title: The Turtles

text: In 2002, the film "Adaptation" used their song "Happy Together" extensively as a device to portray the closeness of the two brothers Kaufman, both played by Nicolas Cage: this film closes with the Turtles' version over the final credit scroll and time lapse photography.


title: The Turtles

text: Also the 2005 film "Imagine Me & You", the title of which was taken from the first line of the song "Happy Together", used this song in its end credits. In 2009, a new Turtles compilation CD titled "Save the Turtles: The Turtles Greatest Hits" was issued on their own "FloEdCo Records" label and distributed by Manifesto Records.


title: The Turtles

text: Starting in the summer of 2010, "the Turtles... Featuring Flo & Eddie" toured throughout the United States as part of the "Happy Together: 25th Anniversary Tour", an oldies concert series that retained the "Happy Together" moniker in subsequent years. They performed alongside other 1960s and 1970s pop stars including Gary Puckett, Mitch Ryder, Mark Lindsay, Mark Farner, Gary Lewis, and Micky Dolenz. The 2015 tour featured the Buckinghams, the Cowsills, the Grass Roots, and the Association. In 2016, the complete output of the Turtles was reissued as two box sets, "The Complete Original Album Collection" and "All the Singles". The expanded editions of the six albums contained in the former were also issued separately in 2017.


title: The Turtles

text: In 2018, since Kaylan required heart and back surgery, he was prohibited by his doctors from joining the tour, so Ron Dante (himself a prolific session musician of the Archies, the Cuff Links and the Detergents fame) stood in for him through the summer of 2021.


title: The Turtles

text: Original rhythm guitarist Jim Tucker (born "James Roy Tucker" on October 17, 1946) died on November 12, 2020, at age 74.


title: The Turtles

text: While the "Happy Together" tour resumed in 2022, Kaylan is still not performing with the group. Instead, Dante, who is not an original member, is performing as a member of "the Turtles" with original member Mark Volman.


title: Epiglottitis

text: Epiglottitis is the inflammation of the epiglottis—the flap at the base of the tongue that prevents food entering the trachea (windpipe). Symptoms are usually rapid in onset and include trouble swallowing which can result in drooling, changes to the voice, fever, and an increased breathing rate. As the epiglottis is in the upper airway, swelling can interfere with breathing. People may lean forward in an effort to open the airway. As the condition worsens, stridor and bluish skin may occur.


title: Epiglottitis

text: Epiglottitis was historically mostly caused by infection by "H. influenzae type b" (commonly referred to as "Hib"). With vaccination, it is now more often caused by other bacteria, most commonly "Streptococcus pneumoniae", "Streptococcus pyogenes", or "Staphylococcus aureus". Predisposing factors include burns and trauma to the area. The most accurate way to make the diagnosis is to look directly at the epiglottis. X-rays of the neck from the side may show a "thumbprint sign" but the lack of this sign does not mean the condition is absent.


title: Epiglottitis

text: An effective vaccine, the Hib vaccine, has been available since the 1980s. The antibiotic rifampicin may also be used to prevent the disease among those who have been exposed to the disease and are at high risk. The most important part of treatment involves securing the airway, which is often done by endotracheal intubation. Intravenous antibiotics such as ceftriaxone and possibly vancomycin or clindamycin is then given. Corticosteroids are also typically used. With appropriate treatment, the risk of death among children with the condition is about one percent and among adults is seven percent.


title: Epiglottitis

text: With the use of the Hib vaccine, the number of cases of epiglottitis has decreased by more than 95%. Historically, young children were mostly affected, but it is now more common among older children and adults. In the United States, it affects about 1.3 per 100,000 children a year. In adults, between 1 and 4 per 100,000 are affected a year. It occurs more commonly in the developing world. In children the risk of death is about 6%; however, if they are intubated early, it is less than 1%.


title: Epiglottitis

text: Epiglottitis is associated with fever, throat pain, difficulty in swallowing, drooling, hoarseness of voice, and stridor. Onset is typically over a day. The throat itself may appear normal.


title: Epiglottitis

text: Stridor is a sign of upper airway obstruction and is a surgical emergency. The child often appears acutely ill, anxious, and will have very quiet shallow breathing often keeping the head held forward and insisting on sitting up in bed, commonly called the "tripod position." The early symptoms are usually insidious but rapidly progressive, and swelling of the throat may lead to cyanosis and asphyxiation.


title: Epiglottitis

text: Adults commonly present with less dramatic breathing symptoms than children due to them having wider airways to begin with, so their main symptoms are usually a severe sore throat and difficulty swallowing. The back of the throat appears normal in 90% of adult patients, so epiglottitis should considered when there is pain out of proportion to exam or when pain is caused by pressing on the external windpipe.


title: Epiglottitis

text: Epiglottitis is primarily caused by an acquired bacterial infection of the epiglottis. Historically it was most often caused by "Haemophilus influenzae type B", but with the availability of immunization this is no longer the case. "H. influenzae type B" contains a capsule which helps it avoid being destroyed by macrophages and also contains surface proteins that allow it to stick to the lining of the upper respiratory tract. Presently, the bacteria most often causing infection are other encapsulated organisms including "Streptococcus pneumoniae", "Streptococcus pyogenes", and "Staphylococcus aureus". These bacteria spread in respiratory droplets or aerosols produced from coughing and sneezing. While the overall incidence of epiglottitis has decreased, the incidence of cases caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae has increased in adults. The exact strains of "Streptococcus pneumoniae" are often those that are covered by the PPV-23 vaccine, but there is no evidence that this vaccine prevents epiglottitis.


title: Epiglottitis

text: There have been many cases of epiglottitis reported in immunocompromised patients, including those undergoing cancer treatment and those who are HIV positive. While a variety of different bacteria can cause disease in these patients, cases often involve the "Candida" species of fungus, though it is unknown if the fungus causes significant disease on its own.


title: Epiglottitis

text: Alternate risk factors and causes associated with infection include burns and other trauma to the area. Medical research has also identified a link between epiglottitis and crack cocaine usage. Underlying disorders of the immune system, such as graft-versus-host disease and lymphoproliferative disorders, have also been identified as contributors of increased risk for developing the infection .


title: Epiglottitis

text: Diagnosis may be confirmed by direct inspection using a laryngoscope, although this may provoke airway spasm. If epiglottitis is suspected, attempts to visualize the epiglottis using a tongue depressor are discouraged for this reason; therefore, diagnosis is made on basis of indirect fiberoptic laryngoscopy carried out in a controlled environment like an operating room. An infected epiglottis appears swollen and is described as having a "cherry-red" appearance. Imaging is rarely useful, and treatment should not be delayed for this test to be carried out.


title: Epiglottitis

text: On lateral C-spine X-ray, the thumbprint sign describes a swollen, enlarged epiglottis. A normal X-ray, however, does not exclude the diagnosis. An ultrasound may be helpful if specific changes are present, but its use (as of 2018) is in the early stages of study.


title: Epiglottitis

text: On CT imaging, the "Halloween sign" describes an epiglottis of normal thickness. It can safely exclude the acute epiglottitis. Furthermore, CT imaging can help to diagnose other conditions such as peritonsillar abscess or retropharyngeal abscess which have similar clinical features.


title: Epiglottitis

text: If there is visual or radiologic evidence that the infection has caused tissue destruction, the disease is called "necrotizing epiglottitis" (NE). The feared complication of NE is the bacteria spreading to the surrounding neck muscles and causing cervical necrotizing fasciitis which is a surgical emergency.


title: Epiglottitis

text: The differential diagnosis includes other infectious causes of acute airway obstruction, as well as acute or subacute mechanical causes. It includes, but is not limited to, the conditions below.


title: Epiglottitis

text: An effective vaccine, the Hib vaccine, has been available since the 1980s. Modern Hib vaccines are mainly conjugate vaccines, with the key component being the polysaccharide found in the bacteria's capsule which is its primary virulence factor. Currently, the CDC recommends that children receive a two or three-dose primary series with an additional booster dose. The countries of the world who have included the Hib vaccine in their immunization schedules typically begin the series at the age of two or three months with subsequent doses administered at four or eight week intervals. Routine vaccination in these nations has led to a dramatic decrease in the incidence of invasive diseases caused by "H. influenzae type b" such as epiglottitis, meningitis and pneumonia. It has been reported that epiglottitis cases have decreased by 95% since the 1980s following the introduction of the first Hib vaccine.


title: Epiglottitis

text: The antibiotic rifampicin may also be used to prevent the disease among those who have been exposed to the disease and are at high risk.


title: Epiglottitis

text: The most important part of treatment involves securing the airway. Nebulized epinephrine may be useful to improve the situation temporarily. Corticosteroids are also typically used. However, there is poor evidence for whether steroids actually improve patient outcomes. Epiglottitis may require urgent tracheal intubation to protect the airway. Tracheal intubation can be difficult due to distorted anatomy and profuse secretions. Spontaneous respiration is ideally maintained until tracheal intubation is successful. A surgical airway opening (cricothyrotomy) may be required if intubation is not possible.


title: Epiglottitis

text: Intravenous antibiotics such as ceftriaxone and possibly vancomycin or clindamycin are given once the airway is secure. A third-generation cephalosporin such as ceftriaxone is usually sufficient since it is usually effective against "H. influenzae" and "S. pneumoniae". If "S. aureus" is suspected to be causing the disease, then the treatment should include ceftaroline or clindamycin as these would provide coverage against antibiotic resistant strains of that bacteria (MRSA). Vancomycin can also be considered for its MRSA coverage, but it may be less safe than ceftaroline in children older than two months. If the patient has a penicillin allergy, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, clindamycin, or levofloxacin may be appropriate choices.


