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
VWL1196 Letter from William H. Reed to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19340503 3/5/34
VWL1232 Letter from Steuart Wilson to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19340402 Ap.2nd 1934
VWL3912 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Vera Hockman 19340422 [22 or 23 April 1934]
VWL3490 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Michael Kennedy 19570509 May 9th 1957.
VWL3515 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Margery Cullen 19570514 May 14th 1957
VWL2450 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Joyce Hooper 19520716 July 16 [1952]
VWL1194 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Isidore Schwiller 19340304 March 4 [1934]
VWL4006 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Harold Walter at the Performing Right Society 19571223 December 20th 1957.
VWL4744 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Cockshott 194-1210 Dec 10 [1940s?]
VWL4476 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Frank Howes 19400927 Sept 27 [about 1940?]
VWL1191 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Edward Elgar 19340219 Feb 19th [1934]
VWL1241 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Diana Awdry 19340513 [13th May 1934]
VWL1195 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Diana Awdry 19340425 [25th April 1934]
VWL1676 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Adrian Boult (BBC) 19420715 July 15 [1942]
VWL1237 Letter from Carice Blake to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19340425 April 25th, 1934.
VWL3505 ‘The Fifteenth Variation’: Transcript of VW’s contribution to Elgar Centenary Programme on the BBC from the recording 195705-- [May 1957]

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