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 Tippett, Michael, 1905-1998 to Vaughan Williams, Ursula, 1911-2007

Letter No. VWL3456

Letter from Michael Tippett to Ralph and Ursula Vaughan Williams

Letter No.: VWL3456

Tidebrook Manor
Wadhurst,
Sussex

29th Dec. 1956

Dear Ursula

This is just a very personal letter to thank you both for being so nice to the young fellow, John Minchinton.   It’s been a strange story which isn’t, mercifully, publicisable.  Ten or eleven years ago, or so, he took french leave from School, hitchhiked from Bristol to London and arrived eventually on the doorstep of my little cottage in Limpsfield.  He said he cared for my music & was sure he would be able to be a good conductor one day.
To be picked out a mentor by one so determined and so young was a bit worrying.  But somehow I couldn’t just refuse to help.  I found out and got to know his widowed mother, who had brought up 3 boys by earning as a teacher in an elementary school.  The house was simple and Christian – put it that way.
Neither I, nor John’s mother, had then the means to keep & train him.  So he had a turbulent & frustrated adolescence.  I gave what counsel I might, and what help I could.  I realised quality would tell, if there were any.  He found somehow a group of young people of very nice manners & breeding.  Two good girls were particularly his muses.  And I guess one of them found means to pay his way to master classes with Karajan in Lucerne.  This has proved the turning point.  Karajan released the real technical abilities, and gave him confidence.  From me, I think he has got the sense of tenacity and value for good music of all kinds.  He has his own fanatical interests in standard of performance.
Getting through as a conductor is worse in some ways than as a composer.  He has still a long hard road to go.  But English music needs all she can get.
I’ve had an intuitive desire to tell you a little; for I know you have all human things at heart.  And to thank you and Ralph for being nice to him.  I’m more than pleased now that he finds his own contacts with the great (And I dont know for example how he got to Casals.)  With esteem & affection to you both.
Love

Michael Tippett

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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