THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

Nov 12 [1950]

Dear Frank¹

                                               “Sons of Light”²

Bernard Shore wants me to dedicate this to the school teachers³ – I prefer to dedicate it to him – could we achieve both – ? viz. above the music “To Bernard Shore”⁴  and on the front side “Written for the Schools Music Association of Great Britain” ⁵

                                                 Running Set⁶ 

Certainly scrap the pfte arr^t. – it is very dull. I wanted Vally to do something brilliant with lots of pfte tricks in it – I ought never to have passed it.⁷
I suppose you w^d not consider printing full score & parts – it seems to get quite a lot of performances.⁸
Yrs

R. Vaughan Williams

1. Music Editor at Oxford University Press in succession to Norman Peterkin (1947); Head of Music from 1954 until his retirement in 1975.
2. Catalogue of Works 1950/3.
3. Sons of Light was first performed by the massed choirs of the Schools’ Music Association. Bernard Shore was the Staff Inspector of Music at the Ministry of Education and had commissioned this work for the SMA’s second national festival – see Kennedy, Catalogue of Works.
4. Note in pencil (not in VW’s hand): ‘on inside Title/above the Title’
5. Note in pencil (not in VW’s hand): ‘etc. as we arranged’.
6. Catalogue of Works, 1933/3.
7. Vally Lasker and Helen Bidder had made an arrangement of The Running Set for two pianofortes published in 1936.
8. Oxford University Press published a full score in 1952.