Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Editor of the Radio Times

Letter No. VWL1030

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Editor of the Radio Times

Letter No.: VWL1030

Dorking

6th January 1933

I notice a curious error in your issue of December 16. In discussing a concert of compositions by Arnold Bax and various continental composers you state that: ‘Arnold Bax is clearly in place in this distinguished company’. I take it that the sentence was meant to express that the other composers were not unworthy of a place beside Arnold Bax. Personally I do not consider that most of the names on that programme are worthy to stand beside Bax, but this of course is a matter of opinion.
R. Vaughan Williams.

[The other composers mentioned in the context referred to by Dr. Vaughan Williams were Szymanowski, Schönberg, Conrad Beck, Norbert von Hannenheim, Hindemith, Poulenc and Stravinsky. – EDITOR, The Radio Times]

To:

Editor of the Radio Times
From:

Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 1872-1958
Scribe:

Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 1872-1958
Names:

Bax, Arnold, 1883-1953 Szymanowski, Karol, 1882-1937 Schoenberg, Arnold, 1874-1951 Hindemith, Paul, 1895-1963 Beck, Conrad, 1901-1989 Poulenc, Francis, 1899-1963 Stravinsky, Igor, 1882-1971 Hannenheim, Norbert von, 1898-1945 Radio Times
Format:

Letter
General Notes:

VW was reacting to a notice of a concert of choral and piano music by the composers listed in the Editor’s note, to be given on 23rd December 1932 on the National Programme by the Wireless Singers and Else C. Krauss, which contained the comment: ‘We are not in the habit of ranking our own composers, but Arnold Bax in clearly in place in this distinguished company’.
Published on 28 January, 1933 (see VWL1042).
Citation:

Cobbe 221

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