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
VWL1237 Letter from Carice Blake to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19340425 April 25th, 1934.
VWL1243 Letter from Isobel Holst to Ralph and Adeline Vaughan Williams 19340603 June 3. 1934
VWL1275 Letter from Sir Henry Wood to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19380125 25th January 1938.
VWL1335 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19380711 Monday [11 July 1938]
VWL1336 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19380712 Tuesday [12 July 1938]
VWL1360 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19380715 Friday smorn [15 July 1938]
VWL1363 Letter from Honorine Williamson to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19380717 Sunday [17 July 1938]
VWL1365 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19380718 Monday [18 July 1938]
VWL1366 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19380721 Thur [21 July 1938]
VWL1381 Letter from Sir Henry Wood to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19381007 October 7th 1938
VWL1415 Letter from Henry Wood to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19400416 April 16th, 1940.
VWL1446 Letter from Donald Francis Tovey to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19381129 29th November, 1938.
VWL1459 Letter from G.M. Trevelyan to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19401008 Oct 8 1940
VWL1585 Letter from Norman Peterkin (OUP) to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19411110 [10 November 1941]
VWL1611 Letter from Robert Longman to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19411221 21.12.41
VWL1629 Letter from Myra Hess to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19420119 January 19th 1942
VWL1692 Letter from Ferdinand Rauter to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19420926 26. September 1942
VWL1746 Letter from Ralph Wedgwood to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19430127 27.i.43
VWL1782 Letter from Ursula Wood to Ralph Vaughan Williams 194710-- [October 1947]
VWL1791 Letter from Adrian Boult to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19430627 27 June 1943
VWL1800 Letter from Arthur Bliss to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19430817 17th August, 1943
VWL1824 Letter from Jean Stewart to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19431221 18:XII:43
VWL1831 Letter from A.H. Fox-Strangways to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19431225 Xmas 1943
VWL1865 Letter from Adrian Boult to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19440214 14th February 1944
VWL1933 Letter from James W. Welch (BBC) to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19440912 12th September, 1944.
VWL1957 Letter from Michael Tippett to Ralph Vaughan Williams 194401-- Sat [?January 1944]
VWL1977 Letter from Ernest Irving to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19500202 2nd February, 1950.
VWL2013 Letter from Gerald Finzi to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19451105 [5 November 1945]
VWL2042 Letter from Jean Sibelius to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19460618 June 18, 1946
VWL2122 Letter from Rutland Boughton to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19501208 8.12.50

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