THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

From R. Vaughan Williams,
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

March 20 [1940]

Dear Sir
In reply to your letter of March 19 – I am quite agreeable to the division proposed in your letter.
However, in case it affects the [matter?], I would point out that the tune “Go and enlist for a sailor” I believe the tune to be the copyright of Cecil Sharp’s executor & Messrs Novello it comes from Sharp’s “Morris Book”.¹
With regard to the “March Suite” the principal tune is “Blue Eyed Stranger” but two other tunes are also used which are my own copyright²
All the M.B. arrangements are by Gerrard Williams
Yrs faithfully
R Vaughan Williams

1. The Morris Book: a History of Morris Dancing, With a Description of Eleven Dances as Performed by the Morris-Men of England by Cecil J. Sharp and Herbert C MacIlwaine, London: Novello (1907). Reprinted 2010.
2. This suite is referred to in a talk on folk music given by VW for the BBC which was broadcast on 27 March 1940. This letter may be in connection with the same occasion. See also VWL1412 for the text of the talk, and VWL1420; the suite has not been identified and may be lost.