THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

August 4th 1957.

Dear Roy,

I think I told you, though it is still a secret that I am having a flirtation with a symphony.¹  Will you, and can you give me your usual help?  There are two movements ready for your inspection, and I am going to ask you first to play them through to me off a fairly legible pianoforte score, (there is also a fairly illegible full score) I can’t play it myself at all, and I am not sure what some of it sounds like.  Having done that, will you make a real pianoforte arrangement with a view, when the wole² thing is finished, to making a private recording.  However, I have an idea that you said you hated playing for recording: but anyway, I should like you to make the pianoforte arrangement.  I am free the rest of this month, except a few days for London rehearsals for Three Choirs: if you are coming to London naturally any day perhaps we could arrange a session.
Yrs RVW

(Dear Roy, the sooner the earlier, I am so agog.³ Love. U.)⁴

1. Symphony no. 9 in E minor.
2. sic.
3. sic.
4. Postscript added in red by UVW.