Ralph Vaughan Williams died at his home in Hanover Terrace, London, on 26 August 1958. He was 85 and remained an active composer almost to the end of his life.

Only four months earlier, on 2 April, his Ninth Symphony had received its first performance. Malcolm Sargent conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The work did not simply repeat his earlier successes. Its orchestration included three saxophones and a flugelhorn, continuing his interest in different combinations of sound.

The Ninth had developed partly from ideas connected with Thomas Hardy and Tess of the d’Urbervilles. However, Vaughan Williams removed its explicit programme as the work developed. It became his last symphony, but he did not write it as a planned farewell.

He continued working after its first performance. Among the music occupying his final period were settings of poems by his wife Ursula that became Four Last Songs, the Christmas work The First Nowell and an opera, Thomas the Rhymer, which remained unfinished.

Another connection linked the Ninth Symphony to the date of his death. Sir Adrian Boult was due to begin recording it on 26 August. Vaughan Williams died in the early hours that morning, before the session could take place.

His death ended a career that had produced nine symphonies as well as operas, concertos, chamber and choral music, songs, ballet and film scores. His work had also included collecting and arranging English folk songs.

Vaughan Williams was cremated, and his ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey on 19 September 1958, close to the burial place of Henry Purcell.