THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

July 5 [1942]

My Dear James¹

You know I am thinking about you now with great love and sympathy.
What a wonderful friend he was – all his great musicianship always at our disposal to help us in our difficulties – they are too many to tell – But may I just tell you one story – I was trying to conduct my “Pastoral Symphony” – got stuck over a difficult bar – & Billy (who had played in Dorking² for 4 years) said “last time you did it like this” – His great musicianship, his wonderful memory & his kind heartedness all in that short sentence.
All my love

Uncle Ralph

No answer of course.

1. William Henry Reed, the violinist, had died on 2 July. Reed’s wife, Eveline Dreyfus, was ‘known to her friends as “James”’ (see Wulstan Atkins, The Elgar-Atkins Friendship, 1984, p.206)
2. At Leith Hill Musical Festival, where W.H. Reed had been guest leader of the Festival orchestra in their 1934 performance of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius.