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
VWL4692 Letter from Ernest Irving to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19480321 Sunday [21 March 1948]
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
VWL1789 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Elizabeth Trevelyan 19430623 June 23 1943
VWL1764 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gwen Beckett (BBC) 19430521 [May 21st 1943]
VWL1691 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Hubert Foss 19420923 Sept 23 [1942]
VWL1670 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19420603 June 3rd, 1942
VWL4934 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Walter Leigh 19420603 June 3rd, 1942.
VWL1641 Memorandum from Norman Peterkin to Sir Humphrey Milford 19420424 April 24th 1942
VWL1633 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 19420308 [About 8th March 1942]
VWL4024 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Performing Right Society 19420111 Jan 11th 1942
VWL1601 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Howells 19411213 Sat: [13th December 1941]
VWL1599 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19411210 Dec 10 [1941]
VWL1584 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Hubert Foss (OUP) 19411106 Nov 6 [1941]
VWL1550 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Harry Blech 194109-- Thurs [mid-1941]
VWL1553 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Hubert Foss (OUP) 19410803 Aug 3rd [?1941]
VWL4782 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Louis Boyd Neel 19401106 Nov 6 [1940]
VWL1463 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adrian Boult (BBC) 19401026 Oct 26 [1940]
VWL524 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Hubert Foss 1938---- [about 1938]
VWL4613 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Marion Scott 19371230 [30 Dec 1937]
VWL4326 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Marion Scott 19370803 August 3 [1937]
VWL1200 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19370728 [28th July 1937]
VWL1190 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19370725 Sunday [25th July 1937]
VWL1188 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Joy Finzi 19370708 July 8 [1937?]
VWL1175 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Alan Frank (OUP) 19370427 April 27 [1937]
VWL4474 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Frank Howes 19370212 February 12 [1937]
VWL1140 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Evelyn Sharp 19370131 January 31 [1937].
VWL3245 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Marion Scott 19360821 August 21 [1936?]
VWL734 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Rev. Greville Cooke 19350609 [9th June 1935]
VWL184 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Hubert Foss 19350106 [6 January 1935]
VWL1316 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Vally Lasker 19341002 Oct 2 [34]

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