title: Epiglottitis

text: Necrotizing epiglottitis is treated similarly to uncomplicated epiglottitis, but usually requires intubation in addition to standard IV antibiotic therapy. If the tissue damage continues to spread and necrotizing fasciitis of the neck is suspected, patients are taken to the operating room for emergency debridement.


title: Epiglottitis

text: With appropriate treatment, the risk of death among children with the condition is about one percent and among adults is seven percent. Elsewhere, it has been reported that only one percent of adults diagnosed with epiglottitis die from the disease. Some people may develop pneumonia, lymphadenopathy, or septic arthritis.


title: Epiglottitis

text: Between 1998 and 2006, there were an average of 36 deaths per year in the United States attributed to epiglottitis, giving a case-fatality rate of 0.89% during that time period.


title: Epiglottitis

text: Patients who recover from necrotizing epiglottitis often regain their ability to swallow foods and liquids despite the tissue damage.


title: Epiglottitis

text: While, historically, young children were mostly affected, it is now more common among older children and adults. Before "Haemophilus influenzae" (Hib) immunization children of two to four were most commonly affected. With immunization about 1.3 per 100,000 children are affected a year. It has been reported that only 0.5 per 100,000 American children are diagnosed every year, while the incidence in American adults is about 1 to 4 per 100,000. A 2010 retrospective study revealed the average age of patients admitted to American hospitals for epiglottitis was about 45, but patients under the age of 1 and over the age of 85 are also particularly vulnerable.


title: Epiglottitis

text: George Washington is thought to have died of epiglottitis. The treatments given to Washington, such as severe bloodletting, an enema, vinegar, sage, molasses, butter, blistering his throat with Spanish fly, requiring him to swallow mercurous chloride and antimony potassium tartrate, and applying wheat poultices to various parts of the body, are no longer used.


title: Embalming

text: Embalming is the art and science of preserving human remains by treating them (in its modern form with chemicals) to forestall decomposition. This is usually done to make the deceased suitable for public or private viewing as part of the funeral ceremony or keep them preserved for medical purposes in an anatomical laboratory. The three goals of embalming are sanitization, presentation, and preservation, with restoration being an important additional factor in some instances. Performed successfully, embalming can help preserve the body for a duration of many years. Embalming has a very long and cross-cultural history, with many cultures giving the embalming processes a greater religious meaning.


title: Embalming

text: Animal remains can also be embalmed by similar methods, but embalming is distinct from taxidermy. Embalming preserves the body intact, whereas taxidermy is the recreation of an animal's form often using only the creature's skin mounted on an anatomical form.


title: Embalming

text: It is important to note that whilst the term embalming is used for both ancient and modern methods toward preservation of a deceased person there is very little connection in terms of actual practises or final aesthetic results.


title: Embalming

text: The Chinchorro culture in the Atacama desert of present-day Chile and Peru are among the earliest cultures known to have performed artificial mummification as early as 5000–6000 BCE.


title: Embalming

text: Perhaps the ancient culture that developed embalming to the greatest extent was Egypt. As early as the First Dynasty (3200 BCE), specialized priests were in charge of embalming and mummification. They did so by removing organs, ridding the body of moisture, and covering the body with natron. The ancient Egyptians believed that mummification enabled the soul to return to the preserved corpse after death.


title: Embalming

text: Other cultures known to have used embalming techniques in antiquity include the Meroites, Guanches, Peruvians, Jivaro Indians, Aztecs, Toltecs, Mayans, and Tibetan and southern Nigerian tribes.


title: Embalming

text: The earliest known evidence of artificial preservation in Europe was found in Osorno (Spain) and are about 5000 years old human bones covered in cinnabar for preservation, but embalming remained unusual in Europe up to the time of the Roman Empire.


title: Embalming

text: In China, artificially preserved remains have been recovered from the period of the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), the main examples being those of Xin Zhui and the Mawangdui Han tombs site. While these remains have been extraordinarily well preserved, the embalming fluids and methods used are unknown.


title: Embalming

text: In Europe the ancient practice of artificial preservation had become widespread by about 500 CE. The period of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is known as the anatomists' period of embalming and is characterized by an increased influence of scientific developments in medicine and the need for bodies for dissection purposes. Early methods used are documented by contemporary physicians such as Peter Forestus (1522–1597) and Ambroise Pare (1510–1590). The first attempts to inject the vascular system were made by Alessandra Giliani, who died in 1326. Various attempts and procedures have been reported by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Jacobus Berengar (1470–1550), Bartholomeo Eustachius (1520–1574), Reinier de Graaf (1641–1673), Jan Swammerdam (1637–1680), and Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731).


title: Embalming

text: The modern method of embalming involves the injection of various chemical solutions into the arterial network of the body to primarily disinfect and slow the decomposition process. William Harvey, the 17th century English physician who was the first to detail the system of blood circulation, made his discoveries by injecting colored solutions into corpses.


title: Embalming

text: The Scottish surgeon William Hunter was the first to apply these methods to the art of embalming as part of mortuary practice. He wrote a widely read report on the appropriate methods for arterial and cavity embalming in order to preserve bodies for burial. His brother, John Hunter, applied these methods and advertised his embalming services to the general public from the mid-18th century.


title: Embalming

text: One of his more notorious clients was dentist Martin Van Butchell. When his wife Mary died on 14 January 1775, he had her embalmed as an attraction to draw more customers. Hunter injected the body with preservatives and color additives that gave a glow to the corpse's cheeks, replaced her eyes with glass eyes, and dressed her in a fine lace dress. The body was embedded in a layer of plaster of Paris in a glass-topped coffin. Butchell exhibited the body in the window of his home and many Londoners came to see it; but Butchell drew criticism for the display. A rumor, possibly started by Butchell himself, claimed that his wife's marriage certificate had specified that her husband would only have control over her estate after her death for as long as her body was kept unburied.


title: Embalming

text: Interest in, and demand for, embalming grew steadily in the 19th century largely for sentimental reasons. People sometimes wished to be buried at far-off locations which became possible with the advent of the railways, and mourners wanted the chance to pay their last respects beside the displayed body. Other motives behind embalming were prevention of disease and the wish to prepare funerals and burials, which were becoming more elaborate, without undue haste. After Lord Nelson was killed in the Battle of Trafalgar, his body was preserved in brandy and spirits of wine mixed with camphor and myrrh for over two months. At the time of his state funeral in 1805, his body was found to still be in excellent condition and completely plastic.


title: Embalming

text: Alternative methods of preservation, such as ice packing or laying the body on so called 'cooling boards', gradually lost ground to the increasingly popular and effective methods of embalming. By the mid 19th century, the newly emerging profession of businessmen-undertakers – who provided funeral and burial services – began adopting embalming methods as standard.


title: Embalming

text: Embalming became more common in the United States during the American Civil War, when servicemen often died far from home. The wish of families for their remains to be returned home for local burial and lengthy transport from the battlefield meant it became common in the United States.


title: Embalming

text: The period from about 1861 is sometimes known as the funeral period of embalming and is marked by a separation of the fields of embalming by undertakers and embalming (anatomical wetting) for medical and scientific purposes. Dr. Thomas Holmes received a commission from the Army Medical Corps to embalm the corpses of dead Union officers to return to their families. Military authorities also permitted private embalmers to work in military-controlled areas. The passage of Abraham Lincoln's body home for burial was made possible by embalming, and it brought the possibilities and potential of embalming to wider public notice.


title: Embalming

text: Until the early 20th century, embalming fluids often contained arsenic until it was supplanted by more effective and less toxic chemicals. There was concern about the possibility of arsenic from embalmed bodies contaminating ground water supplies and legal concerns that people suspected of murder by arsenic poisoning might claim in defense that levels of poison in the deceased's body were the result of post-mortem embalming not homicide.


title: Embalming

text: In 1867, the German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann discovered formaldehyde, whose preservative properties were soon noted, and it became the foundation for modern methods of embalming.


title: Embalming

text: Dr. Frederic Ruysch was the first one to have used the arterial injection method for embalming. His work of embalming was so nearly perfect that people thought the dead body was actually alive; however, he only used it to prepare specimens for his anatomical work.


title: Embalming

text: Modern embalming is most often performed to ensure a better presentation of the deceased for viewing by friends and relatives. It is also used for medical research or training.


title: Embalming

text: A successful viewing of the body is considered to be helpful in the grieving process. Embalming has the potential to prevent mourners from having to deal with the rotting and eventual putrescence of the corpse. It is a general legal requirement for international repatriation of human remains (although exceptions do occur) and is required by a variety of laws depending on locality and circumstance, such as for extended time between death and final disposition or above-ground entombment.


title: Embalming

text: A new embalming technique developed gradually since the 1960s by anatomist Walter Thiel at the Graz Anatomy Institute in Austria has been the subject of various academic papers, as the cadaver retains the body's natural color, texture and plasticity after the process. The method uses 4-chloro-3-methylphenol and various salts for fixation, boric acid for disinfection, and ethylene glycol for the preservation of tissue plasticity. The embalmed cadavers are used in anatomical research, surgical and anaesthesia training, preoperative test procedures, and CT image quality studies.


title: Embalming

text: This beneficial perception of the viewing of a properly embalmed deceased person has been challenged, however, by authors such as Jessica Mitford, who point out that there is no general consensus that viewing an embalmed corpse is somehow "therapeutic" to the bereaved, and that terms such as "memory picture" were invented by the undertakers themselves, who have a financial interest in selling the costly process of embalming to the public. This argument ignores the fact that there is no general consensus for any funeral practice, and the indisputable fact that, ceteris paribus, an embalmed body will look better than an unembalmed one, which is still actively decomposing. Mitford also points out that, in many countries, embalming is rare, and the populace of such countries are still able to grieve normally, although this argument would be of equal validity about any number of technologies or knowledges common in one place but lacking in another that thus manages without them.


