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[Nickbat]

Won't appeal to the young rockers on here, but I watched a moving programme on Ralph Vaughan Williams' composition "The Lark Ascending" (BBC4) this week. Unfortunately, it's not available on BBC iPlayer.

Vaughan Williams sketched the work while watching troop ships cross the English Channel at the outbreak of the First World War. A small boy observed him making the sketches and, thinking he was jotting down a secret code, informed a police officer, who subsequently arrested the composer. The war halted his compositional activities, but the work was revised in 1920 with the help of the English violinist Marie Hall, during their stay at Kings Weston House near Bristol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWwBh0dzgi4&feature=related

A wonderful and moving piece of music that, IMHO, encapsulates all that made Britain so wonderful in years gone by.   

[Dishevelled Den]

I would certainly agree with that.  I watched humbled by the undoubted talent of this man and of his of his keen eye for the elusive detail always found in evolving scenes.

Along with Finzi, Butterworth and Edgar to name but a few, RVW was able to form that quintessentially British sound which, to me at least, speaks of a time past - a time when this country had substance and a time when national self-determination was in the hands of its people, people who could cast a vote in the expectation of having their sovereign parliament place the fortunes of the nation first and foremost, free from foreign interference or decree.

This music also speaks of greater things, of a psyche and of a national pride long lost - perhaps never to return - and of things which soared far above the tawdry nonsense we now witness in this country - nonsense that is shamelessly peddled by the self-serving to the gullible, the disinterested and the apathetic as just what being British now is.

Another fine example of RVW's music:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkhgLMYrDuU&feature=related