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
VWL4765 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Hubert Foss (Oxford University Press) 19400916 September 16 [ca 1940]
VWL4788 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Maud Karpeles 19250615 [mid-June 1925]
VWL4864 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Maud Karpeles 1936---- [1936]
VWL4880 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Harold Child 19420813 Aug 13 [1942]
VWL4934 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Walter Leigh 19420603 June 3rd, 1942.
VWL4956 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William McKie 19470405 April 5 [1947]
VWL4958 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William McKie 19470706 July 6 [1947]
VWL4998 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Stanford Robinson 193-0303 March 3 [early 1930s]
VWL5082 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Jean Stewart 1947---- [1947?]
VWL5086 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Jean Stewart 19450104 Jan 4 [1945?]
VWL5124 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Serge Koussevitsky 1932---- [1932?]
VWL5155 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Boris Ord 193706-- Sunday [summer 1937]
VWL5209 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to E. Barry Green 19510110 10th January, 1951.
VWL5256 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Abraham 19490324 24th March, 1949.
VWL5262 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ernst Roth 19561117 November 17th 1956
VWL5268 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gillian Addis 194-0419 April 19 [1940s]
VWL5269 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gillian Addis 194-0519 May 19 [1940s]

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