THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

[5th December 1904]

My Dear Randolph

I did hate not seeing more of you on Friday – it was so beastly having to stop and talk to all those silly people when I might have been with you.  But then I had the knowledge you were there.  I should not have cared to give my little show without you being there.  I hope you liked some of the things.  I felt awfully depressed when we got back – all those people crowding in had seemed a sort of nightmare.  The gloom was not lessened by the Daily News – which gave me a bad ‘un and the Standard which reproved me like a naughty boy.  The Telegraph was mildly laudatory, Globe & Star very good.  Times had nothing – will I suppose tomorrow.  The Davis’s party was quite fun.  I’m afraid my music had shocked the chaste culture of Mr & Mrs Bobby Trevy.¹ But Theodore² said he had liked everything which is much more important to me.  The Bonny Mrs Henry was there – Sayer Bentine Russell & Miss Sheepshanks.³ I’d have much rather spent a quiet evening with you than gone through all that evening – it was splendid of you to come & we hear you had a stiff neck too.⁴
Mrs Strachey⁵ came to tea today with her brother – beautifully dressed and very nice & talkative, we were so glad to see her; her brother seemed very nice too, had more to say than the other one.
A. says she gave your message to Theodore who said that he wd not have let you go so easily if he had not made sure of seeing you later on in the evening.
Next time you come there will be no beastly concert & we shall be able to have a good time – come again soon.  Tell me anything you think of about my things – I should so much like to know how they struck you – I think you are one of the best musical critics going – partly because you are so hard to please and partly because you are so quick to spot any lapse from absolute sincerity.
Yours affectionately

R. Vaughan Williams

P.S.  A. is sorry she quite forgot to give Mrs Strachey the papers

1. Mr & Mrs Robert Trevelyan.
2. Theodore Llewellyn Davies.
3. A joke?
4. On the concert, which VW had promoted himself at the Bechstein Hall on 2nd December, see Kennedy, Works of Vaughan Williams, pp.60ff. The concert included first performances of House of Life and Songs of Travel, as well as Two Vocal Duets, Orpheus with his Lute, Claribel, Boy Johnny, and Blackmwore by the Stour.
5. Perhaps Miss Philippa Strachey, to whom VW wrote in the 1950s, or one of her family.