This four-act comic opera celebrating Shakespeares Sir John Falstaff was given its first professional performance in 1946. The libretto, written by the composer, is based on The Merry Wives of Windsor, and interpolates texts by contemporaries of Shakespeare such as Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Campion. The work contains English folksong material and fine examples of the composer's orchestral lyricism and dramatic flair. Music from the opera was later adapted to form the cantata In Windsor Forest and the Fantasia on Greensleeves. For this comprehensive new edition, the editor (and conductor) David Lloyd-Jones has drawn on all available sources, providing an authoritative Study Score with critical commentary. The performance materials are newly-engraved. The orchestral score, vocal score, choral scores, and the optional Episode & Interlude are also available on hire. Please note that this score comes as two separate volumes.

This well-known song by Vaughan Williams is arranged here for mixed voices, with additional lower voice parts by Alan Bullard. The pastoral imagery in the lyrics is beautifully brought to life by the trademark folk-inspired melodies, fluid harmonies, and a lively piano accompaniment. Originally published in The Oxford Book of Flexible Choral Songs.

for violin and mixed choir This innovative and imaginative choral arrangement of The Lark Ascending has the original solo violin part accompanied by mixed choir. It sensitively sets George Meredith's poem (on which the original orchestration is based) and combines this with wordless vocal lines and vocal solos, preserving the texture and timeless effect of the original. Commissioned and premiered by the Swedish Chamber Choir, the work has also been recorded by the choir under the direction of Simon Phipps.

This engaging work was composed in 1929 and premiered the following year by its dedicatee, the legendary Spanish cellist Pablo Casals. The five folk songs on which the work is founded are 'Salisbury Plain', 'The Long Whip', 'Low down in the broom', 'Bristol Town', and 'I've been to France'. This arrangement for solo viola and orchestra is compatible with the original orchestral accompaniment, materials for which are available on hire.

Vaughan Williams's famous romance for solo violin and orchestra is given new life in this beautiful arrangement. For the first time, violinists can perform the original solo line as part of a string quartet, while also joining the other players for the longer tutti sections. Perfect as a rehearsal tool in preparation for a larger-scale orchestral concert, the arrangement is also ideal for performance in a chamber recital.

Vaughan Williams's famous romance for solo violin and orchestra is given new life in this beautiful arrangement, which features the original solo line as part of a string sextet. Perfect as a rehearsal tool in preparation for a larger-scale orchestral concert, the arrangement is also ideal for performance in a chamber recital.

Vaughan Williams's famous romance for solo violin and orchestra is given new life in this beautiful arrangement, which features the original solo line as part of a string sextet. Perfect as a rehearsal tool in preparation for a larger-scale orchestral concert, the arrangement is also ideal for performance in a chamber recital.

Vaughan Williams wrote Symphony No. 8 between 1953 and 1955 while in his eighties. It is his shortest symphony and considered by many to be his least serious. Aside from a few sombre moments, the symphony is optimistic in mood and displays Vaughan Williams's love for exotic and colourful combinations of instruments with a percussion sections that, he said, employs "all the 'phones and 'spiels known to the composer". For this newly engraved edition, editor David Lloyd-Jones has consulted all extant sources and materials to create a score matching the composer's intentions. The full score is completed with Textual Notes and Preface, and accompanying orchestral parts are available on hire.

for soprano solo, SSA chorus, and full orchestra This new edition of Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 7, the Sinfonia Antartica, has been prepared by David Matthews with support from the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust. The work was drawn from the music Vaughan Williams provided for the film Scott of the Antarctic in 1947 and was completed in 1952. In it the composer skilfully evokes the sparse beauty and grandeur of the landscape with a large orchestra and percussion section, including - famously - a wind machine, to create a work of great power and intensity. This new edition contains an introduction and textual commentary and is published as a full score, study score, and women's chorus, with all performing material on hire.

Vaughan Williams's 6th Symphony was composed immediately after the Second World War and its dramatic and at times violent musical language was long felt to be a comment on that conflict (though the composer denied it had any programmatic intent). Its power and invention were immediately recognized and it has remained part of the concert repertoire ever since. For this newly engraved edition, editor David Lloyd-Jones has consulted all extant sources and materials to create a score matching the composer's intentions. Fully compatible orchestral parts are available on hire.