title: Embalming

text: An embalmer is someone who has been trained and qualified in the art and science of sanitization, presentation, and preservation of the human deceased. The term mortician is far more generic; it may refer to someone who is a funeral director, an embalmer, or just a person who prepares the deceased, with or without the formal qualification of an embalmer. Thus whilst all embalmers are morticians, many morticians are not embalmers and the terms are not intrinsically synonymous. Embalming training commonly involves formal study in anatomy, thanatology, chemistry, and specific embalming theory (to widely varied levels depending on the region of the world one lives in) combined with practical instruction in a mortuary with a resultant formal qualification granted after the passing of a final practical examination and acceptance into a recognized society of professional embalmers. The roles of a funeral director and embalmer are different, depending on the locals custom and licensing body for a region in which the funeral director and/or embalmer operate. A funeral director arranges for the final disposition of the deceased, and may or may not prepare the deceased, including embalming, for viewing (or other legal requirements).


title: Embalming

text: Legal requirements over who can practice vary geographically. Some regions or countries do not have specific requirements, whilst others have clear prohibitions. In the United States, the title of an embalmer is largely based on the state in which they are licensed. Additionally, in many places, embalming is not done by specialist embalmers, but rather by doctors, medical technicians or laboratory technicians who, while they have the required anatomical or chemical knowledge, are not trained specialists in this field. Today, embalming is a common practice in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and Ireland, while it is much less frequent in many parts of Europe; most modern countries have embalming available in some manner.


title: Embalming

text: As practiced in the funeral home embalming involves several distinct steps. Modern embalming techniques are not the result of a single practitioner, but rather the accumulation of many decades, even centuries, of research, trial and error, and invention. A standardized version follows below, but variation in techniques are common.


title: Embalming

text: The first step in embalming is to verify the permissions and requests of the family followed by a careful plan for the deceased's preparation, including reviewing the medical certificate of death. The deceased is placed on the mortuary table in the supine anatomical position with the head elevated by a head rest. Before commencing any preparation the embalmer will verify the identity of the body (normally via wrist or leg bracelets or tags). At this point, embalmers commonly perform an initial evaluation of the deceased's condition, noting things such as rigor mortis, skin condition, edema, intravenous injection sites, presence of fecal matter, tissue gas and numerous other factors which may affect the procedure and final outcome. The embalming procedure is a surgical one, albeit rather minimally invasive. The process requires significant effort over the course of multiple hours, including intensive planning, evaluation, and chemical selection.


title: Embalming

text: Any clothing on the body is removed and set aside, and any personal effects such as jewelry are inventoried. A modesty cloth is commonly placed over the genitalia. The body is washed in a germicidal soap. During this process the embalmer bends, flexes, and massages the arms and legs to relieve rigor mortis. The eyes are posed using an eye cap that keeps them shut and in the proper expression. The mouth may be closed via suturing with a needle and ligature, using an adhesive, or by setting a wire into the maxilla and mandible with a needle injector, a specialized device most commonly used in North America and unique to mortuary practice. Care is taken to make the expression look as relaxed and natural as possible, and ideally, a recent photograph of the deceased in good health is used as a reference. The process of closing the mouth and eyes, shaving, etc. is collectively known as setting the features. Features may also be set after the completion of the arterial embalming process, which allows the embalmer to clean and remove any purge that occurs during the embalming process.


title: Embalming

text: The duration of an embalming can vary greatly, but a common approximate time of between two and four hours to complete an embalming is typical. However, an embalming case that presents excessive complications could require substantially longer. The treatment of someone who has undergone an autopsy, cases of extreme trauma, or the restoration of a long-bone donor are a few such examples, and embalmings which require multiple days to complete are known.


title: Embalming

text: Embalming is meant to temporarily preserve the body of a deceased person. Regardless of whether embalming is performed, the type of burial or entombment, and the materials used – such as wood or metal coffins and vaults – the body of the deceased will, under most circumstances, eventually decompose. Modern embalming is done to delay decomposition so that funeral services may take place or for the purpose of shipping the remains to a distant place for disposition.


title: Embalming

text: After the body is rewashed and dried, a moisturizing cream is applied to the face, hands and arms. Ideally the deceased will usually sit for as long as possible for observation by the embalmer. After being dressed for visitation or funeral services, cosmetics are commonly, but not universally, applied to make the body appear more lifelike and to create a "memory picture" for the deceased's friends and relatives. For babies who have died, the embalmer may apply a light cosmetic massage cream after embalming to provide a natural appearance; massage cream is also used on the face to prevent it from dehydrating, and the infant's mouth is often kept slightly open for a more natural expression. If possible, the funeral director uses a light, translucent cosmetic; sometimes, heavier, opaque cosmetics are used to hide bruises, cuts, or discolored areas. Makeup is applied to the lips to mimic their natural color. Sometimes a very pale or light pink lipstick is applied on males, while brighter colored lipstick is applied to females. Hair gel or baby oil is applied to style short hair; while hairspray is applied to style long hair. Powders (especially baby powder) are applied to the body to eliminate odors, and it is also applied to the face to achieve a matte and fresh effect to prevent oiliness of the corpse. Mortuary cosmeticizing is not done for the same reason as make-up for living people; rather, it is designed to add depth and dimension to a person's features that lack of blood circulation has removed. Warm areas – where blood vessels in living people are superficial, such as the cheeks, chin, and knuckles – have subtle reds added to recreate this effect, while browns are added to the palpebrae (eyelids) to add depth, especially important as viewing in a coffin creates an unusual perspective rarely seen in everyday life. During the viewing, pink-colored lighting is sometimes used near the body to lend a warmer tone to the deceased's complexion.


title: Embalming

text: A photograph of the deceased in good health is often sought to guide the embalmer's hand in restoring the body to a more lifelike appearance. Blemishes and discolorations (such as bruises, in which the discoloration is not in the circulatory system, and cannot be removed by arterial injection) occasioned by the last illness, the settling of blood, or the embalming process itself are also dealt with at this time (although some embalmers utilize hypodermic bleaching agents, such as phenol-based cauterants, during injection to lighten discoloration and allow easier cosmeticizing). It is also common for the embalmer to perform minor restoration of the deceased's appearance with tissue building chemicals and a hypodermic syringe. Tissue building chemicals (Tissue Builders) become solid with the introduction of liquids such as water or interstitial fluids. Commonly the area where the sphenoid and temporal bones meet; this can also be referred to the temples. In the event of trauma or natural depressions on the face or hands, tissue builder can also be utilised to return those regions of the face to the expectations of the family.


title: Embalming

text: As with all funeral practises local custom, culture, religion and family request are the key determiners of clothing for the deceased. In the Western world, men are usually buried in business attire, such as a suit or coat and tie, and women in semi-formal dresses or pant suits. In recent years, a change has occurred, and many individuals are now buried in less formal clothing, such as what they would have worn on a daily basis, or other favorite attire. The clothing used can also reflect the deceased person's profession or vocation: priests and ministers are often dressed in their liturgical vestments, and military and law enforcement personnel often wear their uniform. Underwear, singlets, bras, briefs, and hosiery are all used if the family so desires, and the deceased is dressed in them as they would be in life.


title: Embalming

text: In certain instances a funeral director will request a specific style of clothing, such as a collared shirt or blouse, to cover traumatic marks or autopsy incisions. In other cases clothing may be cut down the back and placed on the deceased from the front to ensure a proper fit. In many areas of Asia and Europe, the custom of dressing the body in a specially designed shroud or burial cloth, rather than in clothing used by the living, is preferred.


title: Embalming

text: After the deceased has been dressed, they are generally placed in their coffin or casket. In American English, the word "coffin" is used to refer to an anthropoid (stretched hexagonal) form, whereas "casket" refers specifically to a rectangular coffin. It is common for photographs, notes, cards, and favourite personal items to be placed in the coffin with the deceased. Bulky and expensive items, such as electric guitars, are occasionally interred with a body. In some ways this mirrors the ancient practice of placing grave goods with a person for their use or enjoyment in the afterlife. In traditional Chinese culture, paper substitutes of the goods are buried or cremated with the deceased instead, as well as paper money specifically purchased for the occasion.


title: Embalming

text: Embalming chemicals are a variety of preservatives, sanitizers, disinfectant agents, and additives used in modern embalming to temporarily delay decomposition and restore a natural appearance for viewing a body after death. A mixture of these chemicals is known as embalming fluid, and is used to preserve deceased individuals, sometimes only until the funeral, other times indefinitely.


title: Embalming

text: Typical embalming fluid contains a mixture of formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, methanol, humectants and wetting agents, and other solvents that can be used. The formaldehyde content generally ranges from 5–35%, and the methanol content may range from 9–56%.


title: Embalming

text: Environmentalists sometimes have concerns about embalming because of the harmful chemicals involved and their potential interactions with the environment. Recently, more eco-friendly embalming methods have become available, including formaldehyde-free mixtures of chemicals.


title: Embalming

text: Badly decomposing bodies, trauma cases, frozen, or drowned bodies, and those to be transported over long distances also require special treatment beyond that for the "normal" case. The restoration of bodies and features damaged by accident or disease is commonly called restorative art or demisurgery, and all qualified embalmers have some degree of training and practice in it. For such cases, the benefit of embalming is startlingly apparent. In contrast, many people have unrealistic expectations of what a dead body should look like, due to the near-universal portrayal of dead bodies by live actors in movies and television shows. Ironically, the work of a skilled embalmer often results in the deceased appearing natural enough that the embalmer appears to have done nothing at all. Normally, a better result can be achieved when a photograph and the decedent's regular make-up (if worn) are available to help make the deceased appear more as they did when alive.


