Vaughan Williams & Renaissance England

Part of TŌN’s Sight & Sound series

In the hit series Sight & Sound, conductor and music historian Leon Botstein explores the parallels between orchestral music and the visual arts. A discussion is accompanied by on-screen artworks and musical excerpts performed by The Orchestra Now, followed by a full performance and audience Q&A.

England was a thriving home for the arts under the volatile Tudor dynasty, where an international community of artists and merchants navigated the lofty demands of royal patrons including England’s first two reigning queens. In 1955, British documentarian John Taylor examined Elizabethan England against a regal score by composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. These selections from that score, adapted by Muir Mathieson, focus on three major figures of the Tudor era: Sir Francis Drake, William Shakespeare, and the namesake herself, Queen Elizabeth I.