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
VWL3802 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Pietro Lauricella 19291031 Oct 31 [about 1929]
VWL4079 Letter from Lionel Tertis to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19291024 Oct-24-29
VWL3675 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Michael Mullinar 19291021 [21 October 1929]
VWL690 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Diana Awdry 19291016 [16th October 1929]
VWL3648 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Maud Karpeles 19291006 Oct 6th [1929]
VWL689 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ina Boyle 19291006 [6th October 1929]
VWL688 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Harriet Cohen 19291003 [3 October 1929]
VWL4397 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Frances Farrer, Secretary of the Leith Hill Musical Competitions 192910-- [October 1929]
VWL828 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Hubert Foss 192910-- [?late 1929]
VWL817 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Imogen Holst 192910-- [Autumn 1929]
VWL3977 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Alexander Burnard 19290918 18 Sep 1929
VWL3978 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Alexander Burnard 19290905 5 September 1929
VWL4813 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Maud Karpeles 192909-- [September 1929]
VWL664 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Diana Awdry 192908-- [August 1929]
VWL826 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Lucy Broadwood 192908-- [Before August 1929]
VWL666 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Diana Awdry 192908-- [July/August 1929]
VWL681 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to W.W. Thompson at the BBC 19290730 [30 July 1929]
VWL5076 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Editor of The Times 19290721 July 21 [1929]
VWL680 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Rutland Boughton 19290721 July 21 [1929]
VWL4177 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ivor Atkins 19290714 July 14 [1929]
VWL679 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Rutland Boughton 19290712 [12 July 1929]
VWL825 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Rutland Boughton 192907-- Sunday [mid-July 1929]
VWL4849 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Peter Montgomery 19290624 June 24 [1929?]
VWL676 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Malcolm Sargent 19290623 Sunday [23 June 1929]
VWL671 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to W.W. Thompson (BBC) 19290604 [4 June 1929]
VWL5118 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge 19290521 May 21 [1929]
VWL670 Letter from Evangeline Farrer and the Conductors of the LHMF choirs to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19290501 May Day 1929
VWL669 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Isidore Schwiller 19290402 [2nd April 1929]
VWL668 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Penelope Spencer 19290331 [About 31st March 1929]
VWL667 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Royal College of Music 19290322 March 22 1929

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