THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

Dec 7 [1936]

Dear Cedric

That was a splendid letter – I’m glad you like “Sancta”¹ – I do rather myself – but no one else seems to
They ought not to have got [flat] at the end of “Jane” – even the Birmingham females did not –  & they are well supported by unobtrusive horns etc.²
Do try to come to London at Xmas – the only trouble is about Waddington as it might be difficult to get him during the holidays & I want him to hear it – At present all he has said is that the Drama does not seem strong enough to support the music.³
Good luck to Kilpinen tonight⁴  My last news of H. Samuel was that he was decidedly better & was being moved to London – but doubtless you have heard that.⁵
Yrs

RVW

1. VW’s Sancta Civitas

2. VW is here referring to ‘Jane Scroop’ in Five Tudor Portraits, Catalogue of Works 1935/5.
3. The playing through by Davie to VW of his opera Gammer Gurton’s Needle (see VWL1073) had not yet taken place. Sidney Waddington taught opera at the Royal College of Music.
4. Davie was performing works by his former teacher, the Finnish composer Yrjö Kilpinen, in Glasgow that evening.
5. Harold Samuel, the pianist, had had a coronary attack on the boat coming home from a tour in South Africa and had been in a nursing home at Southampton (see Howard Ferguson, Music, friends and places (London, 1997) p.41).