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
VWL1642 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cedric Glover 19391128 Nov 28 [1939]
VWL1650 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Thomas Pitfield 1945---- [Before May 1945]
VWL1656 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 1945---- [Sometime between 1938 and 1946]
VWL1660 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19420505 [5th May 1942]
VWL1663 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 19420520 [20 May 1942]
VWL1688 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adine O’Neill 19420909 Sept 9 [1942]
VWL1690 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adine O’Neill 19420921 Sept 21 [1942]
VWL1698 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Fritz Hart 19421011 Oct 11 1942
VWL1719 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to John Tindall Robertson 19421024 Oct 24 [1942]
VWL1721 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adine O’Neill 19421025 Oct 25 [1942]
VWL1738 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adine O’Neill 19421226 Dec 26 [1942]
VWL1741 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 194208-- [?August 1942]
VWL1759 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Vera Kantrovich 19430403 April 3rd [1943?]
VWL1793 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Vera Kantrovich 19430726 July 26 [1943]
VWL1810 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Ann Boult 19431015 October 15 [1943]
VWL1814 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adine O’Neill 19431026 Oct 26 [1943]
VWL1820 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Vera Kantrovich 19431127 Nov 27 [1943]
VWL1821 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Arthur Bliss (BBC) 19431215 Dec 15 [1943]
VWL1831 Letter from A.H. Fox-Strangways to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19431225 Xmas 1943
VWL1833 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Frederick Page 19431225 Xmas Day [1943]
VWL1857 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert Müller Hartmann 19450102 Jan 2nd 1945
VWL1887 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Cordelia Curle 19450509 Wednesday [May 9 1945]
VWL1889 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Victor Hely-Hutchinson (BBC) 19450514 May 14th 1945.
VWL1933 Letter from James W. Welch (BBC) to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19440912 12th September, 1944.
VWL1952 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Elizabeth Maconchy 19441225 Xmas day [1944]
VWL1957 Letter from Michael Tippett to Ralph Vaughan Williams 194401-- Sat [?January 1944]
VWL2166 Internal BBC memorandum to the Home News Editor from Sir Adrian Boult 19470418 April 18th 1947
VWL2802 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Mrs Turner 19540320 March 20th 1954.
VWL2807 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Mrs Turner 19540325 March 25th [1954]
VWL2895 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Genia Hornstein 1942---- Friday [?1942 or later]

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