Oh, Ralph, you’re such the contrarian. You wrote that embodiment of English pastoralism, “The Lark Ascending,” in response to the War to End All Wars. Then in peacetime, in the early 1930s, you composed your most turbulent symphony, the Symphony No. 4. Some say that already you sensed the impending cataclysm of World War II. Then when the war finally hit, you turned around and wrote your most serene symphony.

On this date in 1943, you unveiled your Symphony No. 5. Queen’s Hall lay in ruins from German bombs, so you conducted the London Philharmonic at Royal Albert Hall. Perhaps unexpectedly, the audience that day found itself awash in hope and optimism. In place of the seemingly obligatory bluster of a “wartime symphony,” there was a sense of affirmation in a musical celebration of humanity and tradition. London may be rocked by air raids today, but England, the country and its people, would endure.

You had already long been flirting with your pet project, the opera “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” for decades. The symphony shares the same sense of faith and optimism in the face of seemingly implacable adversity. The audience emerged into the sunlight on that summer afternoon feeling refreshed and ready to face the future.

The Symphony No. 5 (dedicated, by the way, to Jean Sibelius):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9YoEETzYsE

PHOTO: Vaughan Williams and Foxy in 1942