THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

February 8th 1955.

Dear Frank,¹

I am all in favour of Roy Douglas’s proposed arrangement of Greensleeves.
As regards performing fees of the new song,² I think your suggestion is the only way out of the difficulty; but presumably if the printed copies are to be marked not for sale the same will apply to records. I agree to all your other suggestions. I think you know that the bill for printing is to be sent to me?
As regards the violin sonata; I will get on with it when I can, but I must finish the job I have on hand first. I do not think the violin solo out of Job would go by itself.³
Yrs

RVW

1. Music Editor at Oxford University Press in succession to Norman Peterkin (1947); Head of Music from 1954 until his retirement in 1975.
2. Song for a Spring Festival (Catalogue of Works,1955/1), written for the 1955 Leith Hill Musical Festival, with the explicit direction that it not be performed anywhere else. It was privately published by Oxford University Press and was not for sale. See Kennedy, Catalogue of Works, p.220.
3. Sonata in A Minor for violin and pianoforte, Catalogue of Works, 1954/4. Frank had received a letter from Joseph Szigeti who was to give the sonata’s first performance in New York. He had also said that he had happened to hear parts of Job (Catalogue of Works,1930/5) on the radio and asked if he could perform the ‘big violin solo’ (i.e. ‘Elihu’s dance of youth and beauty’ at the beginning of Scene VII) as a separate work.