0:53:36I think that this brought about an extraordinary release of feeling, of sustained feeling.
0:53:39 > 0:53:46It's not to say that Vaughan Williams had not been incredibly vigorous
0:53:46 > 0:53:48and passionate previously.
0:53:50 > 0:53:55But it's the specific expression of that work which I think is new.
0:53:56 > 0:54:03Ralph and Ursula were now involved in an intense secret affair that was to last 15 years.
0:54:04 > 0:54:09Valentine poems she lavished on him each February have come to light.
0:54:09 > 0:54:14Although he remained based at home in Dorking, and she was in London,
0:54:14 > 0:54:18there were no half measures in their relationship.
0:54:18 > 0:54:24That remains, for some, a delicate subject, even 50 years after his death.
0:54:24 > 0:54:29In his nature there was an earthiness
0:54:29 > 0:54:32and a passionate quality,
0:54:33 > 0:54:37which was not nourished
0:54:38 > 0:54:40as it could have been.
0:54:40 > 0:54:48And when Ursula came upon the scene, maybe she was able to give him some of this.
0:54:49 > 0:54:54And while it didn't disturb his devotion to Adeline,
0:54:54 > 0:54:59it provided another dimension in his life.
0:54:59 > 0:55:01Opened new doors?
0:55:01 > 0:55:04Opened new doors.
0:55:04 > 0:55:08I should think the question was that there was very little sex
0:55:08 > 0:55:11in the marriage with Adeline,
0:55:11 > 0:55:16whereas Ursula sort of transformed his life completely
0:55:16 > 0:55:20I think when he met Ursula he'd never had a love affair like that before.
0:55:20 > 0:55:27My understanding from Ursula was that they consummated their relationship physically
0:55:27 > 0:55:30very shortly after they met.
0:55:31 > 0:55:36- Within a few dates, let's say. - And how long did that last?
0:55:36 > 0:55:39Until the day he died.
0:55:41 > 0:55:44She was extraordinarily beautiful.
0:55:44 > 0:55:49Very, very pronounced and definite,
0:55:49 > 0:55:53whereas Adeline was the other thing, very sort of wispy.
0:55:56 > 0:56:02So I understand how it all worked and it was lovely for Ralph. He really was lucky.
0:56:02 > 0:56:08The correspondence between Ralph and Ursula was affectionate, but mostly discreet.
0:56:10 > 0:56:14A year into the affair, Ursula encountered his wife in London.
0:56:14 > 0:56:21Indeed, they all met up at a performance of Vaughan Williams' romantic opera Hugh the Drover.
0:56:22 > 0:56:26# I bring you toil and strife... #
0:56:29 > 0:56:36Present were Ralph and Adeline Vaughan Williams and Michael and Ursula Wood.
0:56:36 > 0:56:39Hugh the Drover rides into town
0:56:39 > 0:56:42and romances the town beauty.
0:56:46 > 0:56:51It's early Vaughan Williams. It's so romantic and windblown.
0:57:00 > 0:57:03It's just as erotic as Puccini.
0:57:07 > 0:57:12It must have been an extraordinarily uncomfortable evening.
0:57:24 > 0:57:30Some months later, Ursula was invited down to Dorking for tea at The White Gates.
0:57:30 > 0:57:35She was clearly nervous about meeting Adeline on her home ground.
0:57:47 > 0:57:52She reported that Adeline was "alarming" in her high-backed wheelchair.
0:57:52 > 0:57:58"She seemed infinitely older than Ralph," she said, and her fragility, her crooked hands
0:57:58 > 0:58:04her grey hair and pallor seemed to remove her from life's ordinariness.
0:58:04 > 0:58:09It was a relief when the other guests arrived.
0:58:14 > 0:58:20One of VW's associates told Byron Adams he had a similar reaction after visiting The White Gates.
0:58:22 > 0:58:28One of the startling things he said was that Adeline Vaughan Williams had a tongue like a viper
0:58:28 > 0:58:32and that he was very frightened of her.
