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
VWL1899 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin (OUP) 19450729 [29th July 1945]
VWL1900 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19450803 [3rd August 1945]
VWL1901 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adrian Boult 19440305 [About 5th March 1944]
VWL1902 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adrian Boult 19440309 March 9 [1944]
VWL1904 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Joyce Hooper 19440303 March 3 [1944]
VWL1905 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gwen Beckett (BBC) 19440312 March 12 [1944]
VWL1906 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Julian Herbage (BBC) 19440319 March 19 [1944]
VWL1907 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adrian Boult (BBC) 19440326 March 26 [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
VWL1913 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cecil Armstrong Gibbs 19440514 May 14 [1944]
VWL1914 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to John Ireland 19440510 10th May [1944]
VWL1915 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert Mü̈ller-Hartmann 19440516 May 16th [1944]
VWL1916 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Douglas Lilburn 19440522 May 22 [1944]
VWL1917 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Sir Henry Wood 19440531 May 31 [1944]
VWL1918 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert & Bessie Trevelyan 19440602 June 2d [1944]
VWL1919 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Margaret Keynes 19440603 June 3 [1944]
VWL1920 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Arnold Barter 19440617 June 17 [?1944]
VWL1921 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Arnold Barter 19440706 July 6 [?1944]
VWL1925 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Fritz Hart 19440813 Aug 13 [?1944]
VWL1926 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Elizabeth Maconchy 19440813 Aug 13 [1944]
VWL1928 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 19440819 Aug 19th [1944]
VWL1931 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Kenneth Wright (BBC) 19440903 Sept 3 [1944]
VWL1932 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Reverend James Welch 19440908 Sept 8 [1944]
VWL1935 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19440925 [25th September 1944]
VWL1937 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Victor Hely-Hutchinson (BBC) 19441013 [13 October 1944]
VWL1938 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Howells 19441013 Oct 13 [1944]
VWL1939 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Imogen Holst 19441015 Oct 15 [1944]
VWL1940 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Roy Douglas 19441015 October 15 [1944]
VWL1941 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19441018 Oct 18 [1944]

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