Classics For Kids

Ralph Vaughan Williams 5: Winter in Music

It's December, and winter has officially begun. This is a program of music with wintery themes.

Ralph Vaughan Williams 4: Christmas Carols in Classical Music

In celebration of the Christmas season, some classical compositions that have Christmas carols in them.

Ralph Vaughan Williams 3: Turn of the 20th Century English Composers

Ralph Vaughan Williams arrived on the scene just as a definite English classical music sound was being established. His three main teachers at the Royal Academy of Music were Arthur Sullivan, Hubert Parry, and Charles Stanford. Edward Elgar and Gustav Holst also had an influence on Vaughan Williams.

Ralph Vaughan Williams 2: Musical Fantasies

Originally, a musical fantasy was a piece that instrumentalists made up as they went along. Eventually, fantasies evolved into pieces that composers built out of various melodies they liked -- like the Scottish folk tunes that Max Bruch put into his Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra.

Ralph Vaughan Williams 1: About Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams was one of the most important 20th century English composers. He spent years traveling the country collecting English folk songs, writing them down, and publishing them. Many of those melodies wound up in his music.