Editing Ralph Vaughan Williams (section)

====Choral music====
[[File:Ralph Vaughan William staute in Dorking, top.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Outdoor statue of middle-aged man with raised arms as if conducting an orchestra|Statue of Vaughan Williams by [[William Fawke]], [[Dorking]]]]  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]]".<ref>Kennedy (1980), p. 85</ref> ''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 (Vaughan Williams)|Mass in G minor]] (1920–1921), a Te Deum (1928)<ref name=grove/> and the motets ''[[O clap your hands (Vaughan Williams)|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).<ref>Kennedy (1980), pp. 412 and 428</ref>

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.<ref>Steinberg, p. 297</ref> The ''[[Dona nobis pacem (Vaughan Williams)|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 [[Benjamin Britten|Britten]]'s ''[[War Requiem]]'' twenty-five years later.<ref>Kennedy (1980), p. 254</ref>