THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

From R. Vaughan Williams,
10, Hanover Terrace,
Regents Park,
London, N.W.1.

May 17th. 1956.

Dear Frank,

In answer to your two letters:
1.  I will try and do a male voice Greensleeves for you.
2.  Paddy Hadley is free to make any use he likes of anything that belongs to me.  I am so glad you think well of the symphony, and it would have been most improper if you, as its onlie begetter did not tell me so.¹
Yrs

RVW

1. Frank had written on 16th May asking VW if he could bear to do a male-voice setting of ‘Greensleeves’ since such an arrangement was often asked for. He had added: ‘If you would not think it improper of me, may I say that I think the new Symphony is absolutely first class … it seemed to go very much better on Monday than in Manchester’. VW’s response is an allusion to Shakespeare’s dedication of his Sonnets, 1609: ‘To the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets, Mr W.H.’.