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
VWL1559 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Joy Finzi 19390414 Friday [14th April 1939]
VWL1560 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Sir Adrian Boult (BBC) 19390415 [Mid April 1939]
VWL1571 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Professor H.G. Fiedler 19390625 June 25 [1939]
VWL1608 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Howells 19391012 Oct 12 [1939]
VWL1640 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Amy Spurgeon 19420330 [30 March 1942]
VWL1673 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Eveline Reed 19420705 July 5 [1942]
VWL1676 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adrian Boult (BBC) 19420715 July 15 [1942]
VWL1756 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Elizabeth Trevelyan 19390407 April 7th [1939]
VWL1758 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ann Boult 19430416 April 16 [1943]
VWL1776 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 194603-- [?March 1946]
VWL1781 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the conductors of the choirs of the Leith Hill Musical Festival 194710-- [October 1947]
VWL1838 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ann Boult 194303-- Wednesday [March 1943]
VWL1903 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Joyce Hooper 19440319 [19 March 1944]
VWL1904 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Joyce Hooper 19440303 March 3 [1944]
VWL1911 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin 19440430 [30th April 1944]
VWL1912 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Churchwarden, Dorking Parish Church 19440504 May 4th 1944
VWL1914 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to John Ireland 19440510 10th May [1944]
VWL1982 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Margery Cullen 19500308 8th March, 1950
VWL1996 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Katharine Thomson 19500524 24th May 1950.
VWL2035 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19460425 April 25 [1946]
VWL2038 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19460505 May 5 [1946]
VWL2055 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the performers in the Leith Hill Musical Festival of 1950 195004-- [April/May 1950]
VWL2064 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 195102-- Monday [February 1951]
VWL2093 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Howells 19460901 Sept 1 [1946]
VWL2103 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19501011 11th October, 1950.
VWL2112 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adrian Boult (BBC) 19501018 Oct. 18 [1950]
VWL2137 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert Müller Hartmann 19461101 Nov 1 [1946]
VWL2156 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cedric Glover 19470215 [mid February 1947]
VWL2163 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cedric Glover 19470226 Feb 26 [1947]
VWL2166 Internal BBC memorandum to the Home News Editor from Sir Adrian Boult 19470418 April 18th 1947

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