THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Dorking, Surrey.

12th July, 1950.

Dear Roy Douglas

I enclose herewith what I hope is the correct fee for your expert advice about the orchestration of ‘Hugh”.¹
I have finished it now according to your suggestions and sent it back to the Publishers.
As regards my Opera,² I have a feeling that you do not want to do it, and it occurred to me the reason was that you wanted time for your own composition. If you have any inspiration floating about it would certainly be blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to interfere with it, and I should not like to be a party to that; so think it over very carefully before you decide.
Yrs

R Vaughan Williams

(R. Vaughan Williams).

Roy Douglas, Esq.,
3, Eden Road,
Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

Encl.

1. VW had sought Douglas’s advice when revising the orchestration of some passages of his opera Hugh the Drover. See Douglas, Working with Vaughan Williams, p.20.
2. In fact Douglas decided to undertake work on the score of The Pilgrim’s Progress.