Who composed the orchestral pieces the Lark Ascending and The Pilgrim's Progress?
The Lark Ascending The Lark Ascending The Lark Ascending is a poem of 122 lines by the English poet George Meredith about the song of the skylark. Siegfried Sassoon called it matchless of its kind, "a sustained lyric which never for a moment falls short of the effect aimed at, soars up and up with the song it imitates, and unites inspired spontaneity with a demonstration of effortless technical ingenuity... one has only to read the poem a few times to become aware of its perfection". The poem inspired the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams to write a musical work of the same
The Lark Ascending of New Yorkers for preferences of music to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, "The Lark Ascending" ranked second. "The Lark Ascending" has been a consistent favourite in Radio New Zealand Concert's annual New Year's Day countdown programme, "Settling the Score." It has ranked number one every year from 2007 to 2012, and placed highly in other years. "The Lark Ascending" influenced at least two other British composers. Firstly, Robin Milford whose "The Darkling Thrush", Op. 17 (based on the poem by Thomas Hardy) has been described as "...the Lark re-ascending" in an article on the centenary