Ralph Vaughan Williams. Photo: British Library

FOR anybody who loves English music, next Wednesday, Oct 12, is an auspicious day, because it marks 150 years since the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams: one of the greatest and best-loved composers Britain has ever produced.

He had connections with the various parts of London that this paper covers, having lived for a while in Westminster and then Regent’s Park. His (much younger) second wife and widow Ursula was resident in Gloucester Crescent, Camden Town, where she used to cross the road to feed the legendary lady in the van in Alan Bennett’s front garden. And his magical A London Symphony has sections inspired by Hampstead Heath and Bloomsbury Square.

Most of the big Vaughan Williams celebrations have already happened. But to commemorate him next week there’s a choral concert with his sublime G Minor Mass at Kings Place on Oct 12 (kingsplace.co.uk). And the following day, St Martin-in-the-Fields does his Serenade to Music and other choral works (stmartin-in-the-fields.org), while St John’s Smith Square presents his 8th Symphony (sjss.org.uk).

Like so many RVW scores, these works are seriously English and come saturated with a transcendental love of country. But a Little Englander he wasn’t. He believed in the ideal of a United States of Europe; and though Brexiteers may try to claim his music as their own, he’d have despised them. Something to reflect on there as we remember him.

• Another remembrance this week is the annual Malcolm Arnold Festival, which normally happens in Northampton but has decamped for 2022 to London. There’s a concert on Oct 8 of Arnold’s trumpet concerto and other works at St Barnabas Church, Ealing; and Oct 9 sees a whole day of concerts, talks and films at the Royal College of Music, South Ken. Details: malcolmarnoldfestival.com

• The London Piano Festival is a long weekend of keyboard clout at Kings Place; and there’s a predictable highlight on Oct 7 when Dame Imogen Cooper joins forces with Charles Owen and Katia Apekisheva to recreate the kind of convivial musical party for which Schubert and his friends were famous in early 19th-century Vienna. Next day, Oct 8, brings a landmark performance of all the Shostakovich Preludes for piano. And Oct 9 has a lecture-recital about Liszt. Details: kingsplace.co.uk

• Operatically, English National Opera’s new Tosca is a slightly disappointing mix of conventionality with a few tweaks like mixed-era costumes that don’t add much to the piece, but it’s acceptably sung: runs to Nov 4. www.eno.org

Covent Garden’s new Aida has turned out to be a striking show that abandons any hint of an escapist pyramids-and-palm-trees staging in favour of hammering home the not so pretty fact that this is an opera about war and militarism. What you see is oppressive but effective; what you hear is a generally good cast except for an inadequate Radames. Runs to Oct 12. roh.org.uk

Also at the Garden, in the smaller Linbury Theatre, is a new piece called Last Days, based on the life and death of Kurt Cobain. It’s a short run, Oct 8-11, and tickets are scarce. But worth trying. roh.org.uk