THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

13 Cheyne Walk
Chelsea
London
S.W.3.

Sept 23rd [1917]

Dear Sir

I fear there is no chance of my being able to revise my symphony for a long time to come.  However, I do not think that the revisions will make much difference to the size of the work (if any thing it will be shorter) so I am sending the score to Mess^rs Stainer & Bell so that they may give their estimate.¹
Yrs faithfully

R. Vaughan Williams

1.  The Carnegie United Kingdom Trust had chosen A London Symphony, Catalogue of Works 1913/5, for inclusion in their Carnegie Collection of British Music published by Stainer & Bell (see VWL429 and VWL430).  VW progressively made cuts and alterations in all movements of A London Symphony except the first, both then and subsequently, until the final version was established in 1933.  See Catalogue of Works 1913/5 and Stephen Lloyd, ‘Vaughan Williams’s A London Symphony: the original version and early performances and recordings’, in Vaughan Williams in Perspective, edited by Lewis Foreman (London, 1998), pp.91-117.