In this engaging work Vaughan Williams takes advantage of the expressive possibilities of the cello, ranging from wistful and melancholic to lively and jovial. It was composed in 1929 and premiered the following year by its dedicatee, the legendary Spanish cellist Pablo Casals. The five folk songs on which the work is founded are 'Salisbury Plain', 'The Long Whip', 'Low down in the broom', 'Bristol Town', and 'I've been to France'. Materials for the orchestral accompaniment are available on hire.

Vaughan Williams wrote his Symphony No. 8 between 1953 and 1955, when he was in his eighties. It is his shortest symphony, and is considered by many to be his least serious. Aside from a few sombre moments, the symphony is optimistic in mood and displays Vaughan Williams's love for exotic and colourful combinations of instruments, with a percussion sections that, he said, employs 'all the 'phones and 'spiels known to the composer'. For this newly engraved edition, editor David Lloyd-Jones has consulted all extant sources and materials to create a score matching the composer's intentions. The full score is completed with Textual Notes and Preface, and accompanying orchestral parts are available on hire.

Despite having been composed in the years 1938-43 when Europe was ravaged by war, this work radiates peace and serenity. It marks the peak of the lyrical modalism of works such as the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910), Flos Campi (1925), and Job (1931). Although it is not a programme symphony, it draws heavily on John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress for inspiration, featuring several themes that were sketched for (and eventually used in) Vaughan Williamsas 1951 opera. In addition, Bunyan's words 'He hath given me rest by his sorrow and life by his death' were originally inscribed over the third movement. This idea of strength drawn from religion must have been especially potent when Vaughan Williams conducted the premiere of the work at the Proms in 1943, during the dark days of the Second World War. The ending in particular has a sense of rising above all worldly concerns into a higher spiritual plane. This edition contains a preface on the history of the work by Michael Kennedy. Orchestral parts are available on hire.

Vaughan Williams's famous romance for solo violin and orchestra is given new life in this beautiful arrangement. For the first time, violinists can perform the original solo line as part of a string quartet, while also joining the other players for the longer tutti sections. Perfect as a rehearsal tool in preparation a larger-scale orchestral concert, the arrangement is also ideal for performance in a chamber recital.

for SSA and piano or string orchestra or full orchestra This is an exuberant and animated chorus from the cantata In Windsor Forest, which was itself adapted from the opera Sir John in Love. The text is from Act II, Scene 3 of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, and features the women's chorus gleefully denouncing men as 'deceivers'. The colourful orchestral accompaniment is available on hire in versions of full orchestra or string orchestra and piano.

This publication is part of a three-volume collection that comprises the bulk of the solo songs that Vaughan Williams published with Oxford University Press. They span the whole of his long life, ranging from the early 'How can the Tree but Wither?' (composed around 1896) to the Four Last Songs (from 1954-8, his final years). Many of the composer's most popular songs are included, notably 'Greensleeves', 'The Woodcutter's Song' (Seven Songs from 'The Pilgrim's Progress', no. 6), 'The New Ghost', and 'The Water Mill' (Four Poems by Fredegond Shove, nos. 3 and 4).

This brief piece for wind band, composed in 1939 to open a pageant at the Royal Albert Hall, is simple but highly effective. It opens with a rousing brass fanfare, which gives way to a stirring, chorale-like passage in which the woodwind come to the fore, before giving way to the brass as the fanfare returns. Also available in versions for orchestral winds and brass band. Scores and parts are available on hire.

Vaughan Williams's Prelude and Fugue in C minor (1921) is characterized by a sense of drama and punctuated by bristling dissonances. The Prelude's ritornello-like alternation of chordal grandeur and rapid imitative sections recalls Bach's great organ Prelude and Fugue in the same key, while the rhythmically complicated Fugue, whose subject looks ahead to the composer's Sixth Symphony, displays great ingenuity in its counterpoint, fully justifying the assertiveness of its final peroration in C major.

This soulful piece was discovered among the composer's manuscripts upon his death in 1958 and published posthumously in 1962. As a result, little is known about it, though it may have been written for the great viola player Lionel Tetris, for whom he composed Flos Campi in 1925. The opening and closing 'Andante' sections are melancholic and expressive, while in the central 'poco animato' the piece grows in intensity and anguish. The viola part is edited by Bernard Shore and the piano part by Eric Gritton.