THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

[between 15 January and February, 1936]

Dear Miss Sharp
I think I’ve managed the entry of the young men with guitars in Act I thus (if you don’t mind adding the following stage directions
voice
voices (off stage) Tormentilla, Tormentilla
The door flys open – enter Tormentilla followed by a crowd of young men each with a guitar calling “Tormentilla we adore love you” “Tormentilla let us see you” etc (spoken) – Their entrance is barred by the servants and they stand in the door way to sing the following serenade
Chorus Tormentilla passion fills us
Hearts for love of you are breaking
Tormentilla passion tells us
Eyes for sight of you are aching
Tormentilla …
… beside you
I have transposed these lines it suits the voice better – I hope you don’t mind
Tormentilla we adore you
Let us see you we implore you
(Here the young men break through the servants & advance on Tormentilla who shrinks from them.  The servants drive them back & close the doors
Their voices are heard dying away in the distance
About chorus in Act III
I have one further suggestion.  When Dipsacus appears his chorus of attendants enter with him & kneel before him singing a sort of ode to him (quite short & simple probably to be sung unaccompanied) but slow solemn “Hail Dipsacus mighty magician” some of this that sort of thing.
(How about Sapphics? – w^d not that be rather amusing – but the metre w^d not matter much as I should probably keep it contrapuntally like a sort of slow anthem.
The difficulty is to get them off again – but I thin Dipsacus c^d say (towards the end) “Avannt minions” of something ridiculous of that kind & they c^d go off singing.
Anyway it w^d be a sop to the amateur societes & c^d be marked “ad lib”
yrs
R Vaughan Williams
Thank you so much for the knife