Ralph Vaughan Williams and fenland music

In The Fen Country from 1904 is Ralph Vaughan Williams’ earliest acknowledged composition. As a student he would travel out into the fens, even ice skating to Ely Cathedral, and collecting local folk songs which would inspire his later work.

Poet and nature writer Jade Cuttle, who like the composer fell in love with this flat landscape whilst studying at Cambridge University, retraces his footsteps in this artistically-fertile but overlooked part of the country.

Joining this journey into Vaughan Williams' fenland soundscape are Robert Macfarlane, whose books include Underland and Is a River Alive; researcher and gardener Alyson Tapp and Caroline Davison, author of a study of Vaughan Williams and folk music called The Captain's Apprentice.

Producer Ciaran Bermingham

Jade Cuttle is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on the radio.