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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.

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Letter No. Title Date Date on Letter
VWL2964 Lines by Gerald Finzi 195408-- [August 1954]
VWL2344 Lord Lechery’s song 195105-- [?May] 1951
VWL3622 Memo from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the EFDS Committee 193603-- March, 1936
VWL1641 Memorandum from Norman Peterkin to Sir Humphrey Milford 19420424 April 24th 1942
VWL794 Memorandum on the General Strike by Ralph Vaughan Williams 192605-- [May 1926]
VWL3920 Newspaper extract from The Times announcing the marriage of Vaughan Williams and Ursula Wood 19530209 Monday February 9, [1953]
VWL790 Note from Cecil Sharp [to Ralph Vaughan Williams] 192405-- [Written before June 1924]
VWL3614 Note on Cecil Sharp’s accompaniments of folk songs 1935---- [ca 1935]
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
VWL3502 Piece on Ralph Vaughan Williams by John Ireland 195809-- [1958]
VWL4114 Postcard from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Mrs Turner 19551201 [?December, 1955?]
VWL4115 Postcard from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Mrs Turner 19512-- [December, 1954]
VWL2890 Presentation of Dr Ralph Vaughan Williams to President A. Whitney Griswold by Dean Luther Noss. 19541201 [1 Dec 1954]
VWL2676 Reference for Leonard Hancock from Ralph Vaughan Williams 19530415 15th April, l953.
VWL1412 Talk by Ralph Vaughan Williams on folk song music for the BBC 19400327 [27 March 1940]
VWL1230 Telegram from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Elisabeth Lutyens 19391213 13 Dec 39
VWL3488 Transcript of VW’s contribution to Elgar Centenary Programme on the BBC 195705-- [May 1957]
VWL2963 Verse to Gerald Finzi [by Finzi] 195408-- [August 1954]

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