THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

From R. Vaughan Williams,
10, Hanover Terrace,
Regents Park,
London, N.W.1.

February 24th 1955.

Dear Michael,

Thank you for sending me your article which I like very much, with the exception of two places.  You have already discovered that it was I who conducted the first performance at Norwich.¹  Secondly, I do not like the idea of calling the bird’s requiem in Jane Scroop “a parody”.  Jane and I both take it quite seriously… she believed that her sparrow had a soul, and we have no proof that she is wrong.²
My love to Eslyn,

RVW

P.S. My love to you both, too.

U.

1.  The first performance of Five Tudor Portraits (Catalogue of Works 1935/5) was at the Norwich Triennial Festival on 25 September 1936.  See VWL1115.
2. Kennedy clearly took this on board. In the Works of VW (p. 271) he wrote: “The whole wonderful movement avoids parody, mawkishness and sentimentality. God marketh even the fall of a sparrow; and this music unerringly conveys how the smallest tragedy can mirror the greatest cataclysms.”