THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

From R. Vaughan Williams,
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

June 19 [1936]

Dear Madam
My pupil Mr Stanley Bate is very anxious to come to Paris in September and join your composition class at the Ecole Normale – I very much hope that you will consent to take him. Mr Bate has, I think, great talent as a composer and shows considerable promise – To my mind he has great gifts as a melodist: indeed his early ambition were in the direction of light opera and I believe that that is where he will excel; But he has also tried his hand at symphonies and quartet work with some success.
I have to confess that his counterpoint and fugue are weak, and after several attempts both by myself and his other teachers to improve them we have come to the conclusion that the essential melodic nature of his ideas does not demand great powers in this direction. So I venture to hope that you will agree to take him in your composition class in spite of this weakness – but of course this will be a matter for you to decide when you see his work.
Yours faithfully
R Vaughan Williams