Vaughan Williams's Prelude and Fugue in C minor (1921) is characterized by a sense of drama and punctuated by bristling dissonances. The Prelude's ritornello-like alternation of chordal grandeur and rapid imitative sections recalls Bach's great organ Prelude and Fugue in the same key, while the rhythmically complicated Fugue, whose subject looks ahead to the composer's Sixth Symphony, displays great ingenuity in its counterpoint, fully justifying the assertiveness of its final peroration in C major.

This four-act comic opera celebrating Shakespeares Sir John Falstaff was given its first professional performance in 1946. The libretto, written by the composer, is based on The Merry Wives of Windsor, and interpolates texts by contemporaries of Shakespeare such as Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Campion. The work contains English folksong material and fine examples of the composer's orchestral lyricism and dramatic flair. Music from the opera was later adapted to form the cantata In Windsor Forest and the Fantasia on Greensleeves. For this comprehensive new edition, the editor...