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Classic FM Breakfast with Dan Walker 6:30am - 9am
7 May 2015, 11:06 | Updated: 20 January 2020, 14:59
Vaughan Williams’s masterpiece has topped our annual Classic FM Hall of Fame six times in total – so it’s clearly a favourite of yours. But it’s also much-cherished by today’s greatest violinists, and we’ve asked one of them to tell us why.
Tasmin Little has been performing Ralph Vaughan Williams's great pastoral work throughout her career.
“It's unlike playing the opening of any other piece,” says Tasmin, “in The Lark Ascending you feel like you're floating above a cushion of sound.”
Posted by Lizzie Davis on Wednesday, 6 May 2015
“ It was in Salisbury Cathedral in a candlelit concert – can you imagine anything more beautiful?” No, no we can't Tasmin. Excuse us while we daydream…
Posted by Lizzie Davis on Wednesday, 6 May 2015
“One of the most beautiful bits of writing that Vaughan Williams gives the violin is what I called ‘the swooping theme, ’” says Tasmin – and it goes like this:
Posted by Kyle Macdonald on Wednesday, 6 May 2015
We asked Tasmin to try and put it into words for us…
Posted by Kyle Macdonald on Thursday, 7 May 2015
Posted by Lizzie Davis on Wednesday, 6 May 2015
Posted by Lizzie Davis on Wednesday, 6 May 2015
Hear Tasmin perform 'The Lark Ascending' with the Orquesta Filarmónica de México UNAM this July in Cambridge (5 July), Guildford (7 July), Basingstoke (8 July) and London (9 July).