THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

Sunday [22 May 1938]

Dear Professor Fiedler¹

You kindly asked for some notes on my music for Hamburg.²  Herr Jochum³ has asked for Gramophone records of my London Symphony – This volume contains notes which of course he can use if he cares to.  I enclose a short note on the Tallis Fantasia.
You kindly said that you would advise me as to sailings for Hamburg.  I wonder what date you and your daughter are travelling.  I see from the paper that you will have to be back in Oxford early for Encaenia.
Yours sincerely

R. Vaughan Williams

1.  The addressee was Professor of German and Fellow of Queen’s College at Oxford; he had been instrumental in obtaining for VW the Shakespeare Prize. See R.V.W.: a biography, p.217 ff.
2.  Where VW was to be presented with the Shakespeare Prize.
3.  Eugene Jochum, at this time Director of the Hamburg Staatsoper and conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra.