“I’m not making this up, you know!”: The Success of Two of Vaughan Williams’s Students in America

Abstract

When Vaughan Williams began teaching at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in 1919, he was determined not to follow in the footsteps of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, his erstwhile teacher there. His belief that his pupils, both male and female, should be treated equally and with respect stood in marked contrast to Stanford’s draconian methods. Stanford’s irascible temper and his fierce conviction concerning the inferiority of women composers have been well documented.1 Influenced by his studies with the kindly Max Bruch, Vaughan Williams reflected in “A Musical Autobiography” (1950): With my own pupils now I always try to remember the value of encouragement. Sometimes a callow youth appears who may be a fool or may be a genius, and I would rather be guilty of encouraging a fool than of discouraging a genius. A fool, after all, may find his own salvation in artistic self-expression even though it means nothing to anyone else.2