THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

November 1 [1936]

Dear Miss Wadham
The title will be
“Fanfare Flourish for a Coronation”
The work is still rather nebulous but the orchestration will probably be as follows:-
2 Flute, 1 Picc, 2 Ob, 2 B flat Clar, 1 E flat Clar, 1 saxophone, 2 Fag, 1 contra fag, 8 horns, 8 trumpets (including some real D trumpets), 3 Trombones, 1 Euphonium, 1 or 2 bass tubas, Timpani (2 players) percussion (3 players), Bells, 2 harps, pianoforte, organ, strings – chorus.
I am sorry to be a nuisance about the position in the programme, but I think your Committee will see that I must not come when everyone has been decimated by the barrage of Heldenleben nor must it follow immediately on the National Anthem.
Yours sincerely
R Vaughan Williams

P.S. I think you ought to allow 15 minutes actual “programme” time for my work

1. See also VWL4720. The instrumentation was close to the final version by this stage: in the final version there are 6 trumpets rather than 8, only one bass tuba, one timpani player, and 2 percussion players. For details of the first performance see VWL4720, where Elgar’s First Symphony was performed in place of Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben.