THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Michael and Eslyn Kennedy

Letter No. VWL2885

Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Michael and Eslyn Kennedy

Letter No.: VWL2885


Cornell Heights Country Club
Ithaca NY. USA

[12 November, 1954]

My dear Eslyn & Michael,

Thank you so much for your letter – I will bring the record with pleasure.1
We are having a splendid time – Ralph’s lecture tour took us all across Toronto with Boyd Neel & Niagara thrown in, so to speak – Ann Arbour2 (Huron river county) Chicago, Bloomington, & Los Angeles.  We looked out of the train window for two* nights & two days, & ended up under palm trees & hibiscus – a climate entirely my cup of tea. Then a weeks holiday by the sea at Santa Barbara – 2 days by the Grand Canyon, & back here.  All the lectures were a terrific success – & Ralph was much enjoyed and appreciated.  We even found a student performance of  Riders to the Sea3 going on in Santa Barbara!  He has conducted the Buffalo orchestra here, & it, with Krips4 are doing Sancta Civitas5 next week in Buffalo.  Then there is a concert here with the student orchestra, & that’s all, besides our present job of preparing lectures for the press.6 New York on the 26th, and a lecture at Yale on the 1st.  Sail on 4th. Ralph is terrifically well, & bouncy – & thrives on milk shakes & butterscotch sundaes.
We look forward to going home now – & to seeing our friends – & the dear cats.

Fond love from us both.

Ursula.

*Actually we had very comfortable bunks, but we did get up to see dawn in the deserts.


1.  Michael Kennedy had asked the VWs to obtain for him a recording at the time of the two-piano version of the Piano Concerto, Catalogue of Works 1931/3.  In the event they failed to get it – see VWL3084.  Although it was thought to be a recording by Rae Robertson and Ethel Bartlett, such a recording cannot be traced, so either it was a private recording or perhaps it was actually the recording by Vladimir Golschmann with duo-pianists Whittemore and Lowe, who recorded it for RCA Victor in 1950.
2.  sic.
3.  Catalogue of Works 1936/6.
4.  i.e. Josef Krips, conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic.
5.  Catalogue of Works 1925/6.
6.  i.e. for publication as a series of essays called The Making of Music.