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
VWL2890 Presentation of Dr Ralph Vaughan Williams to President A. Whitney Griswold by Dean Luther Noss. 19541201 [1 Dec 1954]
VWL4115 Postcard from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Mrs Turner 19512-- [December, 1954]
VWL2020 Oxford University Press file note on Ralph Vaughan Williams’s English version of Bach’s B minor Mass by Norman Peterkin 19451120 20.11.45
VWL3614 Note on Cecil Sharp’s accompaniments of folk songs 1935---- [ca 1935]
VWL3920 Newspaper extract from The Times announcing the marriage of Vaughan Williams and Ursula Wood 19530209 Monday February 9, [1953]
VWL794 Memorandum on the General Strike by Ralph Vaughan Williams 192605-- [May 1926]
VWL1641 Memorandum from Norman Peterkin to Sir Humphrey Milford 19420424 April 24th 1942
VWL2344 Lord Lechery’s song 195105-- [?May] 1951
VWL3817 Letter from William S. Hanham to Sir Alexander Kaye Butterworth 19350829 29th August 1935.
VWL3354 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Michael and Eslyn Kennedy 19560719 July 19th [1956]
VWL3429 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Michael and Eslyn Kennedy 19561002 2nd [October 1956]
VWL4207 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Martin Shaw 19530910 September 10th [1953]
VWL2664 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Herbert Byard 19530302 March 2nd 1953
VWL222 Letter from Thomas Hardy to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19081129 Nov. 29. 1908
VWL2880 Letter from the Secretary of Yale University to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19541027 October 27, l954
VWL3816 Letter from Tamplin & Co. to Sir Alexander Kaye Butterworth 19370714 14th July, 1937.
VWL1275 Letter from Sir Henry Wood to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19380125 25th January 1938.
VWL2445 Letter from Rutland Boughton to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19520703 3 July, 1952
VWL3774 Letter from Robert Müller-Hartmann to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19461028 28th Oct. 1946
VWL4327 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams’s cat to Marjory Jordan 19510829 Aug 29 1951
VWL4585 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams’s cat to Marjory Jordan 19530913 September 13th. [1953]
VWL3746 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Winifred Cole 19500426 April 26 [1950]
VWL3715 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Winifred Cole 19510512 12 May 1951
VWL3850 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Williams 19290124 Jan 24th 1929
VWL456 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Rothenstein 19191209 9/12/19
VWL1542 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Rothenstein 19410624 June 24 [?1941]
VWL358 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Rothenstein 19190822 22/8/19
VWL732 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Rothenstein 19350608 [8th June 1935]
VWL357 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Rothenstein 191910-- [?about October 1919 ]
VWL455 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Rothenstein 19191123 23/11/19

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