Editing Ralph Vaughan Williams (section)

===Inter-war years===
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.<ref>Vaughan Williams (1964), p. 136</ref>{{refn|[[List of music students by teacher: T to Z#V|His students]] included [[Ivor Gurney]], [[Constant Lambert]], [[Elizabeth Maconchy]], [[Grace Williams]] and [[Gordon Jacob]], the last of whom went on to work with his former teacher, transcribing the composer's barely legible manuscripts and arranging existing pieces for new instrumental combinations.<ref>Hurd, Michael. [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/12046 "Gurney, Ivor"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020183443/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000012046;jsessionid=4463A49BA9F8555EC71D516BC44F1959 |date=20 October 2021 }}; Dibble, Jeremy. [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/15883 "Lambert, Constant"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020183441/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000015883;jsessionid=F2BEF4C0A14692F10B47BC4747187F34 |date=20 October 2021 }}; Cole, Hugo and Jennifer Doctor. [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/17374 "Maconchy, Dame Elizabeth"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020183445/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000017374;jsessionid=891FD5F98180DF3D58524E3912D9D712 |date=20 October 2021 }}; Boyd, Malcolm. [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/30347 "Williams, Grace"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020183443/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000030347;jsessionid=2D19C664C68ED2BAADF2A19586BC553E |date=20 October 2021 }}; and Wetherell, Eric. [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/14035 "Jacob, Gordon"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, retrieved 19 October 2015 {{Grove Music subscription}} {{Cite web |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000014035;jsessionid=92D04180527464B642BF1BE92B933543 |title=Archived copy |access-date=20 October 2021 |archive-date=20 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020183501/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000014035;jsessionid=92D04180527464B642BF1BE92B933543 |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref> Later the composer's other regular helper was [[Roy Douglas]], who worked with Vaughan Williams between 1947 and 1958 and wrote a memoir of working with him.<ref>Palmer, Christopher and Stephen Lloyd. [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/08091 "Douglas, Roy"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, retrieved 19 October 2015 {{Grove Music subscription}} {{Cite web |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000008091;jsessionid=A39BAF0B06F6DD368CFE40A24BD46EDA |title=Archived copy |access-date=20 October 2021 |archive-date=20 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020183441/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000008091;jsessionid=A39BAF0B06F6DD368CFE40A24BD46EDA |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref>|group= n}} In 1921 he succeeded Allen as conductor of [[The Bach Choir]], London. It was not until 1922 that he produced a major new composition, ''[[Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)|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.<ref>Vaughan Williams (1964), pp. 140 and 143</ref>

[[File:Vaughan-Williams-Musical-Times-1922.jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=Smartly dressed European man looking towards camera|Vaughan Williams in 1922]]
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 (Vaughan Williams)|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).<ref>Kennedy (1980), pp. 412–416</ref>

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.<ref>Vaughan Williams (1964), pp. 171 and 179</ref>

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.<ref name=chron/> 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.<ref name=dnb/>

During the 1930s Vaughan Williams came to be regarded as a leading figure in British music, particularly after the deaths of Elgar, [[Frederick Delius|Delius]] and Holst in 1934.<ref>Cobbe, p. 175</ref> 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]],<ref>Cobbe, pp. 174–175</ref> but his relationship with Holst was irreplaceable.<ref>Vaughan Williams (1964), p. 200</ref>

In some of Vaughan Williams's music of the 1930s there is an explicitly dark, even violent tone. The ballet ''[[Job: A Masque for Dancing]]'' (1930) and the [[Symphony No. 4 (Vaughan Williams)|Fourth Symphony]] (1935) surprised the public and critics.<ref name=grove/> 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 [[program music|programmatic]]. [[Hubert J. Foss|Hubert Foss]] dubbed it "The Romantic" and [[Frank Howes]] called it "The Fascist".<ref name=s74>Schwartz. p. 74</ref> 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.<ref name=s74/>{{refn|Boult recalled that the symphony "brought many of us straight up against the spectacle of war, and the ghastly possibility of it. A prophet, like other great men, he foresaw the whole thing."<ref>Barbirolli ''et al'', p. 536</ref>|group= n}}

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 (Vaughan Williams)|Dona nobis pacem]]'' in 1936 he did not complete another work of substantial length until late in 1941, when the first version of the [[Symphony No. 5 (Vaughan Williams)|Fifth Symphony]] was completed.<ref name=dnb/>

In 1938 Vaughan Williams met [[Ursula Vaughan Williams|Ursula Wood]] (1911–2007), the wife of an army officer, Captain (later Lieutenant-Colonel) Michael Forrester Wood.<ref>[http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:DST1&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=11C89CD56F084C68&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA "Obituary of Ursula Vaughan Williams"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210818023509/http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid%2Fiw.newsbank.com%3AUKNB%3ADST1&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=11C89CD56F084C68&svc_dat=InfoWeb%3Aaggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA |date=18 August 2021 }}, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 25 October 2007</ref> 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.<ref name=on/> 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 devotion to 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.<ref name=on>Neighbour, pp. 337–338 and 345</ref>