0:58:39 > 0:58:45Ursula did spend time with her husband Michael during his rare periods of leave.
0:58:45 > 0:58:49She said they'd begun to feel like strangers.
0:58:49 > 0:58:55Years later, she confided in some of her friends that she'd become pregnant.
0:58:56 > 0:59:02Ursula told me twice, in 1994 and 1997,
0:59:03 > 0:59:07that she had at one time had to have an abortion.
0:59:07 > 0:59:11Now she very much wanted to believe
0:59:11 > 0:59:15that the child was Vaughan Williams's.
0:59:15 > 0:59:20However, we don't know whose child it was.
0:59:20 > 0:59:24This was her decision, as she stressed to me.
0:59:24 > 0:59:30Neither Michael Wood nor Ralph Vaughan Williams put her up to it in any way.
0:59:30 > 0:59:35- Were they aware of it? - Oh, yes. She told them both.
0:59:38 > 0:59:42Then, in June 1942, in the middle of WWII,
0:59:42 > 0:59:46Ursula's husband, Michael, died suddenly of a heart attack.
0:59:46 > 0:59:52The news reached London in a telegram that was opened by her neighbour Jean Stewart.
1:00:29 > 1:00:34Ralph made clear to Ursula that he would never leave his invalid wife.
1:00:34 > 1:00:39Adeline played her cards shrewdly by continually inviting her to Dorking.
1:00:39 > 1:00:43This generosity kept a jealous Ursula on the back foot.
1:00:43 > 1:00:46Adeline was charming.
1:00:46 > 1:00:48She wore black, mostly.
1:00:48 > 1:00:54But I bought her another one, a dark brown one,
1:00:54 > 1:00:57with loose sleeves that tied up.
1:00:57 > 1:01:01I don't think she was very pleased by that.
1:01:01 > 1:01:08She was crippled and I know it was absolutely agony to have that.
1:01:08 > 1:01:12She was very...miserable.
1:01:13 > 1:01:20The war, as for so many people, served to intensify and complicate these personal relationships.
1:01:21 > 1:01:27For Vaughan Williams, the Blitz brought back into focus his own active service 25 years earlier
1:01:27 > 1:01:34and the principles that motivated him. This time he took on war work as a civilian.
1:01:34 > 1:01:38He had no doubt where his moral duty lay.
1:01:38 > 1:01:44He did respect the pacifist conviction of the young composer Michael Tippett
1:01:44 > 1:01:51and wrote a testimonial in his support, but he told him with some vehemence he was wrong.
1:01:51 > 1:01:57"If your house was on fire," he wrote, "you would not ignore it and go on writing
1:01:57 > 1:02:01"until you'd helped to put it out and saved the inmates -
1:02:01 > 1:02:07"if for no other reason because if your music paper was burnt, you'd not be able to go on composing."
1:02:14 > 1:02:18As he reached 70, Vaughan Williams was the doyen of British music.
1:02:22 > 1:02:27Symphony Number 5, which he'd worked on ever since he met Ursula,
1:02:27 > 1:02:31came as unforeseen balm in the midst of battle.
1:02:50 > 1:02:55I was simply knocked sideways by this work.
1:03:00 > 1:03:09It was 1944 and it was the time of what we called the buzz bombs, the flying bombs, the V1s.
1:03:09 > 1:03:14I was working in the bowels of the Overseas Department of the BBC,
1:03:14 > 1:03:17living like a mole in appalling air.
1:03:17 > 1:03:20Sleeping there and working there and so on.
1:03:20 > 1:03:27And I'd been on duty and Simona Pakenham's first husband, Noel Iliffe,
1:03:27 > 1:03:30said, "I'd like to play you this piece."
1:03:30 > 1:03:35So we sat in a studio and he played me the 5th Symphony.
1:03:44 > 1:03:51It's one of the most wonderful musical experiences I've ever had and I've listened to music all my life.
