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Vaughan Williams stopped composing while he was engaged in active service during the Great War, but he made up for that silence in the succeeding years. Presented by Donald Macleod.

All this month, Donald Macleod takes a fresh look at this much-loved composer as part of Radio 3's 'Vaughan Williams Today' season, celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth. He鈥檒l unpack Vaughan Williams's life story in fascinating detail over the course of four weeks and leading authorities on the composer will join him to share their new perspectives. They'll be exploring some of the overlooked aspects of his life and music, as well as the qualities that have left such an enduring imprint on British cultural life.

This week Donald chronicles Vaughan Williams鈥檚 life through the years 1914 to 1930.

When war was declared, although he was 42 Vaughan Williams immediately joined up. He was accepted as an ambulance orderly with the rank of private. Throughout the war, wherever he was posted throughout Europe, he made music with anyone and everyone. He spent much of his spare time starting up a singing class, training a choir, getting together whoever was available, whenever they had a break in their duties. Even though he didn鈥檛 鈥渃ompose鈥� during the war years, his own music did stir. He said of his Third Symphony, 鈥渁 great deal of it incubated when I used to go up night after night with the ambulance wagon at Ecoivres and we went up a steep hill and there was a wonderful Corot-like landscape in the sunset 鈥� it鈥檚 not really lambkins frisking at all, as most people take for granted.鈥�

A Cotswold Romance (The Men of Cotsall)
Thomas Randle, tenor
Rosa Mannion, soprano
Matthew Brook, baritone
London Philharmonic Choir
London Symphony Orchestra
Richard Hickox, conductor

Lord Thou Hast Been Our Refuge
Tenebrae
Christopher Deacon, trumpet
James Sherlock, organ
Nigel Short, director

Symphony No 3 "Pastoral Symphony", IV. Lento
Patricia Rozario, soprano
鲍鱼tv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Andrew Davis, conductor

Motion and Stillness (4 Poems by Fredegond Shove)
Roderick Williams, baritone
Iain Burnside, pianist

'Four Nights' and 'The New Ghost' (4 Poems by Fredegond Shove)
Roderick Williams, baritone
Iain Burnside, pianist

The Lark Ascending
Nigel Kennedy, violin
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Simon Rattle, conductor

Produced by Rosie Boulton