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NTS Guide to: The English Pastoral School
NTS Guide to: The English Pastoral School
21 Nov 2025 · London

NTS Guide to: The English Pastoral School

Two hours of music from The English Pastoral School, an informal musical movement from the early to mid-20th Century, that included composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Frederick Delius. Seeking to emerge from the shadows of the dominant German, French and Italian styles of concert and classical music, the Pastoral School sought to create works that were distinctly "English", evoking the green idylls of England's countryside, and borrowing aesthetic choices from early Tudor music and traditional folk songs.

In many ways the Pastoral School's compositions are companion pieces to the earlier painters of English pastoral scenes such as Constable, Turner, and Gainsborough.

Collection: A.M.

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Tracklist

  • Frederick Delius, The London Symphony Orchestra, Anthony Collins
    On Hearing The First Cuckoo In Spring
  • Vaughan Williams, David Nolan, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vernon Handley
    The Lark Ascending
  • Iona Brown, Trevor Connah, Stephen Shingles & Kenneth Heath
    Fantasia On A Theme By Thomas Tallis (Vaughan Williams)
  • Frederick Delius, Anthony Collins, London Symphony
    Summer Night On The River
  • Alan Rawsthorne, Lennox Berkeley, Peter Racine Fricker, The Little Orchestra Of London, Leslie Jones
    Serenade For Strings
  • Butterworth, Britten, The Academy Of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner
    Two English Idylls
  • John Ireland, Sinfonia Of London, John Wilson
    The Forgotten Rite - Prelude For Orchestra
  • Patrick Hadley, Gerald Finzi, Vernon Handley, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Thomas Allen, Ian Partridge, Guildford Philharmonic Choir, Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra
    The Trees So High (Symphonic Ballad In A Minor)
  • Herbert Howells
    Hymnus Paradisi (1935/1938)
  • Finzi, Philip Langridge, Philip Fowke, Richard Hickox, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic Choir
    Intimations Of Morality (Ode For Tenor Solo, Mixed Chorus And Orchestra Op. 29)
  • Royal Scottish National Orchestra & Gustav Holst
    A Somerset Rhapsody, Op. 21/2
  • Butterworth, Britten, The Academy Of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner
    The Banks Of Green Willow