title: Embalming

text: Embalming autopsy cases differs from standard embalming because the nature of the "post mortem" examination irrevocably disrupts the circulatory system, due to the removal of the organs and viscera. In these cases, a six-point injection is made through the two iliac or femoral arteries, subclavian or axillary vessels, and common carotids, with the viscera treated separately with cavity fluid or a special embalming powder in a viscera bag.


title: Embalming

text: Long-term preservation requires different techniques, such as using stronger preservatives and multiple injection sites to ensure thorough saturation of body tissues.


title: Embalming

text: A rather different process is used for cadavers embalmed for dissection by medical professionals, students, and researchers. Here, the first priority is for long-term preservation, not presentation. As such, medical embalmers use anatomical wetting fluids that contain concentrated formaldehyde (37–40%, known as formalin) or glutaraldehyde and phenol, and are made without dyes or perfumes. Many embalming chemical companies make specialized anatomical embalming fluids.


title: Embalming

text: Anatomical embalming is performed into a closed circulatory system. The fluid is usually injected with an embalming machine into an artery under high pressure and flow, and allowed to swell and saturate the tissues. After the deceased is left to sit for a number of hours, the venous system is generally opened and the fluid allowed to drain out, although many anatomical embalmers do not use any drainage technique.


title: Embalming

text: Anatomical embalmers may choose to use gravity-feed embalming, where the container dispensing the embalming fluid is elevated above the body's level, and fluid is slowly introduced over an extended time, sometimes as long as several days. Unlike standard arterial embalming, no drainage occurs, and the body distends extensively with fluid. The distension eventually reduces, often under extended (up to six months) refrigeration, leaving a fairly normal appearance. No separate cavity treatment of the internal organs is given. Anatomically embalmed cadavers have a typically uniform grey colouration, due both to the high formaldehyde concentration mixed with the blood and the lack of red colouration agents commonly added to standard, nonmedical, embalming fluids. Formaldehyde mixed with blood causes the grey discoloration also known as "formaldehyde grey" or "embalmer's grey".


title: Embalming

text: Opinions differ among different faiths as to the permissibility of embalming. A brief overview of some of the larger faiths positions are:


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Kirwan was born in Churchtown, Dublin, Ireland. Her father, Peter Kirwan, was an insurance broker, and her mother, Maureen O'Driscoll, was a language teacher. She is the youngest of three daughters. She attended Loreto Beaufort in Rathfarnham, Dublin, a Catholic school for girls, until the age of 16, when she was asked to leave as her career as an actress started to progress. Kirwan completed secondary school at the now-defunct non-denominational Sandymount High School in Dublin.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Kirwan's first credited TV roles were in the TV series "Troubles" in 1988 and "The Lilac Bus" in 1990 alongside Stephanie Beacham based on Maeve Binchy's novel.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Her breakthrough television role was appearing in the 1991 BBC Scotland production of "A Time To Dance", adapted by Melvyn Bragg from his own novel, playing Bernadette Kennedy.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Kirwan briefly appeared in "Casualty", and in the first three seasons of "Goodnight Sweetheart" alongside Nicholas Lyndhurst.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: For 23 episodes, from 1996–1998, she appeared in "Ballykissangel" in the role of Assumpta Fitzgerald, the landlady of the village's only pub, Fitzgerald's. She reprised this role for a Comic Relief special of "The Vicar of Dibley", and for a "Father Ted" special.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 1999, she appeared in another BBC production, a made for TV Christmas film called "The Greatest Store in the World". She played the single mother of two girls who are made homeless a few days before Christmas. Kirwan co-starred with Brian Blessed and Peter Capaldi. In 2001, she starred as Emma Rose in a BBC series "Hearts and Bones" alongside Sarah Parish, Amanda Holden, Hugo Speer and Damian Lewis. The show ran for two seasons. She also starred in the Sky TV series "The Bombmaker" as a former IRA bomb maker.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: She appeared in the BBC 1 crime drama series "55 Degrees North" with Don Gilet, which aired in 2004. She returned for a second season in 2005. The series was shown in the US under the title "The Night Detective".


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Kirwan appeared as the villain Miss Mercy Hartigan in "The Next Doctor", the 2008 Christmas special of "Doctor Who", alongside David Tennant and David Morrissey.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 2009, Kirwan was in the BBC drama "Moving On", where she played Laura in the episode "Dress To Impress". She also guest starred in "", playing the role of Beatrice McArdle.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Kirwan appeared in the BBC drama series "Material Girl", which aired in January 2010. She was also cast in the role of Bundle in "Agatha Christie's Marple".


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Kirwan also appeared in the four-part BBC drama "The Silence" in 2010. She played the role of Maggie, the warm-hearted aunt of a young deaf girl who witnessed a murder. "The Silence" aired in July 2010.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 2011, Kirwan worked on "Injustice" a five-part psychological thriller on ITV written by Anthony Horowitz. She starred as Jane Travers, wife of main character, Will Travers played by James Purefoy.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In June 2012, Kirwan appeared on screen as Alex Demoys alongside Christopher Eccleston in the three part BBC1 drama miniseries "Blackout".


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 2018, Kirwan guest starred in one episode of Sky’s "". She played Rachel Sheridan who helped design Guantanamo and may have built the black site where a Jihadi leader was being held. In the same year, she also appeared in the ITV drama "Strangers" (originally titled "White Dragon") where she played the deceased wife of the titular character Jonah Mulray, played by John Simm.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 2019, she appeared as a guest star in long-running BBC series "Silent Witness" playing the role of pathologist Amanda Long. In 2020, she appeared on Netflix miniseries "The Stranger" as Corinne Price.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 2020, Kirwan began work on the Irish thriller series "Smother", for RTÉ Television. Production began in early 2020 but was halted in mid-March, due to the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions in Ireland. It recommenced in August 2020 and finished in late October. The series, set and filmed in County Clare, Ireland, debuted on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player in early March 2021. The series was broadcast in the UK on Alibi in autumn 2021.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: At the age of sixteen Kirwan moved to London when she was cast in a play at the Bush Theatre. She won acclaim in 1988 for her performance as the factory girl Linda in "A Handful of Stars", the Bush Theatre premiere of the first play in Billy Roche's Wexford Trilogy. In 1992, again at the Bush, she starred in a revival of the complete trilogy.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 1991, she appeared in the play "Water Music" at the Cockpit Theatre, written by award-winning playwright Lyndon Morgans (singer-songwriter with the Welsh folk noir band Songdog). In 1992, she also starred in "Hush" by April De Angelis at the Royal Court Theatre, while January 1994 found her playing in Peter Hall's seasonal production of Georges Feydeau's farce "An Absolute Turkey" at the Globe Theatre.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 2001, she appeared in a stage production of "Dangerous Corner" by JB Priestley in Leeds alongside Rupert Penry-Jones, to whom she is now married. Kirwan again appeared on stage with Penry-Jones in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" at the Bristol Old Vic directed by Samuel West in 2003.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 2005, she appeared on the Lyttelton stage at the National Theatre in the role of Alice in Brian Friel's "Aristocrats". In 2006, she played Bertha in "Exiles" at the National Theatre.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: From April to May 2012, Kirwan appeared on stage at the Chichester Festival Theatre in a Jeremy Herrin production of Uncle Vanya. Kirwan played Sonya alongside an exceptional cast which included Roger Allam (as Vanya), Timothy West and Lara Pulver. The play received warm reviews and response to Kirwan's performance was generally positive.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In April 2013, Kirwan was cast as Valerie in Josie Rourke's revival of "The Weir" by Conor McPherson at the Donmar Warehouse. Kirwan appeared alongside Brian Cox, Ardal O'Hanlon, Risteard Cooper and Peter McDonald. Critics lauded the play and gave it four- and five-star ratings. The Weir later transferred to the West End, playing at Wyndham's Theatre from January 2014 to April 2014.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In late 2014, Kirwan made her second stint at the Chichester Festival Theatre as Frankie in "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune", a play by Terrence McNally about the relationship between waitress, Frankie and short-order cook, Johnny played by Neil Stuke. It was warmly received by critics who gave mostly four-star reviews. It ran from November 2014 to December 2014 at the Minerva theatre.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: She appeared on stage in the Chichester Festival Theatre production of "King Lear" in 2017, directed by Jonathan Munby, where she played Goneril to Ian McKellen's Lear.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 1998, she starred alongside Christopher Eccleston in the Michael Winterbottom film "With or Without You" as Belfast girl Rosie Boyd.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Kirwan appeared in the Irish film "Ondine" alongside Colin Farrell and Stephen Rea which was released in 2009. She played Maura, the alcoholic bitter ex-girlfriend of Farrell's character, Syracuse.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 2007, Kirwan began filming the fantasy film "Luna" by Dave McKean, starring alongside Ben Daniels, Stephanie Leonidas and Michael Maloney. However, due to budget setbacks, filming did not resume until 2011 and was finally completed in 2013. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014. The film was positively received by critics and Kirwan's performance was highly praised. "Luna" was awarded the Best British Film at the 2014 Raindance Film Festival.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: She also starred in an independent thriller, "Entity" as Ruth Peacock. The film premiered in 2013 at selected cinemas and DVD and won Best Horror film at the London Independent Film Festival 2013.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 2016, she starred as the violent and cruel crime boss Ed in Branko Tomovic's directorial debut "Red".


