Ralph Vaughan Williams was 70 when his Fifth Symphony was first performed in June 1943, four years into a war that had as profound an effect on his music as on every other aspect of British culture. It is a predominantly thoughtful and serene work, written in the key of D major, its rare moments of drama complemented by the intensity of its tone of contemplation and reflection.
Since Edwardian times Vaughan Williams had been trying to complete an opera of The Pilgrim’s Progress (he would eventually succeed in the Fifties, to mixed reviews, although the work is now regarded as a masterpiece), and some of the music found its way into the Fifth Symphony. The result was considered to be an evocation...
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