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"
Ralph Vaughan Williams Times" summed up his legacy in a leading article: The Royal College of Music commissioned an official portrait of the composer from Sir Gerald Kelly (1952) which hangs in the college. The Manchester Art Gallery has a bronze sculpture of Vaughan Williams by Epstein (1952) and the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) has drawings by Joyce Finzi (1947) and Juliet Pannett (1957 and 1958); versions of a bronze head of the composer by David McFall (1956) are in the NPG and at the entrance to the Music reading room of the British Library. There is a statue of Vaughan Williams in