THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Alan Frank (OUP)

Letter No. VWL2692

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Alan Frank (OUP)

Letter No.: VWL2692


The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

June 13th 1953.

Dear Frank,

This is an answer to your letter of June 9th about my “writings.” One or two queries:–
Have you decided to keep the article out of Music and Letters on Holst? I thought Mr. Cumberlege was against it unless I could bring it up to date and that I said I could not do. I sent him, instead, a much shorter article written as a memorial to Holst in the R.C.M. Magazine. I do not quite understand from your letter what you have decided about these.
I regret the omission of “Shrubsole” though I know I sanctioned it, unwillingly. It contains a great deal of what I want most emphatically to say.1 
I am rather worried about one of the music examples in the Beethoven article. It looks to me rather funny, and I cannot find my full score of the symphony. Could you have it checked and if necessary, corrected. I return the copy of this. As soon as the proofs arrive I will check them as soon as possible.
In answer to your letter this morning, thank you so much for what you did about the W.M.2  I was glad to see in the Times that Phyllis’s new work was a great success.3
Yrs

RVW


1. Frank responded on 19th June agreeing that ‘Shrubsole’ should after all be included. See further in VWL2696.
2. Possibly the wind machine, used in the Sinfonia Antartica which was first performed in January 1953. See also VWL2668.
3. Alan Frank’s wife was the composer Phyllis Tate.