Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Sidney Waddington
My Dear Waddington,
I venture to dedicate this opera1 to you firstly as a token of my admiration for you as a man and a musician, and secondly to show my gratitude to you for all your help and encouragement in this and all my work.
I sometimes feel that you ought with all your skill and knowledge to despise my comparatively amateurish efforts.
It really seems ridiculous that I should spend my time writing operas whilst you spend yours teaching elementary harmony to unwilling flappers. However, everyone knows that whilst you could, if you would write a first rate opera, I on the other hand should be entirely incompetant2 to teach elementary harmony so I suppose things must remain as they are.
R. Vaughan Williams
1. Sir John in Love
2. sic.
Subjects:
Musical works:
Location of original letter:
Copy of a letter, written in an unidentified hand. Date assumed as Sir John in Love was composed in 1928 and first performed in 1929.