THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Dorking,
Surrey.

15th June, 1949.

Dear Cedric

Please quote the whole Symphony if you feel inclined to, but whatever you do, do not make acknowledgments.
Dear Robin Milford is always plastering his printed works with notes such as “This C natural is taken from Vaughan Williams’ Symphony”, or “The D flat in the third bar is a quotation from Elgar’s Gerontius”, or “I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. R. O. Morris for the bar’s rest on Page 27”.
I am glad the Snobopolis Festival is recognising its own country at last.¹
My love to Bruno²
Yrs

RVW

1.  For the 1949 Edinburgh Festival Davie made arrangements of folk music for Allan Ramsay’s The Gentle Shepherd. This pastoral drama of 1725 was usually staged as a ballad opera with Scots airs. Davie had also contributed incidental music to the 1948 Edinburgh Festival. In the 1949 Edinburgh Festival, The Three Estates was reprised (from 1948) with Davie’s incidental music; he was also the musical director for The Gentle Shepherd, directed by Tyrone Guthrie, and he composed two trumpet fanfares for the opening service in St. Giles’ Cathedral.
2. Davie’s wife Margaret was known as Bruno.