THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Cornell Heights Country Club
Ithaca NY. USA

[12 November, 1954]

My dear Eslyn & Michael,

Thank you so much for your letter – I will bring the record with pleasure.¹
We are having a splendid time – Ralph’s lecture tour took us all across Toronto with Boyd Neel & Niagara thrown in, so to speak – Ann Arbour² (Huron river county) Chicago, Bloomington, & Los Angeles.  We looked out of the train window for two* nights & two days, & ended up under palm trees & hibiscus – a climate entirely my cup of tea. Then a weeks holiday by the sea at Santa Barbara – 2 days by the Grand Canyon, & back here.  All the lectures were a terrific success – & Ralph was much enjoyed and appreciated.  We even found a student performance of  Riders to the Sea³ going on in Santa Barbara!  He has conducted the Buffalo orchestra here, & it, with Krips⁴ are doing Sancta Civitas⁵ next week in Buffalo.  Then there is a concert here with the student orchestra, & that’s all, besides our present job of preparing lectures for the press.⁶ New York on the 26th, and a lecture at Yale on the 1st.  Sail on 4th. Ralph is terrifically well, & bouncy – & thrives on milk shakes & butterscotch sundaes.
We look forward to going home now – & to seeing our friends – & the dear cats.

Fond love from us both.

Ursula.

*Actually we had very comfortable bunks, but we did get up to see dawn in the deserts.

1.  Michael Kennedy had asked the VWs to obtain for him a recording at the time of the two-piano version of the Piano Concerto, Catalogue of Works 1931/3.  In the event they failed to get it – see VWL3084.  Although it was thought to be a recording by Rae Robertson and Ethel Bartlett, such a recording cannot be traced, so either it was a private recording or perhaps it was actually the recording by Vladimir Golschmann with duo-pianists Whittemore and Lowe, who recorded it for RCA Victor in 1950.
2.  sic.
3.  Catalogue of Works 1936/6.
4.  i.e. Josef Krips, conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic.
5.  Catalogue of Works 1925/6.
6.  i.e. for publication as a series of essays called The Making of Music.