THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

April 20 [1938]

Dear Foss

Atkins has asked me to mess up a hymn tune for Worcester Festival – September.
Here it is in case you would care to publish it.  They would like the copies soon.  I have taken the words from the English Hymnal Version which is the one they use – so the engraver had better have that by him to check the words from – ¹
Yours sincerely

R. Vaughan Williams²

1.  All Hail the Power, CW1938/4, no. 000 in EH. VW arranges the tune ‘Miles Lane’ by William Shrubsole, about whom he wrote a short piece in the Manchester Guardian in 1943 making the point that despite Shrubsole being a ‘one-tune’ composer, that tune could well endure long after the works of much greater composers had been forgotten. It is reprinted in NM pp.202-204.
2.  The letter is in the hand of AVW including, unusually, the signature.