This new volume competes,
non-too-well, it has to be said, with
OUP’s splendid Ralph Vaughan Williams
– a pictorial biography first
published in 1971 and now, I understand,
sadly, out of print. That OUP publication,
slightly larger than the 8½ inches square
new volume, was the work of John E.
Lunn and Ursula Vaughan Williams.
In the new Albion Music
book, there is a misleading claim that
it has a collection of largely unpublished
photographs. The fact is that too many
pictures, to justify such a claim, already
appeared in the earlier OUP volume.
Furthermore some of the pictures are
so badly reproduced as to be virtually
unrecognisable: notably the lower portrait
of Walt Whitman on page 23, then, on
the following page, the image of Bloomsbury
Square (scene of the lovely slow movement
of RVW’s A London Symphony) is
disappointing, likewise the picture
on page 27 of a communication trench
at Neuville is virtually unrecognisable
as anything, the production still from
Riders to the Sea on page 46
is almost coal black, and there is no
excuse for such a poor reproduction
of the well-known picture of Arnold
Bax and Harriet Cohen on page 41. I
could go on quoting more examples of
slipshod reproduction throughout the
volume. There are one or two pictures
puzzlingly out of sequence – e.g. Ralph’s
mother in 1917 shown on page 75 alongside
other pictures of RVW in the 1950s.
As might be expected there is an abundance
of photographs of the composer in the
latter years of his life.
On the positive side,
the new volume includes a very useful
time-line showing the major biographical
events and completed compositions, year-by-year.
It is interesting to note from this
timeline, for instance, that RVW’s sister
Margaret (Meggie) founded the Leith
Hill Festival It is true that the new
book has a number of unfamiliar but
interesting and insightful family pictures,
particularly from RVW’s early years
(of Meggie and his first wife Adeline
for example). There is a substantial
section at the end ‘Friends and Family’
that does contain some previously unpublished
pictures. There are, for instance, two
pictures of RVW with Roy Douglas another
with the cellist Piatigorsky (1957),
one of him with Phyllis Sellick and
Cyril Smith (again from 1957), together
with pictures with Leopold Stokowski,
Frederick Grinke, Leslie Woodgate and
Herbert Howells, and Lionel Tertis.
There is also a large picture, taken
at the Royal Opera House in 1923, of
Holst with Eugene Goossens, Anthony
Bernard and Percy Pitt; and the book
ends, quite fittingly, with a picture,
from 1972, of Ursula Vaughan Williams
and Sir Arthur Bliss standing outside
10 Hanover Terrace, RVW’s London home
of his final years.
A valuable addition
to the RVW bibliography but owners of
the earlier RVW picture book, published
by OUP, should hesitate and weigh up
its extra value before buying. It has
to be said that this new volume disappoints
somewhat considering that it is published
by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society.
Ian Lace