1:04:02 > 1:04:08We were so tired of living underground and never knowing if we'd see the next day, you know.
1:04:20 > 1:04:26In Surrey, the Vaughan Williamses were anxious about the doodle bugs and the cut out of their engines.
1:04:33 > 1:04:39During one night raid, Adeline invited Ursula to join them in the bedroom.
1:04:39 > 1:04:43Ursula lay on a mattress between Adeline's bed and Ralph's,
1:04:43 > 1:04:48holding hands with both of them in reassurance.
1:04:48 > 1:04:51I was very frightened. I was horrified.
1:04:51 > 1:04:58Ralph and Adeline slept in adjoining beds and Ursula lay in between them on the floor.
1:04:58 > 1:05:03Yes, and we all sat there and we were clenching.
1:05:08 > 1:05:14This extraordinary image was an emblem of the balance that Ralph seemed to have found
1:05:14 > 1:05:16between the two women in his life.
1:05:30 > 1:05:35It's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful tune.
1:06:05 > 1:06:07Not many composers manage serenity.
1:06:07 > 1:06:13Bach does it and Beethoven does it, but Vaughan Williams, who saw the dark side of things,
1:06:13 > 1:06:16nevertheless is serene.
1:06:22 > 1:06:29He can face the world in all its nastiness and still remain serene by encompassing it.
1:06:36 > 1:06:40Where does it come from? This is what we all want to know.
1:06:44 > 1:06:50We can sort of understand how a painter paints and how a poet finds words,
1:06:50 > 1:06:54but where does this... this...?
1:06:57 > 1:07:02Much of the symphony drew on his love of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress,
1:07:02 > 1:07:08but it's hard not to connect its inner radiance with his feelings for Ursula.
1:07:13 > 1:07:19As she told me, "All the symphonies from Number 5 on are mine." And she's right.
1:07:22 > 1:07:27The moral duty about which Ralph was so certain as regards war
1:07:27 > 1:07:31was perhaps harder to work out in terms of Adeline and Ursula.
1:07:37 > 1:07:43It must have been a fairly friendly relationship or they'd hardly sleep in one room during the Blitz.
1:07:43 > 1:07:48So I think Adeline must have accepted Ursula.
1:07:48 > 1:07:52I dare say a few people might have thought it a scandal,
1:07:52 > 1:07:55but they didn't blazen it abroad.
1:07:55 > 1:07:58Mind you, she always appeared with him at concerts.
1:07:58 > 1:08:05But friends and family often misunderstood the way Ursula fitted in
1:08:05 > 1:08:07and no one rushed to put them right.
1:08:07 > 1:08:13She was there right through the war, or most of the war.
1:08:13 > 1:08:18I think it was her phrase that her war work was looking after the VWs.
1:08:18 > 1:08:25I think to begin with she appeared as more or less a sort of nurse or whatever to Adeline.
1:08:25 > 1:08:28That's how we all took it, anyway.
1:08:28 > 1:08:35Both my parents were quite shy, but it amused them enormously that Ina Boyle, the Irish composer,
1:08:35 > 1:08:41who I think didn't ever understand the relationship, referred to Ursula as "the secretary".
1:08:41 > 1:08:48There was not a very good reception for Ursula in the family. How unfair that was, I don't know.
1:08:48 > 1:08:56- Why?- I think they felt that she was probably what my grandmother would call "an adventuress".
1:08:56 > 1:09:01Any remaining doubt over whether Adeline knew about Ralph's affair
1:09:01 > 1:09:07is dispelled by a Valentine card sent to him by Ursula two years after the war.
1:09:07 > 1:09:13The envelope that landed on The White Gates' doormat made little attempt at concealment.
1:09:13 > 1:09:16I think all of them were tactful
1:09:16 > 1:09:22and behaved - I was going to say in a gentlemanly way! Whatever the word would be.
