THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

13 Cheyne Walk.
S.W.3.

15.4.23

Dear Ord,¹

a) I don’t dare to undertake anything more – how I shall find time to score the old Ballet passes my comprehension. (By the way I shall score it for ordinary orch. fairly thick and let it take its chance out of doors.)²

b)  As regards Wassail song – I meant [cr]=168 or so, vivace refers to style (this is a good lot quicker than the man sang it to me) and I also like the quick pace when the E.S. do it – with the chorus it sounds a bit too tricky quick.³

c)  Congratulations on your fellowship.⁴

Yours sincerely,

R. Vaughan Williams.

1. At this time Bernhard Ord.
2. VW’s ballet Old King Cole, Catalogue of Works, 1923/2, was to have its first performance by members of the Cambridge Branch of the English Folk Dance Society in the open at Nevile’s Court in Trinity College Cambridge, as part of the Festival of British Music.
3. As part of the same Festival the English Singers were to give a concert including some of VW’s folk-song arrangements. See Kennedy, Works of Vaughan Williams, p.162. The ‘Wassail Song’ referred to here is no. 5 of Five English Folk Songs (Catalogue of Works 1913/04), published in 1913 (this setting has the performance direction Vivace, crotchet = 168).
4. Ord had just been elected to a Fellowship at King’s College Cambridge