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
VWL3488 Transcript of VW’s contribution to Elgar Centenary Programme on the BBC 195705-- [May 1957]
VWL1230 Telegram from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Elisabeth Lutyens 19391213 13 Dec 39
VWL1412 Talk by Ralph Vaughan Williams on folk song music for the BBC 19400327 [27 March 1940]
VWL2676 Reference for Leonard Hancock from Ralph Vaughan Williams 19530415 15th April, l953.
VWL4114 Postcard from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Mrs Turner 19551201 [?December, 1955?]
VWL4115 Postcard from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Mrs Turner 19512-- [December, 1954]
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
VWL3614 Note on Cecil Sharp’s accompaniments of folk songs 1935---- [ca 1935]
VWL794 Memorandum on the General Strike by Ralph Vaughan Williams 192605-- [May 1926]
VWL3622 Memo from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the EFDS Committee 193603-- March, 1936
VWL2344 Lord Lechery’s song 195105-- [?May] 1951
VWL3354 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Michael and Eslyn Kennedy 19560719 July 19th [1956]
VWL3517 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Michael and Eslyn Kennedy 19570516 [about 16 May 1957]
VWL3429 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Michael and Eslyn Kennedy 19561002 2nd [October 1956]
VWL4207 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Martin Shaw 19530910 September 10th [1953]
VWL3304 Letter from Ursula and Ralph Vaughan Williams to Michael and Eslyn Kennedy 19580415 [15 April 1958]
VWL5053 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams, T.S. Eliot and others to the Editor of The Times 19490303 [Thursday March 3, 1949]
VWL5052 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams, Myra Hess, Albert Sammons and Lionel Tertis to the Editor of The Times 19470522 [Thursday May 22 1947]
VWL5051 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams, Adrian Boult and others to the Editor of The Times 19500220 February 20 [1950]
VWL4327 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams’s cat to Marjory Jordan 19510829 Aug 29 1951
VWL4585 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams’s cat to Marjory Jordan 19530913 September 13th. [1953]
VWL1854 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Zoltán Kodály 193311-- [November 1933]
VWL3746 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Winifred Cole 19500426 April 26 [1950]
VWL3715 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Winifred Cole 19510512 12 May 1951
VWL3850 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Williams 19290124 Jan 24th 1929
VWL192 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Turner Levy 19511227 27th December, 1951.
VWL4428 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Turner Levy 19520416 16th April, 1952
VWL456 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Rothenstein 19191209 9/12/19
VWL1542 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Rothenstein 19410624 June 24 [?1941]
VWL358 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Rothenstein 19190822 22/8/19

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