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New teaching and conducting opportunities back in London and an exciting trip to the US for the overseas premiere of his Third Symphony. 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’ll 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’s life through the years 1914 to 1930.

VW was finally demobilised in February 1919 and returned from the war aged 47. Despite the hugely traumatic things he’d experienced in the previous five years, outwardly he gave the impression of being relatively emotionally unscathed. But there’s no doubt that the war had radically changed his outlook on life and his career and his art. Initially he joined his wife Adeline at Sheringham on the Norfolk coast and, having not composed at all during the war, it was now like a cork coming out of a bottle - the next few years were going to be very prolific.

O Clap Your Hands
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
English Chamber Orchestra Conducted By
David Willcocks, conductor

Concerto Accademico
James Buswell, violin
London Symphony Orchestra
André Previn, conductor

Piano Suite in G Major (excerpt)
Peter Jacobs, piano

Mass in G minor
The Choir of New College Oxford
Edward Higginbottom, director

Produced by Rosie Boulton