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.

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Letter No. Title Date Date on Letter
VWL3505 ‘The Fifteenth Variation’: Transcript of VW’s contribution to Elgar Centenary Programme on the BBC from the recording 195705-- [May 1957]
VWL699 Completed registration form for Ralph Vaughan Williams’s cultural national service 193908-- [Summer 1939]
VWL3112 Contribution to a party game 19491110 [10 November 1949]
VWL151 Draft notes by Ralph Vaughan Williams relating to Cecil Sharp’s English Folksongs (London 1907) 190705-- [?May 1907]
VWL2950 Foreword from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Society for the Promotion of New Music 195403-- [About March 1954]
VWL2117 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Cordelia Curle 19501103 Friday [3rd November 1950]
VWL2207 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Cordelia Curle 19510317 2.oc [about 17th March 1951]
VWL2126 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Cordelia Curle 19501219 Tuesday [19th December 1950]
VWL1088 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Diana Awdry 19330827 Sunday [?27th August 1933]
VWL1025 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19321202 Dec 2 [1932]
VWL1047 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19330223 Feb 23 [1933]
VWL3239 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Marion Scott 192-0605 June 5 [1920s]
VWL3246 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Marion Scott 19260910 Friday September 10 [1926]
VWL571 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Mary Fletcher 19240901 [Early September 1924]
VWL2775 Letter from Alan Frank (OUP) to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19480712 12th July l948
VWL707 Letter from Clive Wigram to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19350517 17th. May, 1935.
VWL3785 Letter from Dorothy Davison and Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gustav Holst 19321201 1 Dec [1932]
VWL2217 Letter from Edward J. Dent to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19510427 27 April 1951
VWL2402 Letter from Ernest Irving to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19471119 19th November, 1947.
VWL2608 Letter from Ernest Irving to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19530109 9th January 1953
VWL2306 Letter from Ernest Irving to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19470709 9th July, 1947.
VWL1425 Letter from G.M. Trevelyan to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19400612 June 12 1940
VWL5194 Letter from George Trevelyan to Ralph Vaughan Williams 189306-- [June 1893?]
VWL1752 Letter from Jean Stewart to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19430218 18:2:43
VWL2843 Letter from John Warrack to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19540713 13th July 1954
VWL822 Letter from Lady Wimborne to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19351212 December 12th l935
VWL2881 Letter from Luther Noss to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19541028 October 28, 1954
VWL3714 Letter from Margot Fonteyn to Vaughan Williams Memorial subscribers 195903-- March, 1959
VWL3663 Letter from Ralph and Ursula Vaughan Williams to Cordelia Curle 19550914 Sept 14th 1955
VWL3952 Letter from Ralph and Ursula Vaughan Williams to George Frederick McCleary 19530216 February 16th [1953]

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