Ralph Vaughan Williams

Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, also known as the Tallis Fantasia, is a piece of orchestral music by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It was composed in 1910 for the Three Choirs Festival, and was one of the first major successes for Vaughan Williams. He revised the work twice, in 1913 and 1919. The work is scored for an expanded string orchestra divided into three parts: orchestra I, a full-sized string orchestra; orchestra II, a single desk from each section (ideally placed apart from Orchestra I); and a string quartet. Vaughan Williams makes this configuration resemble an organ in sound, with the quartet representing the swell division, orchestra II the choir division, and orchestra I the great division; it is difficult to listen to this piece without imagining the acoustics inside a church.