Search the letters

The Vaughan Williams Foundation has made over 5000 items freely available: chiefly letters from Ralph Vaughan Williams, but including some responses which shed light on the subject matter, and also a number of letters from Adeline and Ursula Vaughan Williams. These provide further information and often include messages or observations from Ralph, and there are also letters from Adeline and Ursula written on behalf of the couple. The text of letters written by RVW and UVW remain the copyright of the Foundation.

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The letters are in tabular form and can be sorted by column, or filtered by any keyword including name, musical title, year or subject (singly or in combination). Partial matches will also be found, e.g. searching “sky” will also find “Stravinsky”. To search for a phrase use inverted commas, e.g. “New York”.

To search by letter number, include the prefix VWL, e.g. VWL123.

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Letter No. Title Date Date on Letter
VWL4559 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Clive Carey 1946---- [early 1946]
VWL2024 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Douglas Lilburn 19451226 Dec 26 [1945]
VWL2023 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to E.J. Dent 19451211 Dec 11 [c1945?]
VWL2022 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Imogen Holst 19451206 Dec 6 [1945]
VWL2021 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19451122 Nov 22 [1945]
VWL2020 Oxford University Press file note on Ralph Vaughan Williams’s English version of Bach’s B minor Mass by Norman Peterkin 19451120 20.11.45
VWL2019 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Geoffrey Keynes 19451117 November 17 [?1945]
VWL2015 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19451108 Nov 8 [1945]
VWL2902 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert Müller-Hartmann 19451103 Nov 3 [1945?]
VWL5139 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cranleigh Choral Society 19451102 Nov 2 [1945]
VWL2012 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin (OUP) 19451027 Oct 27 [1945]
VWL2011 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Joyce Hooper 19451026 Oct 26 [1945]
VWL2007 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19451021 Oct 21 [1945]
VWL2009 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin (OUP) 19451021 Oct. 21 [1945]
VWL2006 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19451015 Oct 15 [1945]
VWL4181 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Christopher le Fleming 19451015 Oct 15 [ca 1945]
VWL4707 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Bruce L. Richmond 19451015 Oct 15th 1945
VWL1964 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Howells 19451014 Oct 14 [1945]
VWL1963 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Katharine Thomson 19451006 Oct 6 [1945]
VWL4741 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Cockshott 19451004 Oct 4 [1945]
VWL1962 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Katharine Thomson 19450915 Sept 15 [1945]
VWL1948 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin 19450909 9th September [1945]
VWL1947 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19450904 Sept 4 [1945]
VWL4766 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 19450824 [24 Aug 1945]
VWL1946 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Katharine Thomson 19450821 Aug 21 [1945]
VWL1945 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adrian Boult 19450808 Aug 8 [1945]
VWL1944 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Katharine Thomson 19450807 Aug 7th [1945]
VWL1900 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19450803 [3rd August 1945]
VWL1943 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ralph Wedgwood 19450803 Aug 3 [1945]
VWL1899 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin (OUP) 19450729 [29th July 1945]

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

He was one of the most 'complete' men I have ever known. He loved life, he loved work and his interest in all music was unquenchable and insatiable.

SIR JOHN BARBIROLLI, conductor

I was thunderstruck by the symphony last night - and hadn't expected to be. Jagged, pulsating and angry, from that very first clanging dissonance - how can it have come from the same source as the Tallis Fantasia?

AUDIENCE MEMBER, Newbury Festival