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 Child, Harold, 1869-1945

Letter No. VWL4942

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Harold Child

Letter No.: VWL4942

13 Cheyne Walk.

1 Feb 12

Dear Child
It was splendid to see your handwriting once more.  I was getting so afraid the fount had stopped.  It was good of you to go on when you were in such trouble.  I do hope things are better with you now.
Now what I look forward to is the second act.  I’m afraid of working out the whole seam over Act I, and having nothing left for Act II.  I write out here a little tune1 which I have had in my mind for some time.  I’ve always connnected it in my mind with the opening of 1st Act, and an auctioneer man shouting out ‘going, going, gone; going, going, gone; worth twice the money, going, going, gone’, or something of that sort, but you see, it would suit any sort of tag which people cd repeat at intervals (e.g. something about Boney).  But I feel it is important to have some refrain of the sort all through the opening scene to make the whole into a sort of Rondo – i.e. the refrain interspersed with various short episodes, such as lavender cries and so on, working up to a big noise then a pause in which the ballad-seller’s rather quavering voice is heard (‘all the new ballads – all the new ballads and songs’ etc.) greeted by rather a quiet slow chorus – then after a few false starts the ballad singer starts ‘Tuesday morning’ and is taken up by Mary.  Does this appeal to you at all?
Yr.
R. Vaughan Williams

1.  No longer extant.

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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