THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

Oct 31 [1940]

Dear Mr. Wright

Many thanks for your letter.
I am so sorry to hear you have been ill.  I hope Foss told you of a provisional C^tee meeting¹ for Tuesday Nov 19 at 12. That is to say it will be called if sufficient new names have come in, and this is not I think likely as the Home Office now tell me that they are not going to send me names.  So please pencil the date. You will be told either way.  Meanwhile can you find out anything about Manuel Joubert  singer and linguist –  There is also the case of Kurt Jooss –  There is no doubt of course about his distinction – but he seems to fall between several stools – as he is neither actor, artist or musician – but I shall put his name before the C^tee –²
Yrs sincerely

R. Vaughan Williams

P.S.

I hear that the following have been released – Katay, Sondheimer, Deutsch, Redlich, Wellesz, Kalmus but I cannot make out that our recommendations had anything to do with it.

1. This refers to an advisory committee that VW chaired during World War II, which was set up to advise the government on the release, in particular cases,  of alien musicians and artists interned in Britain.
2. On the background to this Committee set up to give advice on the release of interned musicians see Hugh Cobbe, ‘Vaughan Williams, Germany and the German tradition’, in Alain Frogley (ed.), Vaughan Williams Studies (Cambridge,1996), pp 93-94.
3. Julius Katay, conductor, Robert Sondheimer, music publisher, Otto Erich Deutsch, musicologist, Hans Redlich, musicologist, conductor and composer, Egon Wellesz, composer and Alfred Kalmus, music publisher.