The Mayor of Casterbridge

Published for the first time, The Mayor of Casterbridge is the incidental music created for the 1950 BBC radio dramatization of Thomas Hardy’s novel by the same name. Editor Nathaniel Lew prepared this publication from Ralph Vaughan Williams’ original manuscripts to a format that is clear for both scholars and performers. In the preface, Lews provides a functional history of the work by examining in detail the orchestral phrasing throughout the three sections in relation to the narrative journey of the script.