Composed between 1897 and 1899 and lasting around 25 minutes, The Garden of Proserpine is a major early score by Vaughan Williams which remained unperformed during the composer’s lifetime and for over fifty years thereafter. The music is a rich and revealing setting for soprano solo, chorus and orchestra of a celebrated Pre-Raphaelite poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Vaughan Williams’s attraction to the Pre-Raphaelite poets and artists – D. G. Rossetti, Christina Rossetti and A. C. Swinburn...