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.

Filter letters

Letter No. Title Date Date on Letter
VWL1738 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adine O’Neill 19421226 Dec 26 [1942]
VWL5219 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Elsie Fry 19421226 26 December [early 1940s]
VWL1737 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Howells 19421217 [17 December 1942]
VWL1736 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Roy Douglas 19421215 Dec 15 [1942]
VWL1735 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19421204 [4th December 1942 ]
VWL1734 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Hubert Foss 19421113 Nov 13 [1942]
VWL1733 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cecil Armstrong Gibbs 19421104 Nov 4 [1942]
VWL1723 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Vera Canning 19421030 Oct 30 [1942]
VWL4513 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Martin and Joan Shaw 19421028 28 October, 1942
VWL1722 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin 19421027 Oct 27 [1942]
VWL1721 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adine O’Neill 19421025 Oct 25 [1942]
VWL1719 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to John Tindall Robertson 19421024 Oct 24 [1942]
VWL1720 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Roger Quilter 19421024 Oct 24 [1942]
VWL1718 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Murrill 19421023 Oct 23 [1942]
VWL3729 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Alice & John Sumsion 19421023 Oct 23, [1942]
VWL1716 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Benjamin Britten 19421022 Oct 22 [1942]
VWL1717 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cedric Thorpe Davie 19421022 Oct 22 [1942?]
VWL4763 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Choir of Kensington High School 19421022 Oct 22 [1942]
VWL1715 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Mary Shott 19421022 Oct 22 1942
VWL1714 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adrian Boult 19421022 Oct 22 [1942]
VWL1712 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Edward J. Dent 19421020 Oct 20 [1942]
VWL1713 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Hubert Foss 19421020 Oct 20 [1942]
VWL1711 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Vally Lasker 19421020 Oct 20 [1942]
VWL4659 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Nancy Marsden 19421020 Oct 20 [1940]
VWL1710 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Howells 19421019 Oct 19 [1942]
VWL1709 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Arnold Goldsbrough 19421019 Oct 19 [1942]
VWL1708 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert Müller-Hartmann 19421018 Oct 18 [1942]
VWL1707 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Elizabeth Trevelyan 19421017 Oct 17 [1942]
VWL5204 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to David Griffiths 19421017 Oct 17 [1942]
VWL1706 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Miss M. Goodchild 19421015 Oct 15 [1942]

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