This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Manchester features prominently in celebrations of his music over the coming months. The Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic share a complete cycle of his symphonies, and the latter orchestra, under Mark Wigglesworth, kicked off proceedings this weekend with a programme examining two essential Vaughan Williams themes – war and the pastoral. Those subjects meet head on in the Third Symphony (published as The Pastoral in 1922, not numbered until later); a work that emits an unease borne of wartime trauma.
