THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

From R. Vaughan Williams,
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

Sunday [?April 1935]

Dear Arnold

I am sending you tomorrow a parcel of music. I should be very glad if you could find time to look at it before the meeting¹ on Thursday. They are all for Div 2 therefore must be really easy both technically and constitutionally – also attractive.
(1) Jackdaw of Rheims² – This has been recommended but I don’t much like the look of it myself – also I think it is too hard.
(2) Master Mariners³ – I like the tunes but the harmonies seem to me – to my mind –  all wrong (I believe they are supposed to be like the kind of chords I use) and this kind of thing, as you know, upsets the Div 2 class of choir very much (e.g. Howells).
(3) King Estmere⁴ (in green volume). I didn’t use to like this, but now I think I do and I think it would attract the choirs & seems to me not harder than – say- Hiawatha.
My love to Jo
Yrs

RVW

1.  Presumably of the committee of the Leith Hill Musical Festival.
2.  By Craig Sellar Lang, 1929.
3.  By Thomas Wood, 1927.
4.  By Gustav Holst, op.17, H.70.