THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

January 29th 1956.

Dear Frank,

Could you deal with this, you know the facts better than I do.¹ There is one question of yours I have not answered yet: that is with regard to the plaigerism² in my Hodie: all I can tell you is that I was playing it through one day and I came upon a passage that reminded me strongly of Hymnus Paradisi – but I’ve never been able to find it since!
Yrs

RVW

1. VW enclosed a letter of 25th January from the solicitors Shepheards & Bingley reporting that Joan Sharp, the administratrix of Evelyn Sharp’s estate (she had died on 17th June 1955) had been asked by Oxford University Press to sell them the rights in the libretto of The Poisoned Kiss and enquiring whether VW had also sold the rights in the music; if he had not it seemed a pity to sell the rights to the libretto but if he had, what was his idea of the value of the copyright in the libretto?
2. sic. i.e. plagiarism
3. Hymnus Paradisi, by Herbert Howells.