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 Frank, Alan, 1910-1994

Letter No. VWL2424

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Alan Frank (OUP)

Letter No.: VWL2424

The White Gates,
Dorking.

June 3rd 1952.

Dear Frank,1

Here are the quotations from S.A.2 I have put the sources, but I do not want them published. I am leaving the score at the office and have arranged for Roy Douglas to call for it.
Yrs

R. Vaughan Williams
 

Sinfonia Antarctica

I  Prelude.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite,
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night,
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent….
Neither to change nor falter nor repent,
This is to be
Good, great & joyous, beautiful and free.
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.
    Shelley. Prometheus Unbound.

II  Scherzo

There go the ships
And there is that Leviathan
Whom thou hast made to take his pastime therein.
    Psalm 253 

III  Landscape.

Ye ice falls! Ye that from the mountain’s brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain—
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! Silent cataracts.
    Coleridge. Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni.

IV  Intermezzo

 Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
 Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
     Donne. The Sun Rising.

V.  Epilogue

I do not regret this journey; we took risks, we knew that we took them, things have come out against us. Therefore we have no cause for complaint.
    Captain Scott’s Diary.

1. Music Editor in succession to Norman Peterkin (1947); Head of Music from 1954 until his retirement in 1975.
2. Sinfonia Antartica (Catalogue of Works 1952/2).
3. The quotation is actually from Psalm 104.

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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