THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

[Charterhouse School]

[15 October 1889]

Dear Meggie,
Please excuse this paper but I suddenly find that i have run out of all my notepaper. I hope to find you at no very distant period singing at a concert that I shall give at Charterhouse (a hypothetical one of course). Hamilton (O.C.) has been staying with Robinson¹ and slept in my room, the consequence was that we talked from 10.30 PM till 3 A.M. and as I got up at 6 15 AM I only had (about) three hours sleep. As I suppose you know he is gonig to be a pro. he has been to Bayreuth and now is a Wagnerite. We now have to believe that Mendellsohn² is NOT a great composer, that though Beethoven is great he is old-fashioned. As to Handel, etc. they are quite out of date. I know Behinke and Pearce’s book³. I think brown, are they not? The concert was not so bad as I expected, but I and another fellow had to play one of [illegible] duets with 1/2 hours practice.

Yours truily,⁴
Ralph Vaughan Williams

For mother
I have got no tin boxes
I do not want gloves yet
I was bilious and am all right
Will ask Nicholson
Small cakes not big ones thanks very much

For mother: will do all sorts of things which you tell me
Since H has been here, I started a practising mania yesterday. I practised 2 1/2 hours of piano besides counterpt.

1. H.G. Robinson was the school organist. H.V. Hamilton was a pianist and a musicologist.
2. sic
3. Charles W. Pearce and Emil Behnke, Voice training exercises.
4. sic