THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

[24th June 1952]

Sir,

A wise man once said that he would prefer to be Socrates discontented than to be a hog contented. The Town Council of Bournemouth evidently would like us to be contented. But contented with what? One of your councillors is reported to have said that of course we must spend money on necessities like the Health Service rather than on music. But is not music a necessity for our spiritual health?
Have any of your councillors ever been into a school and perceived the exaltation created in the children’s natures when they sang good music? When they grow up, this spiritual exaltation will die away and fade into the light of common day unless we see to it that this splendid vision of the ultimate realities is preserved for them.
It is this vision that I understand one of your councillors had the impertinence to describe as an expensive toy.
Up to the present, largely owing to its Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth has been a civilised town. Is your Council prepared to let their names go down to posterity stigmatised with the disgrace of allowing the town, for whose welfare, spiritual as well as material, they are responsible, to lapse into barbarism?
Ralph Vaughan Williams.