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 2017, Kirwan appeared in the film "Interlude in Prague", taking on the role of Frau Lubtak alongside Adrian Edmondson and Morfydd Clark.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: In 1997, Kirwan sang with Dustin the Turkey on his cover of "Fairytale of New York" for his album "Faith of Our Feathers".


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: She provided the voiceovers for the "This is not just food" television advertising campaign for UK retailer Marks & Spencer and also a string of three UK public information films about good food hygiene for the Food Standards Agency.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Kirwan won the National TV Award for Best Actress in 1996, and the Irish Post Award for Best Irish Entertainer in 1997 for her performance in "Ballykissangel" as Assumpta Fitzgerald.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: She won the award for Best Supporting Actress in a Film at the 2010 Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTAs) for her role as Maura in "Ondine".


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: For her role as Maggie in The Silence, Kirwan won the Dagger for Best Supporting Actress at the 2010 Crime Thriller Awards.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: She received a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the 2016 Maverick Movie Awards, and won the Best Actress Award at the 2017 Flagship City International Film Festival for her performance as Ed in the film "Red".


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Kirwan has been married to actor Rupert Penry-Jones since 2007, after a four-year engagement. They are parents to two children, Florence and Peter. They met in 2001 while working on stage together in a West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, production of JB Priestley's "Dangerous Corner", when he played Robert Caplan to her Olwen Peel. Kirwan again appeared on stage with Penry-Jones in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" in 2003. They also both appeared in the television show "Casanova" in 2005, although they did not share any scenes.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Kirwan has been the subject of an episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" (air date: 2 August 2010) in which she found out more about her Irish and Jewish descent. Her great-granduncle was the Irish nationalist leader Michael Collins during the Irish War of Independence. She is a great-granddaughter of Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll, who was Collins' sister. Her maternal grandfather, Finian O'Driscoll, was Collins' nephew.


title: Dervla Kirwan

text: Kirwan's paternal grandfather, Henry Kahn, was a Polish Jewish immigrant who had married her grandmother, Teresa O'Shea, a Catholic, in Ireland.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Vaughan Williams was born to a well-to-do family with strong moral views and a progressive social life. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens, and believed in making music as available as possible to everybody. He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Teutonic influences.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Vaughan Williams is among the best-known British symphonists, noted for his very wide range of moods, from stormy and impassioned to tranquil, from mysterious to exuberant. Among the most familiar of his other concert works are "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" (1910) and "The Lark Ascending" (1914). His vocal works include hymns, folk-song arrangements and large-scale choral pieces. He wrote eight works for stage performance between 1919 and 1951. Although none of his operas became popular repertoire pieces, his ballet "" (1930) was successful and has been frequently staged.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Two episodes made notably deep impressions in Vaughan Williams's personal life. The First World War, in which he served in the army, had a lasting emotional effect. Twenty years later, though in his sixties and devotedly married, he was reinvigorated by a love affair with a much younger woman, who later became his second wife. He went on composing through his seventies and eighties, producing his last symphony months before his death at the age of eighty-five. His works have continued to be a staple of the British concert repertoire, and all his major compositions and many of the minor ones have been recorded.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Vaughan Williams was born at Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, the third child and younger son of the vicar, the Reverend Arthur Vaughan Williams (1834–1875), and his wife, Margaret, "née" Wedgwood (1842–1937). His paternal forebears were of mixed English and Welsh descent; many of them went into the law or the Church. The judges Sir Edward and Sir Roland Vaughan Williams were respectively Arthur's father and brother. Margaret Vaughan Williams was a great-granddaughter of Josiah Wedgwood and niece of Charles Darwin.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Arthur Vaughan Williams died suddenly in February 1875, and his widow took the children to live in her family home, Leith Hill Place, Wotton, Surrey. The children were under the care of a nurse, Sara Wager, who instilled in them not only polite manners and good behaviour but also liberal social and philosophical opinions. Such views were consistent with the progressive-minded tradition of both sides of the family. When the young Vaughan Williams asked his mother about Darwin's controversial book "On the Origin of Species", she answered, "The Bible says that God made the world in six days. Great Uncle Charles thinks it took longer: but we need not worry about it, for it is equally wonderful either way".


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In 1878, at the age of five, Vaughan Williams began receiving piano lessons from his aunt, Sophy Wedgwood. He displayed signs of musical talent early on, composing his first piece of music, a four-bar piano piece called "The Robin's Nest", in the same year. He did not greatly like the piano, and was pleased to begin violin lessons the following year. In 1880, when he was eight, he took a correspondence course in music from Edinburgh University and passed the associated examinations.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In September 1883 he went as a boarder to Field House preparatory school in Rottingdean on the south coast of England, forty miles from Wotton. He was generally happy there, although he was shocked to encounter for the first time social snobbery and political conservatism, which were rife among his fellow pupils. From there he moved on to the public school Charterhouse in January 1887. His academic and sporting achievements there were satisfactory, and the school encouraged his musical development. In 1888 he organised a concert in the school hall, which included a performance of his G major Piano Trio (now lost) with the composer as violinist.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: While at Charterhouse Vaughan Williams found that religion meant less and less to him, and for a while he was an atheist. This softened into "a cheerful agnosticism", and he continued to attend church regularly to avoid upsetting the family. His views on religion did not affect his love of the Authorised Version of the Bible, the beauty of which, in the words of Ursula Vaughan Williams in her 1964 biography of the composer, remained "one of his essential companions through life." In this, as in many other things in his life, he was, according to his biographer Michael Kennedy, "that extremely English product the natural nonconformist with a conservative regard for the best tradition".


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In July 1890 Vaughan Williams left Charterhouse and in September he was enrolled as a student at the Royal College of Music (RCM), London. After a compulsory course in harmony with Francis Edward Gladstone, professor of organ, counterpoint and harmony, he studied organ with Walter Parratt and composition with Hubert Parry. He idolised Parry, and recalled in his "Musical Autobiography" (1950):


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Vaughan Williams's family would have preferred him to have remained at Charterhouse for two more years and then go on to Cambridge University. They were not convinced that he was talented enough to pursue a musical career, but feeling it would be wrong to prevent him from trying, they had allowed him to go to the RCM. Nevertheless, a university education was expected of him, and in 1892 he temporarily left the RCM and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he spent three years, studying music and history.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Among those with whom Vaughan Williams became friendly at Cambridge were the philosophers G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, the historian G. M. Trevelyan and the musician Hugh Allen. He felt intellectually overshadowed by some of his companions, but he learned much from them and formed lifelong friendships with several. Among the women with whom he mixed socially at Cambridge was Adeline Fisher, the daughter of Herbert Fisher, an old friend of the Vaughan Williams family. She and Vaughan Williams grew close, and in June 1897, after he had left Cambridge, they became engaged to be married.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: During his time at Cambridge Vaughan Williams continued his weekly lessons with Parry, and studied composition with Charles Wood and organ with Alan Gray. He graduated as Bachelor of Music in 1894 and Bachelor of Arts the following year. After leaving the university he returned to complete his training at the RCM. Parry had by then succeeded Sir George Grove as director of the college, and Vaughan Williams's new professor of composition was Charles Villiers Stanford. Relations between teacher and student were stormy but affectionate. Stanford, who had been adventurous in his younger days, had grown deeply conservative; he clashed vigorously with his modern-minded pupil. Vaughan Williams had no wish to follow in the traditions of Stanford's idols, Brahms and Wagner, and he stood up to his teacher as few students dared to do. Beneath Stanford's severity lay a recognition of Vaughan Williams's talent and a desire to help the young man correct his opaque orchestration and extreme predilection for modal music.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In his second spell at the RCM (1895–1896) Vaughan Williams got to know a fellow student, Gustav Holst, who became a lifelong friend. Stanford emphasised the need for his students to be self-critical, but Vaughan Williams and Holst became, and remained, one another's most valued critics; each would play his latest composition to the other while still working on it. Vaughan Williams later observed, "What one really learns from an Academy or College is not so much from one's official teachers as from one's fellow-students ... [we discussed] every subject under the sun from the lowest note of the double bassoon to the philosophy of "Jude the Obscure"". In 1949 he wrote of their relationship, "Holst declared that his music was influenced by that of his friend: the converse is certainly true."


