THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates

August 7 [1949]

Dictated

Dear Bob

Will you – as once before – help me with your ripe scholarship?
I have to adapt some words from ‘Revelations’ (set to music) to the Latin Vulgate.¹
Among the difficulties I find that “For in one hour is thy judgment come” becomes “Quoniam una hora venit judicium tuum”. “Quoniam is a very awkward substitute for “for” – Would it be wrong to substitute “quia”? For authority I can quote from the Magnificat where “For he hath regarded” becomes “quia respexit”.
Yrs

R. Vaughan Williams²

1.  For a Latin version of Sancta Civitas made for the first performance of the work in Italy on 13 November 1949 by the Accademia di Santa Cecilia at the Teatro Argentina in Rome under Joseph Krips. The work was preceded by Schubert Symphony no.7.
2.  Signed by VW.