THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Dorking, Surrey.

27th August, 1952.

Dear Michael

Thank you so much for the photograph of Down Ampney Church.  It is a lovely little church, is it not?
I agree with you about Holst’s carol.  It is very beautiful.  I wish you could persuade Barbirolli to do more of him.  I think his finest work – at all events his finest choral work – is the “Ode to Death”, which is not very often done.¹
Down Ampney Vicarage is not the big house near the Church, which is the Manor house.  The Vicarage is a rather ugly early Victorian Gothic building in the village.
Much love to Eslyn
Yrs
RVW²
(R. Vaughan Williams).

Michael Kennedy, Esq.,
3, Moorwood Drive,
The Avenue,  Sale.

1. The carol was This I have done for my true love (H128). The Ode to death (H144), a setting of words by Walt Whitman, was written in 1919.
2.  Signed and opening and final greeting added by VW in manuscript.