THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

From R. Vaughan Williams,
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

March 20 [1940]

Dear Sir
In reply to your letter of March 19 – I am quite agreeable to the division proposed in your letter.
However, in case it affects the [matter?], I would point out that the tune “Go and enlist for a sailor” I believe the tune to be the copyright of Cecil Sharp’s executor & Messrs Novello it comes from Sharp’s “Morris Book”.¹
With regard to the “March Suite” the principal tune is “Blue Eyed Stranger” but two other tunes are also used which are my own copyright²
All the M.B. arrangements are by Gerrard Williams
Yrs faithfully
R Vaughan Williams

1. The Morris Book: a History of Morris Dancing, With a Description of Eleven Dances as Performed by the Morris-Men of England by Cecil J. Sharp and Herbert C MacIlwaine, London: Novello (1907). Reprinted 2010.
2. This suite is referred to in a talk on folk music given by VW for the BBC which was broadcast on 27 March 1940; see VWL1364. This letter may be in connection with the same occasion. See also VWL1412 for the text of the talk, and VWL1420; the suite has not been identified and may be lost.