Dear Dr Rauter

Your letter has opened up a great problem.

I find it difficult to state but I want as a preface that nothing contained in this letter affects my personal affection for my many Austrian friends, nor my admiration for their art. The great thing which frightens me in the late peaceful invasion of this country by Austria is that it will entirely devour the tender little flower of our English culture. The Austrians have a great musical tradition, and they are apt to think theirs is the only musical tradition and that everything which is different must be wrong or ignorant; they think moreover that they have a mission to impose their culture wherever they go as being the only one worth having.

Now this seems to me all wrong.

We cannot swallow the strong meat of your culture which (even if we wished to) our stomachs are not strong enough - indigestion and finally artistic putrefaction would result.

To try to make England, musically, a dependency of Austria could kill all musical initiative in this country - destroy all that is vital and substitute a mechanical imitation of your great art - which will have no vitality, no roots in the soil and no power to grow to full stature.

What do I suggest therefore? - We want your art and we want your help - Become Englishmen - try to assimilate our artistic ideas and then strengthen and fertilize them from your own imcomparable art - but do not form a "Little Austria" in England - keeping itself apart from the "untouchables" and living its own musical life without any reference to the life going on around. This would not only be of no value to our country but could actually be a disservice - because people seeing this little body of musical aristocrats with their art perfected by generations of artistic endeavour would think that was the only art worth having and that they could reap without solving by a mere mechanical imitation of Austrian music.

As you must clearly know from your sojourn in England there is a tendency among English people to take it that "Schmidt" is ipso facto musical - while Smith is ipso facto unmusical. You must not stand apart and say "Schmidt is musical - you are not" - you must help Smith to realize that he is musical, help him to discover where his artistic nature lies hidden and to help it to grow to full flower.

Ys sinc
      R Vaughan Williams

Dear Dr Rauter

I thank you for your far-seeing and eloquent letter.

I must explain that I thought it fair that you should know what my attitude was before I accepted the honour you do me - so that you might withdraw, if you wanted to, while there was still time.

I need hardly say that if there is any danger of the tradition which produced Haydn, Mozart and Schubert disappearing we must make every effort to preserve it.

So if my "patronage" can be of any use to you please command me.

Yours sincerely
       R Vaughan Williams