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
VWL1699 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams Geoffrey Bush 19421012 Oct 14 [1942]
VWL3374 Letter from Martin Shaw to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19580216 Feb 16th 1958
VWL1363 Letter from Honorine Williamson to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19380717 Sunday [17 July 1938]
VWL2806 Letter from Genia Hornstein to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19481011 11.X.48
VWL3224 Letter from Benjamin Britten to Ursula Vaughan Williams 19580828 August 28th 1958
VWL3707 Letter from Alan Bush to Ursula Vaughan Williams 19580828 August 28th, 1958.
VWL3708 Letter from Alan Bush to Ursula Vaughan Williams 19580828 August 28th, 1958.
VWL3709 Letter from Alan Bush to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19571231 December 31st, 1957.
VWL4459 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to René Gatty 19000101 Sunday night [1 January 1900]
VWL1206 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19370905 Sunday aft [5th September 1937]
VWL4084 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Martin Shaw 1916---- [1916]
VWL1701 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 194209-- Tuesday [September 1942]
VWL733 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Cordelia Curle 19350608 June 8th [1935]
VWL3732 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Alice Sumsion 19490225 Feb 25 [1949]
VWL2939 Letter from Adeline Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19481230 December 30 [1948]
VWL2166 Internal BBC memorandum to the Home News Editor from Sir Adrian Boult 19470418 April 18th 1947
VWL699 Completed registration form for Ralph Vaughan Williams’s cultural national service 193908-- [Summer 1939]

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