The Symphony and Composing for the Stage

Presented by the Bard Music Festival

The Bard Music Festival returns for its 33rd season with an exploration of the life and work of Ralph Vaughan Williams, one of the greatest symphonists of the 20th century.

Program Three comprises three of Vaughan William’s mature orchestral works. These were all first completed in the early 1930s, although the dramatically percussive C-major Piano Concerto will be heard in his later arrangement for two pianos. Originally intended for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, Job, A Masque for Dancing encapsulates the development of Vaughan Williams’s sound from pastoral to modernist, anticipating his Fourth Symphony. As bold as it is thrilling, this seldom programmed work consolidates the composer’s standing as one of the most important symphonists since Gustav Mahler.