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Vaughan Williams had a modest private income, which in his early career he supplemented with a variety of musical activities. Although the organ was not his preferred instrument, the only post he ever held for an annual salary was as a church organist and choirmaster. He held the position at St Barnabas, in the inner London district of South Lambeth, from 1895 to 1899 for a salary of £50 a year. He disliked the job, but working closely with a choir was valuable experience for his later undertakings.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In October 1897 Adeline and Vaughan Williams were married. They honeymooned for several months in Berlin, where he studied with Max Bruch. On their return they settled in London, originally in Westminster and, from 1905, in Chelsea. There were no children of the marriage.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In 1899 Vaughan Williams passed the examination for the degree of Doctor of Music at Cambridge; the title was formally conferred on him in 1901. The song "Linden Lea" became the first of his works to appear in print, published in the magazine "The Vocalist" in April 1902 and then as separate sheet music. In addition to composition he occupied himself in several capacities during the first decade of the century. He wrote articles for musical journals and for the second edition of "Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians", edited the first volume of Purcell's "Welcome Songs" for the Purcell Society, and was for a while involved in adult education in the University Extension Lectures. From 1904 to 1906 he was music editor of a new hymn-book, "The English Hymnal", of which he later said, "I now know that two years of close association with some of the best (as well as some of the worst) tunes in the world was a better musical education than any amount of sonatas and fugues". Always committed to music-making for the whole community, he helped found the amateur Leith Hill Musical Festival in 1905, and was appointed its principal conductor, a post he held until 1953.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In 1903–1904 Vaughan Williams started collecting folk-songs. He had always been interested in them, and now followed the example of a recent generation of enthusiasts such as Cecil Sharp and Lucy Broadwood in going into the English countryside noting down and transcribing songs traditionally sung in various locations. Collections of the songs were published, preserving many that could otherwise have vanished as oral traditions died out. Vaughan Williams incorporated some into his own compositions, and more generally was influenced by their prevailing modal forms. This, together with his love of Tudor and Stuart music, helped shape his compositional style for the rest of his career.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Over this period Vaughan Williams composed steadily, producing songs, choral music, chamber works and orchestral pieces, gradually finding the beginnings of his mature style. His compositions included the tone poem "In the Fen Country" (1904) and the "Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1" (1906). He remained unsatisfied with his technique as a composer. After unsuccessfully seeking lessons from Sir Edward Elgar, he contemplated studying with Vincent d'Indy in Paris. Instead, he was introduced by the critic and musicologist M.D.Calvocoressi to Maurice Ravel, a more modernist, less dogmatic musician than d'Indy.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Ravel took few pupils, and was known as a demanding taskmaster for those he agreed to teach. Vaughan Williams spent three months in Paris in the winter of 1907–1908, working with him four or five times each week. There is little documentation of Vaughan Williams's time with Ravel; the musicologist Byron Adams advises caution in relying on Vaughan Williams's recollections in the "Musical Autobiography" written forty-three years after the event. The degree to which the French composer influenced the Englishman's style is debated. Ravel declared Vaughan Williams to be "my only pupil who does not write my music"; nevertheless, commentators including Kennedy, Adams, Hugh Ottaway and Alain Frogley find Vaughan Williams's instrumental textures lighter and sharper in the music written after his return from Paris, such as the String Quartet in G minor, "On Wenlock Edge", the Overture to "The Wasps" and "A Sea Symphony". Vaughan Williams himself said that Ravel had helped him escape from "the heavy contrapuntal Teutonic manner".


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In the years between his return from Paris in 1908 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Vaughan Williams increasingly established himself as a figure in British music. For a rising composer it was important to receive performances at the big provincial music festivals, which generated publicity and royalties. In 1910 his music featured at two of the largest and most prestigious festivals, with the premieres of the "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral in September and "A Sea Symphony" at the Leeds Festival the following month. The leading British music critics of the time, J. A. Fuller Maitland of "The Times" and Samuel Langford of "The Manchester Guardian", were strong in their praise. The former wrote of the fantasia, "The work is wonderful because it seems to lift one into some unknown region of musical thought and feeling. Throughout its course one is never sure whether one is listening to something very old or very new". Langford declared that the symphony "definitely places a new figure in the first rank of our English composers". Between these successes and the start of war Vaughan Williams's largest-scale work was the first version of "A London Symphony" (1914). In the same year he wrote "The Lark Ascending" in its original form for violin and piano.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Despite his age—he was forty-two in 1914—Vaughan Williams volunteered for military service on the outbreak of the First World War. Joining the Royal Army Medical Corps as a private, he drove ambulance wagons in France and later in Greece. Frogley writes of this period that Vaughan Williams was considerably older than most of his comrades, and "the back-breaking labour of dangerous night-time journeys through mud and rain must have been more than usually punishing". The war left its emotional mark on Vaughan Williams, who lost many comrades and friends, including the young composer George Butterworth. In 1917 Vaughan Williams was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, seeing action in France from March 1918. The continual noise of the guns damaged his hearing, and led to deafness in his later years. After the armistice in 1918 he served as director of music for the British First Army until demobilised in February 1919.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: During the war Vaughan Williams stopped writing music, and after returning to civilian life he took some time before feeling ready to compose new works. He revised some earlier pieces, and turned his attention to other musical activities. In 1919 he accepted an invitation from Hugh Allen, who had succeeded Parry as director, to teach composition at the RCM; he remained on the faculty of the college for the next twenty years. In 1921 he succeeded Allen as conductor of the Bach Choir, London. It was not until 1922 that he produced a major new composition, "A Pastoral Symphony"; the work was given its first performance in London in May conducted by Adrian Boult and its American premiere in June conducted by the composer.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Throughout the 1920s Vaughan Williams continued to compose, conduct and teach. Kennedy lists forty works premiered during the decade, including the Mass in G minor (1922), the ballet "Old King Cole" (1923), the operas "Hugh the Drover" and "Sir John in Love" (1924 and 1928), the suite "Flos Campi" (1925) and the oratorio "Sancta Civitas" (1925).


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: During the decade Adeline became increasingly immobilised by arthritis, and the numerous stairs in their London house finally caused the Vaughan Williamses to move in 1929 to a more manageable home, "The White Gates", Dorking, where they lived until Adeline's death in 1951. Vaughan Williams, who thought of himself as a complete Londoner, was sorry to leave the capital, but his wife was anxious to live in the country, and Dorking was within reasonably convenient reach of town.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In 1932 Vaughan Williams was elected president of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. From September to December of that year he was in the US as a visiting lecturer at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. The texts of his lectures were published under the title "National Music" in 1934; they sum up his artistic and social credo more fully than anything he had published previously, and remained in print for most of the remainder of the century.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: During the 1930s Vaughan Williams came to be regarded as a leading figure in British music, particularly after the deaths of Elgar, Delius and Holst in 1934. Holst's death was a severe personal and professional blow to Vaughan Williams; the two had been each other's closest friends and musical advisers since their college days. After Holst's death Vaughan Williams was glad of the advice and support of other friends including Boult and the composer Gerald Finzi, but his relationship with Holst was irreplaceable.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In some of Vaughan Williams's music of the 1930s there is an explicitly dark, even violent tone. The ballet "" (1930) and the Fourth Symphony (1935) surprised the public and critics. The discordant and violent tone of the symphony, written at a time of growing international tension, led many critics to suppose the symphony to be programmatic. Hubert Foss dubbed it "The Romantic" and Frank Howes called it "The Fascist". The composer dismissed such interpretations, and insisted that the work was absolute music, with no programme of any kind; nonetheless, some of those close to him, including Foss and Boult, remained convinced that something of the troubled spirit of the age was captured in the work.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: As the decade progressed, Vaughan Williams found musical inspiration lacking, and experienced his first fallow period since his wartime musical silence. After his anti-war cantata "Dona nobis pacem" in 1936 he did not complete another work of substantial length until late in 1941, when the first version of the Fifth Symphony was completed.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In 1938 Vaughan Williams met Ursula Wood (1911–2007), the wife of an army officer, Captain (later Lieutenant-Colonel) Michael Forrester Wood. She was a poet, and had approached the composer with a proposed scenario for a ballet. Despite their both being married, and a four-decade age-gap, they fell in love almost from their first meeting; they maintained a secret love affair for more than a decade. Ursula became the composer's muse, helper and London companion, and later helped him care for his ailing wife. Whether Adeline knew, or suspected, that Ursula and Vaughan Williams were lovers is uncertain, but the relations between the two women were of warm friendship throughout the years they knew each other. The composer's concern for his first wife never faltered, according to Ursula, who admitted in the 1980s that she had been jealous of Adeline, whose place in Vaughan Williams's life and affections was unchallengeable.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: During the Second World War Vaughan Williams was active in civilian war work, chairing the Home Office Committee for the Release of Interned Alien Musicians, helping Myra Hess with the organisation of the daily National Gallery concerts, serving on a committee for refugees from Nazi oppression, and on the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), the forerunner of the Arts Council. In 1940 he composed his first film score, for the propaganda film "49th Parallel".


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In 1942 Michael Wood died suddenly of heart failure. At Adeline's behest the widowed Ursula was invited to stay with the Vaughan Williamses in Dorking, and thereafter was a regular visitor there, sometimes staying for weeks at a time. The critic Michael White suggests that Adeline "appears, in the most amicable way, to have adopted Ursula as her successor". Ursula recorded that during air raids all three slept in the same room in adjacent beds, holding hands for comfort.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In 1943 Vaughan Williams conducted the premiere of his Fifth Symphony at the Proms. Its serene tone contrasted with the stormy Fourth, and led some commentators to think it a symphonic valediction. William Glock wrote that it was "like the work of a distinguished poet who has nothing very new to say, but says it in exquisitely flowing language". The music Vaughan Williams wrote for the BBC to celebrate the end of the war, "Thanksgiving for Victory", was marked by what the critic Edward Lockspeiser called the composer's characteristic avoidance of "any suggestion of rhetorical pompousness". Any suspicion that the septuagenarian composer had settled into benign tranquillity was dispelled by his Sixth Symphony (1948), described by the critic Gwyn Parry-Jones as "one of the most disturbing musical statements of the 20th century", opening with a "primal scream, plunging the listener immediately into a world of aggression and impending chaos." Coming as it did near the start of the Cold War, many critics thought its "pianissimo" last movement a depiction of a nuclear-scorched wasteland. The composer was dismissive of programmatic theories: "It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music."


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In 1951 Adeline died, aged eighty. In the same year Vaughan Williams's last opera, "The Pilgrim's Progress", was staged at Covent Garden as part of the Festival of Britain. He had been working intermittently on a musical treatment of John Bunyan's allegory for forty-five years, and the 1951 "morality" was the final result. The reviews were respectful, but the work did not catch the opera-going public's imagination, and the Royal Opera House's production was "insultingly half-hearted" according to Frogley. The piece was revived the following year, but was still not a great success. Vaughan Williams commented to Ursula, "They don't like it, they won't like it, they don't want an opera with no heroine and no love duets—and I don't care, it's what I meant, and there it is."


