THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Glendorgal,
St. Columb Minor,
Nr Newquay. Cornwall (till 10th)

May 5th 1955.

Dear Frank,

If I like Menelaus when I hear it I shall be pleased of course for you to look at it and see if you like it too. But it is probably going to be one of a cycle, indeed another song has already been sent to Keith, and he will sing it at the concert if he has had time to prepare it. So shall we leave it like that for the present? Menelaus might go by himself, but the second song is too short to be printed except as one of a series. 
Yrs

RVW

1. Menelaus on the Beach at Pharos (Catalogue of Works, 1954/6) had been taken to America as a present for Keith Falkner, who had arranged VW’s visit to Cornell and had been first performed by him there on 14th November 1954. He was to give the first English performance at the Wigmore Hall on 26th May and Frank had written to VW asking if he would allow Oxford University Press to publish it, since they would certainly be asked for it. As VW indicates, entitled simply ‘Menelaus’, it was eventually part of a group entitled Four Last Songs (Catalogue of Works, 1958/2) published in 1960. The other song sent to Keith was ‘Hands, Eyes and Heart’, Catalogue of Works 1955/5 – see VWL3067 – but it was not included in the Wigmore concert. On the VWs’ holiday in Cornwall see R.V.W.: a biography, pp. 360-361.