Ascension

I'm hopeless at choosing favourites, as in favourite colour, favourite writer, etc. Except when it comes to composers of orchestral music. Then I have an easy, certain answer: Ralph Vaughn Williams. I only 'discovered' his music when I was in my twenties, but the sense of getting in touch with something that had and would continue to have a huge significance in my life was instant. It was as if I'd always known this music was there and it was simply a matter of finding it. It also felt as if I'd discovered England somehow, at least the England that is actually worth something - the England of Blake, the England of the Authorised Version, the England of Dickens.

Today I treated myself to what is probably my favourite CD of Vaughn Williams's music. (On this favourite I do need to hedge slightly, there are a few contenders.) The version of The Lark Ascending by the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, conducted by Neville Marriner, with Iona Brown as soloist, it contains is probably the closest I can think of to 16 minutes of earthly paradise. When I first heard it, in the early eighties, I spent several weeks with it almost continuously running through my head. Listening to it again, I can understand why. If music is capable of knowledge or wisdom then this music has it. As well as beauty. Perhaps they are the same thing?