Letter from Vaughan Williams to Holst, 1925

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

60-61

text excerpt

Dear Gustav

I feel I want to write & put down (chiefly for my own benefit) why I felt vaguely disappointed after the Phil (so you need not read this.) Not perhaps disappointed - I felt cold admiration - but did not want to get up & embrace everyone & then get drunk like I did after the H of J [Hymn of Jesus]. I think it is only because it is a new work & I am more slowly moving than I used to be & it's got to soak in.

But first I want to set down the bits where I was all there, viz. the opening (a great surprize to me)

Dorothy [Silk]'s first solo,

the orchestral end of the scherzo,

the two lovely tunes in the Finale.

Then again I've come to the conclusion that the Leeds Chorus CANNOT SING - the Bacchus Chorus sounded like an Oratorio.

As to the Grecian Urn it was pattered not sung – No phrasing & no legato – If only the B.C. [Bach Choir] c^d sing in tune or Morley had any tenors we c^d show them how to do it.

In the scherzo they made the words sound so common.

I couldn't bear to think that I was going to drift apart from you musically speaking. (If I do, who shall I have to crib from?) – I don't believe it is so – so I shall live in faith till I have heard it again several times & then I shall find out what a bloody fool I was not to see it all first time.

Forgive me this rigmarole - but I wanted to get it off my chest.

Yrs

RVW

excerpt from 'Letter from Vaughan Williams to Holst, 1925' pp. 60-61 (280 words)

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1406804482631