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In February 1953 Vaughan Williams and Ursula were married. He left the Dorking house and they took a lease of 10 Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, London. It was the year of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation; Vaughan Williams's contribution was an arrangement of the Old Hundredth psalm tune, and a new setting of "O taste and see" from Psalm 34, performed at the service in Westminster Abbey.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Having returned to live in London, Vaughan Williams, with Ursula's encouragement, became much more active socially and in "pro bono publico" activities. He was a leading figure in the Society for the Promotion of New Music, and in 1954 he set up and endowed the RVW Trust to support young composers and promote new or neglected music. He and his wife travelled extensively in Europe, and in 1954 he visited the US once again, having been invited to lecture at Cornell and other universities and to conduct. He received an enthusiastic welcome from large audiences, and was overwhelmed at the warmth of his reception. Kennedy describes it as "like a musical state occasion".


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Of Vaughan Williams's works from the 1950s, "Grove" makes particular mention of "Three Shakespeare Songs" (1951) for unaccompanied chorus, the Christmas cantata "Hodie" (1953–1954), the Violin Sonata, and, most particularly, the "Ten Blake Songs" (1957) for voice and oboe, "a masterpiece of economy and precision". Unfinished works from the decade were a cello concerto and a new opera, "Thomas the Rhymer". The predominant works of the 1950s were his three last symphonies. The seventh—officially unnumbered, and titled "Sinfonia antartica"—divided opinion; the score is a reworking of music Vaughan Williams had written for the 1948 film "Scott of the Antarctic", and some critics thought it not truly symphonic. The Eighth, though wistful in parts, is predominantly lighthearted in tone; it was received enthusiastically at its premiere in 1956, given by the Hallé Orchestra under the dedicatee, Sir John Barbirolli. The Ninth, premiered at a Royal Philharmonic Society concert conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent in April 1958, puzzled critics with its sombre, questing tone, and did not immediately achieve the recognition it later gained.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Having been in excellent health, Vaughan Williams died suddenly in the early hours of 26 August 1958 at Hanover Terrace, aged 85. Two days later, after a private funeral at Golders Green, he was cremated. On 19 September, at a crowded memorial service, his ashes were interred near the burial plots of Purcell and Stanford in the north choir aisle of Westminster Abbey.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Michael Kennedy characterises Vaughan Williams's music as a strongly individual blending of the modal harmonies familiar from folk‐song with the French influence of Ravel and Debussy. The basis of his work is melody, his rhythms, in Kennedy's view, being unsubtle at times. Vaughan Williams's music is often described as visionary; Kennedy cites the masque "Job" and the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies. Vaughan Williams's output was prolific and wide-ranging. For the voice he composed songs, operas, and choral works ranging from simpler pieces suitable for amateurs to demanding works for professional choruses. His comparatively few chamber works are not among his better-known compositions. Some of his finest works elude conventional categorisation, such as the "Serenade to Music" (1938) for sixteen solo singers and orchestra; "Flos Campi" (1925) for solo viola, small orchestra, and small chorus; and his most important chamber work, in Howes's view—not purely instrumental but a song cycle—"On Wenlock Edge" (1909) with accompaniment for string quartet and piano.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In 1955 the authors of "The Record Guide", Edward Sackville-West and Desmond Shawe-Taylor, wrote that Vaughan Williams's music showed an exceptionally strong individual voice: Vaughan Williams's style is "not remarkable for grace or politeness or inventive colour", but expresses "a consistent vision in which thought and feeling and their equivalent images in music never fall below a certain high level of natural distinction". They commented that the composer's vision is expressed in two main contrasting moods: "the one contemplative and trance-like, the other pugnacious and sinister". The first mood, generally predominant in the composer's output, was more popular, as audiences preferred "the stained-glass beauty of the Tallis Fantasia, the direct melodic appeal of the "Serenade to Music", the pastoral poetry of "The Lark Ascending", and the grave serenity of the Fifth Symphony". By contrast, as in the ferocity of the Fourth and Sixth Symphonies and the Concerto for Two Pianos: "in his grimmer moods Vaughan Williams can be as frightening as Sibelius and Bartók".


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: It is as a symphonist that Vaughan Williams is best known. The composer and academic Elliott Schwartz wrote (1964), "It may be said with truth that Vaughan Williams, Sibelius and Prokofieff are the symphonists of this century". Although Vaughan Williams did not complete the first of them until he was thirty-eight years old, the nine symphonies span nearly half a century of his creative life. In his 1964 analysis of the nine, Schwartz found it striking that no two of the symphonies are alike, either in structure or in mood. Commentators have found it useful to consider the nine in three groups of three—early, middle and late.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: The first three symphonies, to which Vaughan Williams assigned titles rather than numbers, form a sub-group within the nine, having programmatic elements absent from the later six.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: "A Sea Symphony" (1910), the only one of the series to include a part for full choir, differs from most earlier choral symphonies in that the choir sings in all the movements. The extent to which it is a true symphony has been debated; in a 2013 study, Alain Frogley describes it as a hybrid work, with elements of symphony, oratorio and cantata. Its sheer length—about eighty minutes—was unprecedented for an English symphonic work, and within its thoroughly tonal construction it contains harmonic dissonances that pre-echo the early works of Stravinsky which were soon to follow.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: "A London Symphony" (1911–1913) which the composer later observed might more accurately be called a "symphony by a Londoner", is for the most part not overtly pictorial in its presentation of London. Vaughan Williams insisted that it is "self-expressive, and must stand or fall as 'absolute' music". There are some references to the urban soundscape: brief impressions of street music, with the sound of the barrel organ mimicked by the orchestra; the characteristic chant of the lavender-seller; the jingle of hansom cabs; and the chimes of Big Ben played by harp and clarinet. But commentators have heard—and the composer never denied or confirmed—some social comment in sinister echoes at the end of the scherzo and an orchestral outburst of pain and despair at the opening of the finale. Schwartz comments that the symphony, in its "unified presentation of widely heterogeneous elements", is "very much like the city itself". Vaughan Williams said in his later years that this was his favourite of the symphonies.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: The last of the first group is "A Pastoral Symphony" (1921). The first three movements are for orchestra alone; a wordless solo soprano or tenor voice is added in the finale. Despite the title the symphony draws little on the folk-songs beloved of the composer, and the pastoral landscape evoked is not a tranquil English scene, but the French countryside ravaged by war. Some English musicians who had not fought in the First World War misunderstood the work and heard only the slow tempi and quiet tone, failing to notice the character of a requiem in the music and mistaking the piece for a rustic idyll. Kennedy comments that it was not until after the Second World War that "the spectral 'Last Post' in the second movement and the girl's lamenting voice in the finale" were widely noticed and understood.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: The middle three symphonies are purely orchestral, and generally conventional in form, with sonata form (modified in places), specified home keys, and four-movement structure. The orchestral forces required are not large by the standards of the first half of the 20th century, although the Fourth calls for an augmented woodwind section and the Sixth includes a part for tenor saxophone. The Fourth Symphony (1935) astonished listeners with its striking dissonance, far removed from the prevailing quiet tone of the previous symphony. The composer firmly contradicted any notions that the work was programmatical in any respect, and Kennedy calls attempts to give the work "a meretricious programme ... a poor compliment to its musical vitality and self-sufficiency".


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: The Fifth Symphony (1943) was in complete contrast to its predecessor. Vaughan Williams had been working on and off for many years on his operatic version of Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress". Fearing—wrongly as it turned out—that the opera would never be completed, Vaughan Williams reworked some of the music already written for it into a new symphony. Despite the internal tensions caused by the deliberate conflict of modality in places, the work is generally serene in character, and was particularly well received for the comfort it gave at a time of all-out war. Neville Cardus later wrote, "The Fifth Symphony contains the most benedictory and consoling music of our time."


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: With the Sixth Symphony (1948) Vaughan Williams once again confounded expectations. Many had seen the Fifth, composed when he was seventy, as a valedictory work, and the turbulent, troubled Sixth came as a shock. After violent orchestral clashes in the first movement, the obsessive "ostinato" of the second and the "diabolic" scherzo, the finale perplexed many listeners. Described as "one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken in music", it is marked "pianissimo" throughout its 10–12-minute duration.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: The seventh symphony, the "Sinfonia antartica" (1952), a by-product of the composer's score for "Scott of the Antarctic", has consistently divided critical opinion on whether it can be properly classed as a symphony. Alain Frogley in "Grove" argues that though the work can make a deep impression on the listener, it is neither a true symphony in the understood sense of the term nor a tone poem and is consequently the least successful of the mature symphonies. The work is in five movements, with wordless vocal lines for female chorus and solo soprano in the first and last movements. In addition to large woodwind and percussion sections the score features a prominent part for wind machine.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: The Eighth Symphony (1956) in D minor is noticeably different from its seven predecessors by virtue of its brevity and, despite its minor key, its general light-heartedness. The orchestra is smaller than for most of the symphonies, with the exception of the percussion section, which is particularly large, with, as Vaughan Williams put it, "all the 'phones' and 'spiels' known to the composer". The work was enthusiastically received at its early performances, and has remained among Vaughan Williams's most popular works.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: The final symphony, the Ninth, was completed in late 1957 and premiered in April 1958, four months before the composer's death. It is scored for a large orchestra, including three saxophones, a flugelhorn, and an enlarged percussion section. The mood is more sombre than that of the Eighth; "Grove" calls its mood "at once heroic and contemplative, defiant and wistfully absorbed". The work received an ovation at its premiere, but at first the critics were not sure what to make of it, and it took some years for it to be generally ranked alongside its eight predecessors.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: "Grove" lists more than thirty works by Vaughan Williams for orchestra or band over and above the symphonies. They include two of his most popular works—the "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" (1910, revised 1919), and "The Lark Ascending", originally for violin and piano (1914); orchestrated 1920. Other works that survive in the repertoire in Britain are the "Norfolk Rhapsody No 1" (1905–1906), "The Wasps, Aristophanic suite"—particularly the overture (1909), the "English Folk Song Suite" (1923) and the "Fantasia on Greensleeves" (1934).


