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.
Featured Letter
from Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 1872-1958 to O'Neill, Adine, 1875-1947
Letter No. VWL1595
Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adine O’Neill
Letter No.: VWL1595
From R. Vaughan Williams,
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.
October 3 [1939]
Dear Mrs O’Neill
I thought your letter to the ‘Times’ was splendid – I at once wrote myself to the ‘Times’ to back you up but by that time the BBC had nominally repented in sackcloth & ashes & my letter was considered to be no longer to the point so was not printed.1
With kind regards
yrs
R Vaughan Williams
1. Adine O’Neill had apparently written to The Times complaining that the BBC was playing an excessive amount of recorded as opposed to live music and using an insufficient number of live outside artists. See also VWL1600.
-
To:
-
From:
-
Scribe:
-
Names:
-
Subject:
-
Format:
-
General Notes:
Year inferred from VWL1600.
In the hand of AVW, signed by VW. -
Location Of Original:
-
Shelfmark:MS Mus. 932, f. 106
