The English countryside calls to mind spaciousness and freedom. English composers have loved this aspect of their native land, perhaps none more than Ralph Vaughan Williams. His depiction of a lark ascending, fluttering, dipping, and gliding immediately conjures images of soaring liberty. Thomas Gainsborough’s painting, "Landscape with Country Carts", nearly 150 years earlier, seems to foreshadow what musicians would only later discover: the English countryside is evocative and beautiful.

Artwork: Thomas Gainsborough Landscape with Country Carts, ca. 1784–1785 Oil on canvas, 50 3/8 x 40 3/8 in. (128 x 102.6 cm) Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Roscoe and Margaret Oakes Collection, 75.2.8 Photograph courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Composition: Ralph Vaughan Williams, "The Lark Ascending" (1914) Arrangement by Jonathan Dimmock