THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates
Dorking

[Mid January 1944]

Dear Wood

How good of you to write.  I have by me at present a concerto¹ for oboe & strings which has never been performed – but I think that you consider that oboe concerti do not do in the Albert Hall²
Also I am considering making the music I wrote for “Flemish Farm”³  into a suite.  But I do not know if you would consider that as “new” enough for your purpose – it w^d be of course first performance of the suite⁴
Yrs

R Vaughan Williams

1. Oboe concerto, Catalogue of Works 1944/1.
2. Presumably this was enquiry for for music the Promenade Concerts, but these were subsequently cancelled – see VWL3231 –  and the work was not given until 30 September 1944, when it was played by Leon Goossens and the Liverpool Philharmonic under Malcolm Sargent.
3. Music for the film Story of a Flemish Farm.
4. The suite from the film was done and given at the Promenade concert on 31 July 1945.