BBC Proms - 2008 - Prom 54: Vaughan Williams Anniversary

Charles Hazlewood and Suzy Klein present highlights from a concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of the great British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sir Andrew Davis perform Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme By Thomas Tallis and his Ninth Symphony, as well as the Serenade To Music written to words by Shakespeare for 16 leading British singers of the day and premièred by Henry Wood at his Jubilee Concert seventy years ago. Davis discusses Vaughan Williams' legacy as well as looking at some fascinating archive material of Vaughan Williams's rehearsal for the original performance of the Serenade to Music with two of today's young singers, Sarah Tynan and Ed Lyon, who sing the parts originally composed for Isobel Baillie and Heddle Nash. Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony was originally intended to be based on Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles. In the second movement, strong connections can be traced to the end of the novel, when Tess and Angel are captured at Stonehenge, and Tess is hanged at Winchester. Actress Clemency Burton-Hill retraces Tess's final steps and reveals the musical connections.