London can boast of an association – fleeting or otherwise – with many composers from Mozart to Richard Tauber, who made London his home after fleeing Nazi persecution in his native Vienna.
In 1838, another Austrian, Richard Strauss I, head of the famous waltz family and composer of the "Radetzky March", came to London for the first time.
He stayed at what is now Manzi's Resturant in Leicester Street. At that time it was the "Hotel du Commerce" and a blue plaque on the wall of Manzi's commemorates the visit.
One notable immigrant who did much to add to the diversity of English music was George Fredrick Handel. He was an eighteenth century Hanoverian. At a time when even tiny nation states, such as Hanover had their own court composer, he was court composer to The Elector of Hanover.
He did not care much for the parochial nature of his work and headed for the relatively bright lights of London – even then, the place to be - and joined the Court of Queen Anne, at St James's Palace.
However, fate caught up with him and, by a quirk of lineage, his former boss was next in line to inherit the crown of England on the death of Queen Anne. So, when his former patron appeared and became George I of England, Handel was required to pull out all the stops.
He managed to get back in his employer's favour by composing the Water Music Suite. In those days, the roads - even in London - were terrible, so it was the custom to travel, as often as possible on the River Thames: a ready made - and very smooth - major thoroughfare running the length of the capital. On these riparian jaunts it was the custom for a small orchestra to follow in another boat and entertain the King with music. George I was so delighted with Handel's peace offering, he had the whole suite repeated on the return journey.
Thus restored to favour, Handel again shone later that year with his Music For The Royal Fireworks, first played in Green Park to celebrate the signing of a Peace Treaty in Aux-la-Chapelle in 1749.
During his time in London, Handel lived at 25 Brook Street, in London's West End. By coincidence, two centuries later, in the 1960s, another composer - also with the initial "H" - lived next door at No 23 Brook Street. His name was Jimi Hendrix. A composer of a different style of music, who died tragically young, due to an overdose of drugs.
Just as Handel's Water Music Suite will always be associated with London - particularly the River Thames - the second symphony by Ralph Vaughan-Williams, was actually subtitled by the composer as "Symphony by a Londoner".
Although born in Gloucestershire, Vaughan-Williams lived most of his life in the London area. Just before the First World War he lived in Cheyne Walk in Chelsea with his first wife, Adeline.
From his study window he had a good view of the Thames and its activities and he must have been able to hear Big Ben chiming the hour.
In all his works, Vaughan-Williams managed to give colour and magic to his music by working in folk songs and other themes and The London Symphony is no exception. An orchestral representation of the chimes of Big Ben feature in the opening bars of the work.
The second movement represents Bloomsbury Square on a November afternoon. It is a very evocative piece and you can almost feel the November London fog muffling the sounds of the traffic. If you listen carefully to the second movement, you can also hear the cries of the Edwardian London lavender girls selling their bunches of sweet smelling lavender "Won't you buy my sweet lavender".
The third movement is a Scherzo – representing music and merriment from the Strand drifting down to a listener on the banks of a Thames on a Saturday night, when all was merriment and laughter.
The London Symphony was written in 1912 and was premiered in 1914. But 1914 was the year the First World War broke out, so all thought of music were driven from his mind.
Vaughan-Williams immediately volunteered but, aged 42, he was not called to active service, but worked as an ambulance orderly with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Arras in France.
His fellow composer and pupil, George Butterworth, was born in London, although spending his childhood in northern England. It was he who encouraged Vaughan-Williams to write the London Symphony and he too joined the army as soon as war was declared.
He and Vaughan-Williams used to go on trips around England, collecting the folk songs that featured in both their works. Unfortunately, he was not as lucky as his mentor and never returned from the war, being killed in 1916 at the age of 31, having just won the Military Cross, three weeks earlier.
Fortunately for posterity one of his last works, "The Banks of Green Willow" is one of his most beautiful: a rich tapestry of the English folk songs he and Vaughan Williams collected so carefully.
Vaughan-Williams survived the war and stayed in London and close by, in Dorking, Surrey, where he spent the Second World War collecting aluminium saucepans to melt down to make planes.
Vaughan-Williams, like many great artists, was never completely happy with his composition and revised it – and all his six symphonies in later years. He grew to regard his London Symphony as his favourite, remarking to a friend that he finally realised it was not as boring as he first thought.
From 1953, until his death five years later, he lived in north London at 10, Hanover Terrace, near Regent's Park, London NW1. A London Blue Plaque, commemorating this fact, is displayed on the side of the house.
© copyright 2006 Jon Michael and London Vacation Secrets