1:09:23 > 1:09:28And were concerned not to hurt each other. They were all vulnerable.
1:09:28 > 1:09:32Did it represent any disloyalty to Adeline?
1:09:33 > 1:09:35I can't answer that.
1:09:35 > 1:09:42I really don't know. She might have sanctioned it and been glad for him. Who knows?
1:09:47 > 1:09:54Of all the great composers, the one for which Vaughan Williams had lifelong reverence
1:09:54 > 1:09:56was JS Bach.
1:09:56 > 1:10:02Year after year, he recreated the pain and suffering of the Bach Passion settings
1:10:02 > 1:10:06in performances he conducted in Dorking.
1:10:06 > 1:10:09It was the first time it meant anything to me.
1:10:09 > 1:10:14If I listen to the recording that was made of his performance
1:10:14 > 1:10:16of the St Matthew Passion,
1:10:16 > 1:10:21the whole thing clicks back into place and the years fall away.
1:10:28 > 1:10:33Vaughan Williams had his own way with Bach. He added in clarinets
1:10:33 > 1:10:35and a piano, not a harpsichord.
1:10:35 > 1:10:40For him, the anguish of the Passion was simply the best story ever told
1:10:40 > 1:10:47and in the way Bach himself would have expected, everyone present had a role to play.
1:10:47 > 1:10:51That was a passionate part of his musical philosophy.
1:10:51 > 1:10:56His shouting of the Barabbas was louder than any choir had ever been
1:10:56 > 1:11:04because he wanted them to make it sound as though it was really so important.
1:11:04 > 1:11:08CHOIR CRIES OUT
1:11:08 > 1:11:11He made everybody scream! You know?
1:11:20 > 1:11:22They used to get quite...
1:11:22 > 1:11:27..het up over, "Crucify! Crucify! Crucify him!"
1:11:27 > 1:11:34We were all tingling on the edges of our... I've never known such emotion, really,
1:11:34 > 1:11:40as when he conducted. He went through it himself and that was why.
1:11:40 > 1:11:46It wasn't his beat, it was his...it was his heart, really, that he threw into it.
1:11:46 > 1:11:51It was very thrilling, turning round to conduct the audience.
1:11:51 > 1:11:58He'd make sure everybody was standing and if not he was rather like a schoolmaster. "Come on, get up!"
1:12:06 > 1:12:09The entire audience sang the chorale.
1:12:11 > 1:12:15It was Ralph's idea.
1:12:15 > 1:12:21- Probably very authentic.- Yes. That's what they did in Germany, so he said, "Why not here?"
1:12:21 > 1:12:26He told his performers, "Make the words apply to you."
1:12:28 > 1:12:32It was a great communal musical event.
1:12:32 > 1:12:34They all sang their hearts out.
1:12:44 > 1:12:49- VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: - I like to think of our musical life as a great pyramid
1:12:49 > 1:12:56at the apex of which are the great virtuosi performers and composers of international renown.
1:12:56 > 1:13:00Then, immediately below this, come devoted musical practitioners,
1:13:00 > 1:13:06true artists who by precept and example spread the knowledge and love of music in our schools,
1:13:06 > 1:13:10our choral societies, our musical festivals.
1:13:10 > 1:13:14Then comes the next layer of our musical structure,
1:13:14 > 1:13:20that great mass of musical amateurs who make music for the love of it in their spare time
1:13:20 > 1:13:25and play and sing for their own spiritual recreation in their homes.
1:13:25 > 1:13:31In the Matthew, there's a chorus near the end and people sing, "Oh, where..."
1:13:31 > 1:13:37Well, when he was conducting, the "Oh, where" went everywhere!
1:13:37 > 1:13:39People would laugh a little bit.
1:13:39 > 1:13:44He wasn't much help as a conductor, but as an inspirer...!
1:13:44 > 1:13:48With him it was anything. You never knew what could happen.
1:13:48 > 1:13:51But I trusted him.
