Item 187 - Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Elizabeth Trevelyan

1 item: typed, with autograph salutation and signature

The White Gates, Dorking, Surrey. - Had 'not seen anything about the proposed closing down of the [BBC] Third Programme'. Thinks it must 'improve a lot' before they make 'serious efforts' to save it; finds almost as much music he wants to listen to on the Home Service, and even sometimes on the Light [Programme]. The 'Third Programme people are much too fond of dreary 17th and 18th century music' which may interest 'the antiquarian and the musicologist but has no real artistic value', while their speakers need to 'learn the elements of English elocution': they should 'take lessons from Desmond McCarthy [sic] or Gilbert Murray'. Very interested to know that Bessy also used to play Raff's "Cavatina" when young.

British Library, MS Mus. 1714/1/18, f. 188

Transcription available on-line on the Letters of Vaughan Williams website, copyright the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust.
Reference number VWL2080: http://vaughanwilliams.uk/letter/vwl2080