THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

September 23 [1935]

Dear Davie
The Choral Suite proofs arrived today.¹  Thank you very much for them and for the Symphony.²  You have done it splendidly and it has been a great help to me.
In the Symphony I did not adopt your suggestions about the percussion since the triangle can only play 1 note wherever it is put – also I thought the Square bracket question though inconsistent was clear and I did not want to add unnecessarily to the nearly 900 corrections which you and I discovered between us.
The proofs of my Viola Suite³ will be coming in about October 3.  Would you care to undertake these, or would it be too soon before your departure.  Let me have a postcard soon.  I am delighted to hear about your Suite⁴ – I think it’s good for one to write a vulgar tune occasionally cf. C minor Symphony last movement.⁵
Good luck to your journeyings.⁶   As regards payment I have made enquiries – I find the lowest rate is 2/6 an hour so I hope you think 3/ an hour will be fair for rather specialised work of this kind & this shall include postage etc – Cheque enclosed.
Yrs
R. Vaughan Williams

1. Five Tudor Portraits
2. Fourth Symphony, Catalogue of Works 1934/13.
3. Suite for viola and small orchestra, Catalogue of Works 1934/11.
4. Possibly Thorpe Davie’s Suite for school orchestra (1936).
5. VW is probably referring to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (or possibly Brahms’s First).
6. Thorpe Davie was going to Budapest to study with Kodály. The following year he went to Helsinki to study with Kilpinen.