ABOUT THE LETTERS
Ralph Vaughan Williams’s correspondence - with his friends, family, pupils and fellow musicians - paints an intriguing portrait of the man, as well as providing fascinating insights into his major preoccupations: musical, personal and political.
The VWF database includes transcripts of over 5,000 items of annotated correspondence, fully indexed and searchable, which can all be read online. It includes all the letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams known to the editors and is an ongoing project. Find out more about the database.
The text of letters written by Ralph Vaughan Williams remains in the copyright of the Vaughan Williams Foundation and may not be further reproduced without the prior written consent of the Foundation.
Featured Letter
from Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 1872-1958 to Koussevitzky, Serge Alexandrovich, 1874-1951
Letter No. VWL5124
Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Serge Koussevitsky
Letter No.: VWL5124
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.
[1932?]
To M. Kussiwitzky
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston, Mass.
Dear Monsieur Kussiwitzky
I venture to send you herewith a copy of a choral and orchestral work1 by a young english composer Patrick Hadley which I admire very much.
You, with your wonderful orchestra and Archibald Davison at your side have such unique opportunities of producing works of this kind that I venture to think this will appeal to you – I send you the piano score but the full score is of course obtainable from the publishers
Yours sincerely
R Vaughan Williams
1. Possibly Hadley’s Symphonic Ballad: The Trees so High, completed in 1931. It was first performed in 1932 in Cambridge, and published by Oxford University Press the same year.
p
-
To:
-
From:
-
Scribe:
-
Names:
-
Subject:
-
Musical Works:
-
Format:
-
General Notes:
Date estimated; in letters from 1935 onwards the conductor’s name is correctly spelled.
-
Location Of Original:
-
Shelfmark:Serge Koussevitsky archive, Box 62/12
