THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates
Dorking

Sept 28 [1946]

Dear Bates
Your scheme rather alarms me – it seems to me too grandiose – I should be much inclined to start more modestly & then if the thing was a great success then branch out.
Anyway why ‘the English Salzburg’ – why drag in Salzburg – can we not stand on our own feet¹
Yrs
R Vaughan Williams 

1. Presumably this relates to Bates’s proposal to create the Bath Bach Festival, which gave its first performance in 1950.  Bates had formed the Bath Bach Choir in 1946, which gave its first concert in June 1947.