Why do you love the music that you do? So often we are told ‘the essentials’ about a piece of classical music but, as listeners, we don’t often get the chance to articulate and communicate back what the music personally means to us. With RPS Members, we want to foster more of a conversation, giving you the opportunity to share with us and others why music matters to you.

We thought we’d start with one of the most popular pieces of all: Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending.

We invite several friends from different corners of the music profession - violinists Tasmin Little and Elena Urioste, composer Sally Beamish, conductor Ben Gernon, pianist Tom Poster and cultural historian Gavin Plumley - to share their own impressions of The Lark: none of it authoritative, just personal feelings from the heart. Together, they also read the little-known poem by George Meredith from which the music takes its name and so much of its spirit. And we present the work in its revelatory original version – for violin and piano – performed especially for the RPS by Elena Urioste and Tom Poster.

Alongside this film, we are also pleased to share again a poem inspired by The Lark Ascending by Maura Dooley, commissioned by the RPS as part of a previous RPS project - Hear Here! You can read it here.

We invite RPS Members to listen to The Lark anew and share with us what makes it special to them. We feel that the professionals’ view is only part of the story, and the views of listeners like you complete the picture.

Please Join Us

If you'd like to watch our complete 40-minute film about The Lark, we warmly invite you to become an RPS Member. For music lovers, RPS Membership is a doorway to musical discovery. You can attend, and exclusively watch online, our new series of talks and events with great classical artists and unsung musical heroes – revealing a more human and candid picture of music-making today; there’s also a new RPS Magazine to enjoy in a dedicated new Members Area of the RPS website, where in the coming months we’ll be sharing more content, like The Lark film, intended to inspire. Members also get the chance to feel that their voices and own classical interests are heard, and can nominate for the prestigious annual RPS Awards. Every subscription directly helps us fulfil our charitable aims, to champion and protect classical music, and to support musicians at vital stages in their careers.

If you have any questions about Membership, we'd love to hear from you: please contact Madeline Smith, our Relationships Manager, on members@philharmonicsociety.uk.