Today’s choice is a work for string orchestra (including harp) first performed in June 1939.
It’s a set of variations on a folk tune called ‘Dives and Lazarus’ that seems to originate from Worcestershire (or possibly Herefordshire or Shropshire), collected by folk-song fanatic, Ralph Vaughan Williams. You might know the tune as the hymn tune for ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say’, called Kingsfold.
The movements include the Introduction and Theme, followed by five Variations. The tune had been used by Vaughan Williams in his 1923 English Folk Song Suite.
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