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Vaughan Williams wrote four concertos: for violin (1925), piano (1926), oboe (1944) and tuba (1954); another concertante piece is his Romance for harmonica, strings and piano (1951). None of these works has rivalled the popularity of the symphonies or the short orchestral works mentioned above. Bartók was among the admirers of the Piano Concerto, written for and championed by Harriet Cohen, but it has remained, in the words of the critic Andrew Achenbach, a neglected masterpiece.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In addition to the music for "Scott of the Antarctic", Vaughan Williams composed incidental music for eleven other films, from "49th Parallel" (1941) to "The Vision of William Blake" (1957).


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: By comparison with his output in other genres, Vaughan Williams's music for chamber ensembles and solo instruments forms a small part of his oeuvre. "Grove" lists twenty-four pieces under the heading "Chamber and instrumental"; three are early, unpublished works. Vaughan Williams, like most leading British 20th-century composers, was not drawn to the solo piano and wrote little for it. From his mature years, there survive for standard chamber groupings two string quartets (1908–1909, revised 1921; and 1943–1944), a "phantasy" string quintet (1912), and a sonata for violin and piano (1954). The first quartet was written soon after Vaughan Williams's studies in Paris with Ravel, whose influence is strongly evident. In 2002 the magazine "Gramophone" described the second quartet as a masterpiece that should be, but is not, part of the international chamber repertory. It is from the same period as the Sixth Symphony, and has something of that work's severity and anguish. The quintet (1912) was written two years after the success of the "Tallis Fantasia", with which it has elements in common, both in terms of instrumental layout and the mood of rapt contemplation. The violin sonata has made little impact.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Ursula Vaughan Williams wrote of her husband's love of literature, and listed some of his favourite writers and writings:


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In addition to his love of poetry, Vaughan Williams's vocal music is inspired by his lifelong belief that the voice "can be made the medium of the best and deepest human emotion."


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Between the mid-1890s and the late 1950s Vaughan Williams set more than eighty poems for voice and piano accompaniment. The earliest to survive is "A Cradle Song", to Coleridge's words, from about 1894. The songs include many that have entered the repertory, such as "Linden Lea" (1902), "Silent Noon" (1904) and the song cycles "Songs of Travel" (1905 and 1907) and "On Wenlock Edge". To Vaughan Williams the human voice was "the oldest and greatest of musical instruments". He described his early songs as "more or less simple and popular in character", and the musicologist Sophie Fuller describes this simplicity and popularity as consistent throughout his career. Many composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries wrote sentimental works for female voice; by contrast, songs by Vaughan Williams, such as "The Vagabond" from "Songs of Travel", to words by Robert Louis Stevenson, are "a particularly masculine breath of fresh air" (Fuller), "virile open-air verses" (Kennedy). Some of Vaughan Williams's later songs are less well known; Fuller singles out the cycle "Three Poems by Walt Whitman", a largely dark work, as too often overlooked by singers and critics. For some of his songs the composer expands the accompaniment to include two or more string instruments in addition to the piano; they include "On Wenlock Edge", and the Chaucer cycle "Merciless Beauty" (1921), judged by an anonymous contemporary critic as "surely among the best of modern English songs".


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Despite his agnosticism Vaughan Williams composed many works for church performance. His two best known hymn tunes, both from c. 1905, are "Down Ampney" to the words "Come Down, O Love Divine", and ""Sine nomine"" "For All the Saints". "Grove" lists a dozen more, composed between 1905 and 1935. Other church works include a "Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis" (1925), the Mass in G minor (1920–1921), a Te Deum (1928) and the motets "O Clap Your Hands" (1920), "Lord, Thou hast been our Refuge" (1921) and "O Taste and See" (1953, first performed at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II).


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Vaughan Williams's choral works for concert performance include settings of both secular and religious words. The former include "Toward the Unknown Region" to words by Whitman (composed 1904–1906), "Five Tudor Portraits", words by John Skelton (1935), and the Shakespearean "Serenade to Music" (in its alternative version for chorus and orchestra, 1938). Choral pieces with religious words include the oratorio "Sancta Civitas" (1923–1925) and the Christmas cantata "Hodie" (1954). In 1953 the composer said that of his choral works "Sancta Civitas" was his favourite. The "Dona Nobis Pacem", an impassioned anti-war cantata (1936) is a combination of both, with words from Whitman and others juxtaposed with extracts from the Latin mass, anticipating a similar mixture of sacred and secular text in Britten's "War Requiem" twenty-five years later.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: Vaughan Williams was wary of conventional labels; his best known ballet is described on the title page as "a masque for dancing" and only one of his operatic works is categorised by the composer simply as an opera. For some of his theatre pieces that could be classed as operas or ballets, he preferred the terms "masque", "romantic extravaganza", "play set to music", or "morality".


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In a 2013 survey of Vaughan Williams's stage works, Eric Saylor writes, "With the possible exception of Tchaikovsky, no composer's operatic career was less emblematic of his success elsewhere." Although Vaughan Williams was a regular opera-goer, enthusiastic and knowledgeable about works by operatic masters from Mozart to Wagner and Verdi, his success in the operatic field was at best patchy. There is widespread agreement among commentators that this was partly due to the composer's poor choice of librettists for some, though not all, of his operas. Another problem was his keenness to encourage amateurs and student groups, which sometimes led to the staging of his operas with less than professional standards. A further factor was the composer's expressed preference for "slow, long "tableaux"", which tended to reduce dramatic impact, although he believed them essential, as "music takes a long time to speak—much longer than words by themselves."


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: "Hugh the Drover, or Love in the Stocks" (completed 1919, premiere 1924) has a libretto, by the writer and theatre critic Harold Child, which was described by "The Stage" as "replete with folksy, Cotswold village archetypes". In the view of the critic Richard Traubner the piece is a cross between traditional ballad opera and the works of Puccini and Ravel, "with rhapsodic results." The score uses genuine and pastiche folk songs but ends with a passionate love duet that Traubner considers has few equals in English opera. Its first performance was by students at the Royal College of Music, and the work is rarely staged by major professional companies.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: "Old King Cole" (1923) is a humorous ballet. The score, which makes liberal use of folk-song melodies, was thought by critics to be strikingly modern when first heard. Kennedy comments that the music "is not a major work but it is fun." The piece has not been seen frequently since its premiere, but was revived in a student production at the RCM in 1937.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: "On Christmas Night" (1926), a masque by Adolph Bolm and Vaughan Williams, combines singing, dancing and mime. The story is loosely based on Dickens's "A Christmas Carol". The piece was first given in Chicago by Bolm's company; the London premiere was in 1935. Saylor describes the work as a "dramatic hodgepodge" which has not attracted the interest of later performers.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: The only work that the composer designated as an opera is the comedy "Sir John in Love" (1924–1928). It is based on Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor". Folk song is used, though more discreetly than in "Hugh the Drover", and the score is described by Saylor as "ravishingly tuneful". Although versions of the play had already been set by Nicolai, Verdi, and Holst, Vaughan Williams's is distinctive for its greater emphasis on the love music rather than on the robust comedy. In 1931, with the Leith Hill Festival in mind, the composer recast some of the music as a five-section cantata, "In Windsor Forest", giving the public "the plums and no cake", as he put it.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: "The Poisoned Kiss" (1927–1929, premiered in 1936) is a light comedy. Vaughan Williams knew the Savoy operas well, and his music for this piece was and is widely regarded as in the Sullivan vein. The words, by an inexperienced librettist, were judged to fall far short of Gilbert's standards. Saylor sums up the critical consensus that the work is something between "a frothy romantic comedy [and] a satirical fairy-tale", and not quite successful in either category.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: "Job: A Masque for Dancing" (1930) was the first large-scale ballet by a modern British composer. Vaughan Williams's liking for long "tableaux", however disadvantageous in his operas, worked to successful effect in this ballet. The work is inspired by William Blake's "Illustrations of the Book of Job" (1826). The score is divided into nine sections and an epilogue, presenting dance interpretations of some of Blake's engravings. The work, choreographed by Ninette de Valois, made a powerful impression at its early stagings, and has been revived by the Royal Ballet several times. Kennedy ranks the score as "one of Vaughan Williams's mightiest achievements", and notes that it is familiar in concert programmes, having "the stature and cohesion of a symphony."


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: In Kennedy's view the one-act "Riders to the Sea" (1925–1931, premiered 1937) is artistically Vaughan Williams's most successful opera; Saylor names "Sir John in Love" for that distinction, but rates "Riders to the Sea" as one of the composer's finest works in any genre. It is an almost verbatim setting of J. M. Synge's 1902 play of the same name, depicting family tragedy in an Irish fishing village. Kennedy describes the score as "organized almost symphonically" with much of the thematic material developed from the brief prelude. The orchestration is subtle, and foreshadows the ghostly finale of the Sixth Symphony; there are also pre-echoes of the "Sinfonia antartica" in the lamenting voices of the women and in the sound of the sea.


title: Ralph Vaughan Williams

text: "The Bridal Day" (1938–1939) is a masque, to a scenario by Ursula, combining voice, mime and dance, first performed in 1953 on BBC television. Vaughan Williams later recast it a cantata, "Epithalamion" (1957).