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"
Miles Vaughan Williams Miles Vaughan Williams Miles Vaughan Williams (8 August 1918 – 31 August 2016) was a British cardiac pharmacologist and academic. He is best known for the Vaughan Williams classification of antidysrhythmic drugs. From 1955 to 1985, he was a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, and its Tutor in medicine. He was born in Bangalore to Stella and Arthur Vaughan Williams. His father, an engineer working on the railways of India, was a cousin of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Schooling was at Wellington college, and university at Wadham College, where he studied philosophy and classics (Greats). He became an ambulance