An English Symphonist : Vaughan Williams
In wartime England, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) Produced his serene Fifth Symphony ( 1943).
Then, in peacetime, still full of surprises in his old age, he composed the much bleaker Sixth Symphony (1947). Three more symphonies followed. In 1951 Vaughan Williams completed his masterpiece: the opera The Pilgrim's Progress, based on the story by the 16th-century writer John Bunyan