THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Dorking

Oct 15 [1943]

Dear Malcolm
Thankyou very much for your letter and for what I am sure was a fine performance of my symph.¹
I should very much like to meet you soon and go through the score and get your suggestions. Perhaps your secretary would give me some of your free times (if any!) & I w^d choose one of them when I was otherwise coming to London to make an appointment.
As regards the 4 horns – it would of course be a confession of weakness & would mean that I do not understand orchestration (which is probably true) – I do not want them on the first 2 movements – so “pride ruled my will” & I determined to do without them altogether. The only place I felt the want of them were end of the slow movement and the climax just before the 3 Trombone chord in the Passacaglia – & I hoped I had successfully faked those – I do not like the idea of ‘ad lib’ horns – either we want 2 horns or 4.
Yrs
RVW

1. Symphony no. 5. Sargent left for Sweden shortly before 11 September, where he was to conduct five concerts in Stockholm and Gothenburg. He took the score of VW’s 5th Symphony with him – as a result of which a second Prom performance (one had already taken place) had to be postponed, because it was the only score. (Liverpool Daily Post, 11 September.) Sargent was due to conduct the symphony in Liverpool on 9 October, but his return from Sweden was delayed – not so the score, since Basil Cameron stood in for him and the concert went ahead.