The quintessential English composer was born 150 years ago this month, but there’s more to him than Greensleeves and a lark on the wing. Clive Paget looks at the forging of English music’s most distinctive voice and, with the help of Sir Mark Elder, investigates some of the finest works to come out of the British Isles.

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams on Mykonos, Greece, with a conch shell, 1955. Image courtesy of The Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust

Is there, or has there ever been such a thing as the English sound? The question may never have troubled the likes of Thomas Tallis or Henry Purcell, yet by the late 19th century it had become, if not an issue, at least something to which a budding composer...