It’s never truly autumn until we can celebrate the birthday of Ralph Vaughan Williams. One of England’s greatest composers, Vaughan Williams looked back to his country’s agrarian roots as a roundabout way of securing the future of its cultural identity. This Thursday morning on WPRB, we will salute the great man in all his rumpled glory by sampling from a broad cross-section of his multifaceted output.

As did so many composers who were caught in the wildfire of nationalism that swept across Europe from the mid-19th century forward, Vaughan Williams rebelled against the prevailing academicism that stretched its tendrils all the way from Germany to choke the musically “provincial” outlands. He emerged from an environment that had produced far too many knock-offs of Mendelssohn and Brahms. Vaughan Williams would revolutionize his compatriots’ perception of art music by embracing the sounds of the English countryside.

However, much like Béla Bartók, he was no simplistic, twee purveyor of folk music. On the contrary, the rhythms and inflections of his native land were already in his DNA. The songs he documented while roaming the fields and fens with his colleague, Gustav Holst, merely brought to the surface what was already innate. What he expressed in his original music was thoroughly digested and deeply personal.

Some of Vaughan Williams’ best loved works are imbued with nostalgia for a faded world, but the composer pushed forward, as well, through two world wars and into the Great Beyond. He was not a conventionally religious man, but mysticism seems to color a fair amount of his music. Other pieces stare desolation unflinchingly in the face. His lessons with Maurice Ravel made him a thoughtful orchestrator, so that throughout his life he deployed his instrumental forces with considerable creativity and expertise. Given the proper attention, there is much to engage on all levels of his music.

I hope you’ll join me as we salute this fascinating composer with five hours of lesser-known works and recordings of historic significance. While you might not want to take his instruction on the best way to tie ties, musically you will be in the hands of a master, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. You can put your faith in Ralph (pronounced “Rafe”), on Classic Ross Amico.

Ralph Vaughan Williams Society