1:13:57 > 1:14:04In the late 1940s, Vaughan Williams could have sat on his laurels, but he kept on exploring.
1:14:04 > 1:14:09His Sixth Symphony emerged from the shadow of the new Iron Curtain.
1:14:13 > 1:14:16Serenity and certainty had vanished.
1:14:16 > 1:14:20Instead, it ended with 12 minutes of undiluted pianissimo -
1:14:20 > 1:14:24bleak, uncomfortable music that cannot settle or find rest.
1:14:26 > 1:14:31I can remember the audience looked fairly shocked at the end of that.
1:14:31 > 1:14:35You've been taken to somewhere very, very dark.
1:14:35 > 1:14:38It told me about...
1:14:38 > 1:14:40..finality.
1:14:42 > 1:14:44It told me...
1:14:44 > 1:14:49..about... the concept of nuclear winter.
1:14:50 > 1:14:53It told me about nothingness.
1:14:54 > 1:15:01Somebody else called it an agnostic's Paradiso, which I thought was a wonderful way to describe that music.
1:15:06 > 1:15:14Adeline was now in her twilight years. She was almost 80 and had become virtually immobile.
1:15:16 > 1:15:21She was very much a sort of ghost by that time,
1:15:21 > 1:15:23in the background.
1:15:24 > 1:15:32My sister, for instance, said she became a figure saying very little in a chair at the back of the room.
1:15:32 > 1:15:38Ralph could have been forgiven for wondering, "when will this long, weary day have end?"
1:15:45 > 1:15:47Listen to the chords.
1:15:47 > 1:15:50Is it E flat major?
1:15:53 > 1:15:55Is it E minor?
1:15:59 > 1:16:01Who knows?
1:16:03 > 1:16:06Adeline died in May, 1951.
1:16:06 > 1:16:12Ursula wrote of her derelict body with a wrecked face lying on the iron bed,
1:16:12 > 1:16:17an influence still to be felt as if she'd not entirely relinquished her hold.
1:16:17 > 1:16:21Her death provoked in Ralph a torrent of rage.
1:16:21 > 1:16:24DRAMATIC MUSIC
1:16:26 > 1:16:31He smashed her chair, Adeline's chair, and began to rip up photographs.
1:16:33 > 1:16:39When he got back from the funeral, it was photographs of certain of her relatives.
1:16:39 > 1:16:42that he threw away or burnt.
1:16:46 > 1:16:51As though to say, "There! That's all finished with."
1:17:02 > 1:17:04TRANQUIL SINGING
1:17:04 > 1:17:11# Silence
1:17:11 > 1:17:20# Si-i-ilence
1:17:20 > 1:17:26# Si-i-i...
1:17:26 > 1:17:33# Si-i-i-lence... #
1:17:33 > 1:17:42# I see a sleeping swan
1:17:42 > 1:17:51# A sleeping swan Wings closed
1:17:51 > 1:17:58# And drifting where the water... #
1:17:58 > 1:18:04Although we all know that Ralph was not an obvious Christian, in spite of those wonderful hymns,
1:18:04 > 1:18:07it was a spiritual quality
1:18:07 > 1:18:12that made me think that everything would be all right.
1:18:12 > 1:18:17# A grove where shadows dream... #
1:18:17 > 1:18:21He was a man who had great awe.
1:18:21 > 1:18:27He...certainly didn't regard himself as the centre of the universe.
1:18:32 > 1:18:38# ..hollow reeds... #
1:18:38 > 1:18:45I think he was a religious composer, yes, but he was undoubtedly an agnostic religious composer.
1:18:46 > 1:18:55# The four winds in their litanies can tell... #
1:18:55 > 1:19:01They don't understand what they are talking about when they say, "Did he believe this or that?" Idiotic.
