A biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams, who became a composer in the first years of the twentieth century. He took his lead not from the German masters, but from the neglected sources of folk song - from the very soil of England. The result was a distinctive English voice that changed the culture of a nation. After a long struggle to develop his talents, Vaughan Williams established himself as a composer whose music, through his promotion of folk song and editorship of the English Hymnal, made him a household name and caused his work - most famously 'The Lark Ascending', 'Greensleeves', the 'Tallis Fantasia' and nine outstanding symphonies - to be loved by generations in Britain and around the world.
