Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958) was an English
composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber
music, secular and religious vocal pieces and
orchestral compositions including nine symphonies,
written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor
music and English folk-song, his output marked a
decisive break in British music from its
German-dominated style of the 19th century. His music
includes two of his most popular works—the Fantasia
on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910, revised ...(+)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958) was an English
composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber
music, secular and religious vocal pieces and
orchestral compositions including nine symphonies,
written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor
music and English folk-song, his output marked a
decisive break in British music from its
German-dominated style of the 19th century. His music
includes two of his most popular works—the Fantasia
on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910, revised 1919), and
The Lark Ascending, originally for violin and piano
(1914); orchestrated 1920. Other works that survive in
the repertoire in Britain are the Norfolk Rhapsody No 1
(1905–1906), The Wasps, Aristophanic
suite—particularly the overture (1909), the English
Folk Song Suite (1923) and the Fantasia on Greensleeves
(1934).
"Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis", also known as
the Tallis Fantasia, is a one-movement work for string
orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The theme is by
the 16th-century English composer Thomas Tallis. The
Fantasia was first performed at Gloucester Cathedral as
part of the 1910 Three Choirs Festival, and has entered
the orchestral repertoire, with frequent concert
performances and recordings by conductors and
orchestras of various countries.
Vaughan Williams did not achieve wide recognition early
in his career as a composer, but by 1910, in his late
thirties, he was gaining a reputation. In that year the
Three Choirs Festival commissioned a work from him, to
be premiered in Gloucester Cathedral; this represented
a considerable boost to his standing. He composed what
his biographer James Day calls "unquestionably the
first work by Vaughan Williams that is recognizably and
unmistakably his and no one else's". It is based on a
tune by the 16th-century English composer Thomas
Tallis, which Vaughan Williams had come across while
editing the English Hymnal, published in 1906. Vaughan
Williams conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the
first performance of the Fantasia, as the first part of
a concert in Gloucester Cathedral on 6 September 1910,
followed by Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius, conducted
by its composer.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasia_on_a_Theme_by_T
homas_Tallis).
Although originally written for String Orchestra, with
soloists, I created this arrangement of "Fantasia on a
Theme by Thomas Tallis" for String Quartet Strings (2
Violins, Viola & Cello).
SHEET MUSIC