1:19:01 > 1:19:04# ..weep and cry
1:19:04 > 1:19:10# Wee-ee-eep and cry
1:19:10 > 1:19:14# Weep, wee-ee-eep and cry... #
1:19:14 > 1:19:19His whole life was giving people lovely things to listen to,
1:19:19 > 1:19:24being so nice himself and generous to the young.
1:19:25 > 1:19:31If you could think of anyone more Christian than Ralph, I simply can't.
1:19:31 > 1:19:33# The birds rejoice
1:19:33 > 1:19:36# Rejoi-oi-oice... #
1:19:36 > 1:19:41In February, 1953, Ralph and Ursula were married quietly.
1:19:42 > 1:19:46He was 80. She was 41.
1:19:46 > 1:19:51At last they could be open, as the card sent to their friends showed.
1:19:51 > 1:19:55"You will we think not be surprised," they said.
1:19:57 > 1:20:01How nice! I don't remember getting that card. Go on.
1:20:01 > 1:20:06It's an unusual way of putting it. What...
1:20:07 > 1:20:11Well, I suppose we all knew they'd been lovers.
1:20:11 > 1:20:13If that's what you mean.
1:20:13 > 1:20:16Very discreetly.
1:20:19 > 1:20:22Now they made up for lost time.
1:20:22 > 1:20:27Ralph had never flown before. They travelled to France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece
1:20:27 > 1:20:32as well as all over Britain. And they crossed the Atlantic.
1:20:32 > 1:20:37It was a perfect marriage. And they had such fun together.
1:20:39 > 1:20:45They fitted in a trip right across the United States to go and see the Grand Canyon.
1:20:45 > 1:20:49They never stopped travelling after that.
1:20:50 > 1:20:55We went everywhere. We went absolutely everywhere.
1:20:56 > 1:20:59The long exile in Dorking was over.
1:20:59 > 1:21:03He moved back to London, to a grand house overlooking Regent's Park.
1:21:03 > 1:21:09The exuberance of his Eighth Symphony spoke of a man in the prime of life.
1:21:09 > 1:21:14The house was very beautiful. She filled it with beautiful things.
1:21:14 > 1:21:17It was full of light and sunlight and laughter.
1:21:20 > 1:21:24He suddenly came out with this ridiculous rhyme.
1:21:24 > 1:21:28"Uncle Joe and Auntie Mabel fainted at the breakfast table.
1:21:28 > 1:21:32"Children, let this be a warning Never do it in the morning."
1:21:32 > 1:21:37He and Ursula used to seize upon Vogue the moment it came out!
1:21:37 > 1:21:43And he would make a little note of all the pairs of shoes he'd like to see her wearing.
1:21:43 > 1:21:49She was a wonderful dresser. And Ralph, so she told me - he didn't tell me -
1:21:49 > 1:21:56he loved her in high heels. And she was rather tall. But that didn't matter.
1:21:56 > 1:22:00They must have gone out every night to a concert or to the theatre.
1:22:00 > 1:22:05Or had people to dinner. It must have been heaven for him.
1:22:05 > 1:22:10He was very serious and he laughed all the time.
1:22:10 > 1:22:13But he was now in his mid-eighties.
1:22:13 > 1:22:20For one of his four last songs, he set a poem by Ursula, written as she watched him.
1:22:20 > 1:22:25"Sleep and I'll be still as another sleeper
1:22:25 > 1:22:31"Holding you in my arms Glad that you lie so near at last."
1:22:33 > 1:22:36# Sleep
1:22:36 > 1:22:43# And I'll be still as another sleeper
1:22:43 > 1:22:50# Holding you in my arms
1:22:51 > 1:22:59# Glad that you lie so near At last... #
1:22:59 > 1:23:05"This sheltering midnight is our meeting place
1:23:05 > 1:23:10"No passion or despair or hope divide me from your side..."
