RVW’s Letters

ABOUT THE LETTERS

Ralph Vaughan Williams’s correspondence - with his friends, family, pupils and fellow musicians - paints an intriguing portrait of the man, as well as providing fascinating insights into his major preoccupations: musical, personal and political.

The VWF database includes transcripts of over 5,000 items of annotated correspondence, fully indexed and searchable, which can all be read online. It includes all the letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams known to the editors and is an ongoing project. Find out more about the database.

The text of letters written by Ralph Vaughan Williams remains in the copyright of the Vaughan Williams Foundation and may not be further reproduced without the prior written consent of the Foundation.

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Featured Letter

from Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 1872-1958 to Bush, Geoffrey, 1920-1998

Letter No. VWL2659

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Geoffrey Bush

Letter No.: VWL2659

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

18th February, 1953.

Dear Dr Bush

I remember you very well from old days and have heard of you much since.
As regards your query about a Lavender Cry it was sung all over London when I was there about fifty years ago, and I think the version I used in my London Symphony was a modification of one that used to be sung outside my house frequently.
If you look in the Journal of the Folk Song Society, Volume 4, Part 15, Page 97 you will find several versions of the cry.
You say that you cannot find the cry in any old books but you must remember that all traditional music is always in a state of flux and you would not expect to find in Elizabethan times the tune exactly as it is sung now; doubtless there was a version of it.
The opening phrase comes in more than one folk tune, for example the song “Streams of Lovely Nancy” I think in “Songs of the West”.
I shall be glad to see you again if one day you are passing through Dorking.
Yrs sincerely

R. Vaughan Williams

Dr Busch

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A teacher's advice is not meant to be taken like a Pill but thought about & then: 1) adopted, or (2) rejected, or (perhaps best of all) (3) a 3rd course suggests itself from thinking the matter over.

RVW letter to GRACE WILLIAMS 1920

New York on the 26th, lecture at Yale on the 1st. Sail on the 4th. Ralph is terrifically well and bouncy and THRIVES on milkshakes and butterscotch sundaes.

UVW letter from New York to Michael and Eslyn Kennedy 1954

Most of Stravinsky bores me. I wish he even shocked me: especially the Rite of Spring...but I do like Symphony of Psalms, Les Noces, and the Suite for Violin and Pianoforte, of which I once heard a record under very peculiar circumstances, of which I will tell you one day.

RVW letter to MICHAEL KENNEDY 1957

You have never lost your invention but it has not developed enough.  Your best – your most original and beautiful style or ‘atmosphere’ is an indescribable sort of feeling as if one was listening to very lovely lyrical poetry.

GUSTAV HOLST letter to RVW 1903