THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

February 7 1933

Dear Adrian

I have now sufficiently recovered from the shock of last Wednesday to be able to write to thank you and your orchestra for your beautiful performance.¹ You have made impossible the composer’s time-honoured excuse that the work would have sounded all right if it had been properly played – I could not have imagined a better first performance.
I am so sorry that you were not at Mrs Fisher’s² party after the concert.  Some of the guests were invited by me and some by her and we both took it for granted that you were the first person who would be invited by the other.  When we discovered our mistake we telephoned wildly to every conceivable address, but in vain.
Yrs

R Vaughan Williams

1. Boult had conducted the premiere of the Piano Concerto (Catalogue of Works 1931/3) on 1st February at the Queen’s Hall.
2. Lettice Fisher, wife of H.A.L. Fisher, AVW’s brother.