THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Ealing Studios Limited
Ealing Green
London W 5

Sunday [21 March 1948]

Dear V.W.
I listened attentively to both the broadcasts¹, and enjoyed them very much.
The Partita is very hard on the back desks!  Your genuflection to Henry Hall only moves through 10 degrees of arc.
The Sancta Civitas is a great work, but though I can see Foss’s idea in comparing it with El Greco I found it more in the style of Blake.
There was a sunset just like it tonight – perhaps you saw it – lemon-yellow to ivory with a straight eastward beam.
I expect you heard the work, but if not, you will be pleased to know that the dynamic effects all came off on the air – the antiphonal and unified singing of the various groups gave a marvellous feeling of multitudes and distance.
I had a curious thought that such arithmetical factors were out of place in eternity, but then realized that it was a vision and not a picture, the vision of a man, even if he was a saint.  [And that is why I think Foss may be wrong about El Greco.]
Don’t bother to answer this – I just thought an intelligent listener’s re-action might interest you.
Yours ever
Ernest Irving
[P.S. The strings, except basses, disappeared soon after the opening of S.C.]

1.  The first broadcast of the Partita was Saturday 20 March 1948.