Vaughan Williams, Andrew Manze

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote nine symphonies, the first relatively late in life (he was 38 when A Sea Symphony set sail in 1910) and the last at the age of 85. Those in between form a canon that reveals a composer’s maturing musical voice while charting half a century of British music-making. Many would also say they chart half a century of turbulent world history, and perhaps none more so than the equally powerful Fifth and Sixth.

The Fifth – quintessential Vaughan Williams – was written in 1943 amid the hurly-burly of WWII. It contains, however, “the most benedictory and consoling music of our time,” wrote the critic Neville Cardus. Five years later, the turbulent Sixth shocked listeners out of their comfort zones with its...