1:23:13 > 1:23:22# This sheltering midnight is our meeting place
1:23:22 > 1:23:26# No passion or despair
1:23:26 > 1:23:33# Or hope divide me from your side
1:23:35 > 1:23:41# I shall remember firelight
1:23:41 > 1:23:47# On your sleeping face
1:23:48 > 1:23:57# I shall remember shadows growing deeper
1:23:57 > 1:24:03# As the fire fell to ashes
1:24:03 > 1:24:13# And the minutes passed. #
1:24:18 > 1:24:22"I shall remember firelight on your sleeping face
1:24:22 > 1:24:27"I shall remember shadows growing deeper
1:24:27 > 1:24:30"As the fire fell to ashes
1:24:30 > 1:24:33"And the minutes passed."
1:24:34 > 1:24:35OK?
1:24:37 > 1:24:44When Vaughan Williams turned 85, it emerged he'd been writing yet another symphony, his ninth.
1:24:44 > 1:24:51Despite all the activity, the creative urge never slackened, as a young composer friend overheard.
1:24:51 > 1:24:57When the fire was up, he would come up with extraordinary new things.
1:25:09 > 1:25:15It was about 4am. Simply out of my sleep I heard this extraordinary sound
1:25:15 > 1:25:21trickling down through the ceiling, where there was a honky tonk piano.
1:25:21 > 1:25:25And then stomp, stomp, stomp as he'd go back to his desk.
1:25:33 > 1:25:38And then he'd go back to the piano. It went on and on and on.
1:25:38 > 1:25:45He was working on, as I realised later, the slow movement of the Ninth Symphony.
1:25:46 > 1:25:49It was very strange music,
1:25:49 > 1:25:54music actually being called for from silence and from the night.
1:25:55 > 1:26:01It was a magical experience, obviously, to me as a young composer,
1:26:01 > 1:26:08to hear above this very great man searching for his own dream.
1:26:12 > 1:26:16I think he's England's greatest composer of the 20th century.
1:26:16 > 1:26:20I adore and know all of Elgar, one of my favourite composers,
1:26:20 > 1:26:23but I do place him above that.
1:26:23 > 1:26:28The older I get, I think I love it even more.
1:26:28 > 1:26:35Having worked a lot with Britten and Tippett, it is so equal to them and just so different.
1:26:35 > 1:26:40I find it more enriching the longer I live.
1:26:40 > 1:26:48I can swallow it whole, even the weaker pieces. That's its significance. It doesn't change.
1:26:48 > 1:26:50I hope I change in listening to it.
1:27:01 > 1:27:06The brooding unease of the Ninth Symphony escaped its first audience.
1:27:06 > 1:27:10They cheered him to the echo, but few understood it.
1:27:11 > 1:27:18Only later did they realise his passions had taken him further on into another world.
1:27:19 > 1:27:27I wrote to VW afterwards and said that I was very impressed, but I didn't quite get the hang of it.
1:27:27 > 1:27:32He said, "Dear Jeremy, thank you so much for writing.
1:27:32 > 1:27:35"I am so glad you liked it, as far as you did.
1:27:35 > 1:27:41"As the man said about Brahms, 'It ought never to be heard for the first time.'
1:27:41 > 1:27:47"I hope you're doing some fine composition yourself. Ursula sends her love. Yours, RVW."
1:27:49 > 1:27:51Touche!
1:27:51 > 1:28:01# The cloud-capp'd towers
1:28:03 > 1:28:12# The gorgeous palaces
1:28:13 > 1:28:22# The solemn temples
1:28:23 > 1:28:33# The great globe itself
1:28:37 > 1:28:44# Yea, all which it inherit
1:28:44 > 1:28:47# Shall dissolve
1:28:47 > 1:28:57# And like this insubstantial pageant faded
1:28:58 > 1:29:01# Leave not
1:29:01 > 1:29:09# A rack behind
1:29:12 > 1:29:16# We are such stuff
1:29:16 > 1:29:26# As dreams are made on
1:29:26 > 1:29:35# And our little life
1:29:35 > 1:29:45# Is rounded with a sleep. #