To look at a picture of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like contemplating an image of a mountain. Not the elegant, keen-eyed Edwardian intellectual whom we sometimes glimpse on CD sleeves or in concert programmes; I’m thinking of the portraits from the last decade of his long life. By the 1950s ‘RVW’ had been the father of British music for so long that he already seemed like part of the landscape, and he looked it too.
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The Hallé and BBC Philharmonic’s symphony cycle starts on 26 February at Bridgewater Hall. The Sinfonia Antartica is at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on 26 February. Scott of the Antarctic is at the Barbican on 11 March. Job is at the Liverpool Philharmonic on 31 May. Find the rest of the year’s events on the RVW Trust website from 26 February vwct.org.uk/rvw150/
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