THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Dorking.

June 3rd 1952.

Dear Frank,¹

Here are the quotations from S.A.² I have put the sources, but I do not want them published. I am leaving the score at the office and have arranged for Roy Douglas to call for it.
Yrs

R. Vaughan Williams
 

Sinfonia Antarctica

I  Prelude.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite,
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night,
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent….
Neither to change nor falter nor repent,
This is to be
Good, great & joyous, beautiful and free.
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.
    Shelley. Prometheus Unbound.

II  Scherzo

There go the ships
And there is that Leviathan
Whom thou hast made to take his pastime therein.
    Psalm 25³ 

III  Landscape.

Ye ice falls! Ye that from the mountain’s brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain—
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! Silent cataracts.
    Coleridge. Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni.

IV  Intermezzo

 Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
 Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
     Donne. The Sun Rising.

V.  Epilogue

I do not regret this journey; we took risks, we knew that we took them, things have come out against us. Therefore we have no cause for complaint.
    Captain Scott’s Diary.

1. Music Editor in succession to Norman Peterkin (1947); Head of Music from 1954 until his retirement in 1975.
2. Sinfonia Antartica (Catalogue of Works 1952/2).
3. The quotation is actually from Psalm 104.