The shocking story behind The Lark Ascending

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It might sound like a song of beauty from the summer sky, but the piece regularly voted the nation’s favourite takes inspiration from a darker place. Stuart Maconie tells the story of how serving on the front line in World War One powerfully affected Ralph Vaughan Williams. Produced by Simon Furber Image: The opening page from Vaughan Williams’s manuscript score of The Lark Ascending, courtesy of The British Library