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
VWL478 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Joanna Hadley 19210814 14/8/21
VWL479 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Joanna Hadley 19210816 [About 16th August 1921]
VWL500 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Rothenstein 19220701 [1st July 1922]
VWL502 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Cordelia Curle 19220417 Friday [14th July 1922]
VWL572 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Howells 19241026 [26 October 1924]
VWL578 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert F. McEwen 19250329 [29 March 1925]
VWL579 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert F. McEwen 19250510 [10 May 1925]
VWL580 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to John Blackwood McEwen 19260729 [29th July l926]
VWL593 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Edward J. Dent 19251107 [7th November 1925]
VWL594 Letter from Hubert Foss to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19251111 11-11-25
VWL1094 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Diana Awdry 19330830 Wednesday [?30th August 1933]
VWL1095 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19330904 Monday [4th September 1933]
VWL1626 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Stanford Robinson (BBC) 19420104 Jan. 4th [1942]
VWL1689 BBC internal memorandum from Sir Adrian Boult to Arthur Bliss 19420915 September 15th 1942
VWL1743 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 194210-- [About October 1942]
VWL2015 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19451108 Nov 8 [1945]
VWL2019 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Geoffrey Keynes 19451117 November 17 [?1945]
VWL2184 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Katharine Thomson 19470531 31st May, 1947.
VWL2263 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Byard 19510706 6th July, 1951.
VWL2332 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Byard 19511218 18th December, 1951.
VWL2351 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Katharine Thomson 19520109 9th January, 1952.
VWL2573 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ernest Irving 19470227 Feb 27 [1947?]
VWL2956 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Eric Walter White 19490228 Feb 28 [1949]

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