THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

13 Cheyne Walk
Chelsea, SW 3

[October 1927]

My dear Gwen

I amused myself with making a sketch of Job – I never expected Djag¹ w^d look at it – & I’m glad on the whole – the “reclame” w^d have been rather amusing – but it really w^dnt have suited the sham serious really decadent & frivolous attitude of the R.B.² towards everything – can you imagine Job sandwiched in between “Les Biches” and “Cimarosiana”³ – & that dreadful pseudo-cultured audience saying to each other “my dear have you seen God at the Russian Ballet”.
No – I think we are well out of it – I don’t think this is sour grapes – for I admit that it w^d have been great fun to have had a production by the R.B. – though I feel myself that they w^d have made an unholy mess of it with their over-developed calves.
Yrs affectionately

R. Vaughan Williams

1. Sergei Diaghilev. It was originally intended that Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet should put on Job (see R.V.W.: a biography, p.183).
2. Russian Ballet, i.e. Ballets Russes.
3. Les Biches is a ballet choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska to music by Francis Poulenc, premiered by the Ballets Russes in Monte Carlo on 6 January 1924; Cimarosiana was a suite of six dances from the 1920 opera L’Astuce Féminine, reorchestrated by Malipiero. Cimarosiana was first performed under the title Ballet de L’Astuce Féminine, choreographed by Massine to music by Domenico Cimarosa, orchestrated by Respighi.