Continuing Radio 3's Vaughan Williams Today season, marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, Kate Kennedy chooses her favourite recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending. In Vaughan Williams' modal and folk music-inflected The Lark Ascending a solo violin takes flight above the orchestra evoking for many the very essence of an idealised English countryside. But this popular work, written on the eve of the First World War, has perhaps inevitably become freighted with nostalgia for both a lost generation and a rural way of life which was soon to vanish forever.

Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending

Building a Library: a guide to the best recordings of the greatest classical music. Each week an expert and enthusiast brings along a  wide range of recordings of a well-known piece. They explore the music and the different ways of performing it, ending with a recommendation for your library

Music

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Debussy's Jeux

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Stravinsky's The Firebird

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Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

Iain Burnside chooses his favourite recording of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder.

Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending

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