THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Hythe
As from: The White Gates,
Dorking

July 3rd [1951]

Dictated

I had a letter from Bernard Rose & it requires thinking about.  Anyway I shall have to change the title¹ so that people shall not think that I am trying to run counter to the Oxford Requiem man.² This is as you see from Hythe where Ursula has conducted me for my holiday. A real lower middle class existance³ with ice creams on the beach in the morning, & a trip in a motor boat.⁴
(Also went up the tower of Rye Church ladders!! U.)
Yrs

R Vaughan Williams

1. This refers to the An Oxford Elegy, Catalogue of Works 1949/2, written in 1949. The first public performance took place the following year at Queen’s College, Oxford, on 19th June conducted by Bernard Rose. Rose had pointed out that the title of VW’s work was very similar to that of a work by Bruce Montgomery, An Oxford Requiem, which had been given its first performance by the Oxford Bach Choir on 22 May. Despite that the title of the work was not changed.
2. Novello had published an Oxford Requiem by Bruce Montgomery in 1950.
3. sic.
4. UVW said very firmly that she had wished to go to France – Hythe was entirely RVW’s idea.