THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Hotel Suisse
Ospedaletti Ligure
Riviera
Italy

February 11 1914

Dear Riley

I return your articles which interested me very much.¹
I’ve only two remarks to make & they’d not practically affect your writings at all.
i) With regard to ‘Northrop’ it is much too grand for the appendix – how it got there in the early stages of the book when we had a rule only to put one tune (i.e. our choice) with the text – and all second strings with the appendix – afterwards we broke the rule – & dreadful things like ‘St Gertrude’ got into the text.²
ii) It is not true of quite modern music that it is bounded by the tune in 2 minor modes – indeed the most characteristic harmony is an extension of the truly modally conceived harmony. The so-called ‘modal’ harmony of the Palestrina school is not truly modal at all – its character and beauty depend largely from the fact there is a half-way house between modal & major-minor. But taking ‘modern’ to mean between Beethoven-Schubert & Wagner you are quite correct.
Yours sincerely

R. Vaughan Williams

1.  Riley had been a member of the editorial committe of The English Hymnal.
2. ‘Northrop’ was included in The English Hymnal (Appendix no.8) as an alternative tune to Hymn 30, While shepherds watched their flocks by night. VW retained a strong affection for the tune – see VWL3454. ‘St Gertrude’ is Arthur Sullivan’s tune for Onward Christian soldiers, which had been reluctantly included in the main body of the hymnbook as an alternative tune for the hymn.