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
VWL2183 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to George Parker 19460724 July 24 [1946?]
VWL4357 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Christopher Shaw 19460715 July 15 [1946]
VWL2045 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Alan Frank (OUP) 19460704 July 4 [1946?]
VWL4214 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Sir Ivor Atkins 19460704 July 4 [1946]
VWL2043 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to H. Raymond Barnett 19460620 June 20 [?1946]
VWL2042 Letter from Jean Sibelius to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19460618 June 18, 1946
VWL3918 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Vera Hockman 19460609 June 9th [1946?]
VWL4746 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Cockshott 19460603 June 3d [1946?]
VWL3632 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Rutland Boughton 19460512 May 12 [after 1945]
VWL2037 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to George Parker 19460504 May 4 [1946?]
VWL1856 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Cordelia Curle 19460502 Thursday [2 May 1946]
VWL1775 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to H. Raymond Barnett 194605-- [about May 1946]
VWL2036 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Miss Wingate 19460429 April 29 [1946]
VWL4435 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Paul Hirsch 19460411 April11 1946
VWL4568 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to S.B. Lewertoff 19460317 March 17 [1946]
VWL4837 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Clive Carey 19460308 March 8 [1946?]
VWL5152 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cuthbert Bates 19460222 Feb 22 [1946?]
VWL4834 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Clive Carey 19460130 January 30 [1946]
VWL2026 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Douglas Lilburn 19460115 Jan 15 [1946]
VWL4672 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Cordelia Curle 19460105 Saturday night [5.1.46]
VWL2025 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert Trevelyan 19460101 New Year's Day [1946]
VWL1774 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Denis Dowling 194601-- [late 1945 or early 1946]
VWL4836 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Clive Carey 194601-- [before 25 January, 1946]
VWL4835 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Clive Carey 194601-- [?January, 1946]
VWL2903 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert Müller Hartmann 1946---- [1946 or later]
VWL1728 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ann Boult 1946---- Sunday [1946]
VWL4525 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Martin Shaw 1946-- [November, 1946]
VWL2024 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Douglas Lilburn 19451226 Dec 26 [1945]
VWL4671 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Cordelia Curle 19451118 Monday [18 November 1945]
VWL2019 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Geoffrey Keynes 19451117 November 17 [?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