THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

[July 1904]

 My dear Randolph

The fact that Amos¹ has first written to me moves me to write to you. His letter was mostly unintelligible referring as it did to a letter which I had written him and of which I had entirely forgotten the contents. He is coming home on July 23rd. Now I know that I’ve got to be in London on the 24th as I am examining a girls school² in music on that day! Couldn’t you nip up to London and we would amuse ourselves together?
Crompton³ has been to the whole ‘Ring’ and on Sunday morning after ‘Gotterdamerung’ he was in such an exalted frame of mind that he wrote a letter to Fraülein Ternina⁴ who had been acting Brunnhilde to tell her how much he admired her and to ask when she was going to do Isolde – to this he got a most gracious answer!
Trevy⁵ came to tea the other day and was very pleasant – he is much mellower than he used to be.  As to my own stuff, I go to the Museum⁶ nearly every day and copy Purcell out of an old manuscript⁷ – I am editing it for the Purcell Society.
[Incomplete]

1.  Maurice Amos was coming back from Egypt.
2.  VW taught at James Allen’s Girl’s School in West Dulwich from 1903 to 1904 when he was succeeded by Gustav Holst, who thus started the teaching career he maintained thereafter.  See Michael Short, Gustav Holst: the man and his music, p.50.
3.  Crompton Llewellyn Davies.
4.  Milka Ternina, the Croatian soprano.
5.  R.C. Trevelyan
6.  The British Museum.  VW had been asked to edit the Welcome Odes for the Purcell Society edition. The work appeared in Purcell Society Vols XV (1905) and XVIII (1910) – See Catalogue of Works 1905/8 and 1910/2.
7.  British Library, R.M.20.h.8.