Symphony No. 8 (Vaughan Williams) Symphony No. 8 (Vaughan Williams) Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 8 in D minor was composed between 1953 and 1955. It was the first of his symphonies which Vaughan Williams numbered. Sir John Barbirolli conducted the premiere of the piece on 2 May 1956, with the Hallé Orchestra. The Eighth Symphony is the shortest of Vaughan Williams' nine symphonies, with a typical performance taking just under a half hour, yet it is remarkably inventive, especially in the composer's experiments in sonority. Not only does he use a much-expanded percussion section, including "all the 'phones and 'spiels known to the composer"
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra as the soloist. The first season continued with a remarkable series of programmes, including Ralph Vaughan Williams conducting his own "London Symphony", Hamilton Harty conducting Berlioz’s "Symphonie fantastique", Adrian Boult conducting Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony, Landon Ronald conducting Brahms’ Second Symphony and Jean Sibelius conducting his own Third Symphony. Two features that would become longstanding traditions for the orchestra were also established during this first year: performances of then-recent works by Holst, Vaughan Williams and Bax saw a strong representation of new music in the orchestra's programmes; and from February 1921 the orchestra's commitment to musical education was underlined with a