THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

[8th September 1942]

Dear Peterkin

Excuse wartime paper.
I fear poor old Rowe¹ has made a pretty good mess of this.
On page 8 he has copied the wrong accompaniment for 9 bars – I really think it would have saved my time and your expense if the engraver had used my M.S. bad as it is.
Yrs

R. Vaughan Williams

P.S.  I have just received the SATB & TTBB copies – Rowe has absolutely disregarded my arrangement of the words – the only thing for me to do would be to copy it all again – so the engraver must use my copy which is, I think, reasonably clear – I much regret all this loss of time and energy.²

1.  P.R. Rowe, a music copyist living in Kingston-on-Thames whom VW often recommended to other composers.
2.  Presumably of the song arrangement from the Prelude of The 49th Parallel, called ‘The new Commonwealth’ – see VWL1681.