THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Dorking, Surrey.

23rd November, 1949.

Dear Frank,

I am getting on with the revisions of No.6. and will send them very soon now.
I will think hard about your suggestion as regards the “Elegy”. Of course a certain amount is wanted there to mark the division between the two parts of the poem, but I expect you are right and that this is too long.¹
Yours sincerely,

R. Vaughan Williams

P.S. I think we had better withdraw the 49th//  suite from circulation – so much of it has been used up (e.g. New Commonwealth)²

1.  Frank had written on 21 November that they were about to reprint the score of the Sixth Symphony (Catalogue of Works, 1947/3) and this was a good opportunity to make any corrections.  He had also suggested a cut in An Oxford Elegy (Catalogue of Works, 1949/2) – the passage preceding the words ‘See tis no foot of unfamiliar men’.
2.  See Catalogue of Works, 1940/3 for the further uses to which the music for 49th Parallel was put.