Fantasia for piano and orchestra

Vaughan Williams began this work - his earliest known piece for a solo instrument with orchestra - in 1896, shortly after returning to the Royal College of Music to study composition with Stanford, and completed it in 1904. After his death, the manuscript was donated to the British Library, and it was here that the pianist Mark Bebbington rediscovered it in 2010, subsequently recording it for Somm Records. The work shows influences of late nineteenth-century composers, but also hallmarks of Vaughan Williams's later style and maturity. As such, it offers a fascinating glimpse into the composer's development, as well as being a powerful work in its own right. This is its first publication; a study score of the orchestral version is also available on sale. Orchestral material is available on hire/rental.

Ralph Vaughan Williams, born in Gloucestershire on 12 October 1872, read History at Cambridge and went to the Royal College of Music where his teachers were Parry, Wood, and Stanford. Vaughan Williams believed in the value of music education and wrote practical competition pieces, serviceable church music, and with the 49th Parallel (1940-41) he found a new outlet in writing for film. His profoundly disturbing Symphony No.6 (1948) received international acclaim with more than a hundred performances in a little over two years. His great sensitivity to the 20th-century human condition, his flexibility in writing for all levels of music making, and his unquestionably great imagination combine to make him one of the key figures in 20th century music. Ralph Vaughan Williams had a long association with Oxford University Press; over 200 publications are available in the Oxford catalogue.