Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Isidore Schwiller

Letter No. VWL4775

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Isidore Schwiller

Letter No.: VWL4775

The White Gates, Dorking

Sunday [October 1949]

Dear Isidore
I did not know you were running a quartet of your own and I expect you would like to bring it and I shall be quite happy over that. However, of the names you suggest they are all good, but Jean Stewart is probably too occupied with domesticity to want to come – at all events if she does come she must not bring her husband¹ and baby. We have only just room for the essential peeople and singers and simply cannot find space for husbands and babies. Other names from from² the LHMC list are Veronica Gotch, viola and Eileen M^cCarthy cello. There is also M^rs Marsden cello but she is an amateur though just as good as any professional, but she has not been well lately. Anyhow you might not think it a good plan to mix the brew.
Now – one more point! Our pfte is slightly flat. Could you bear to tune down to it, or must I get in another pfte?
With fond regards to M^rs Schwiller
yrs
R Vaughan Williams

1. George Dickinson Hadley.
2. sic.

To:

Schwiller, Isidore, 1878-1956
From:

Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 1872-1958
Scribe:

Vaughan Williams, Adeline, 1870-1951
Names:

Gotch, Veronica Horsley, 1894-1982 Marsden, Nancy McCarthy, Eileen Stewart, Jean (afterw. Hadley), 1914-2002 Hadley, George Dickinson, 1908-1984
Subject:

Performance history Performance practice
Places:

England--Dorking
Musical Works:

Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 1872-1958. Oxford elegy Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 1872-1958. Fantasia quasi variazione on the Old 104th psalm tune
Format:

Letter
General Notes:

Date inferred from recent marriage of Jean Stewart to George Hadley in 1947 and reference to her baby.
This event may be the first private performances of both An Oxford Elegy and Fantasia on the Old 104th at White Gates on 20 November 1949, documented in the Catalogue of Works and the Royal College of Music Magazine vol.46 no.1 (1950). The Schwiller String Quartet took part. See also VWL3685.
Location Of Original:

British Library
Shelfmark:

MS Mus. 1714/1/29, ff.55-56

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