THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Editor of The Daily Chronicle

Letter No. VWL5134

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Editor of The Daily Chronicle

Letter No.: VWL5134


13 Cheyne-Walk,
S.W.1

Saturday 26 May, 1906

Mr. R. Vaughan Williams writes:
Owing to absence from home, I have only just seen Mr. Cecil Sharp’s article on folk-tune.  As a collector, in a small way, of folk-songs myself, I am delighted to see the distinction between the genuine folk-tune and the “composed song” so clearly stated.  No one who has ever heard a folk-song sung in its original environment could fail to see the wide gulf between these two classes of melody.  The confusion of class is not confined to England.  In a well-known German collection of “Volks-lieder”, among many beautiful examples of genuine folk-tunes from all Europe England is represented by “Home, Sweet Home”!