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
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
VWL1641 Memorandum from Norman Peterkin to Sir Humphrey Milford 19420424 April 24th 1942
VWL2795 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Alan Frank (OUP) 19540228 February 28th [1954]
VWL4336 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Alan Frank 19570118 January 18th 1957
VWL787 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Vally Lasker 192404-- April, 1924
VWL738 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Vally Lasker 1922---- [1922?]
VWL433 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19170923 Sept 23rd [1917]
VWL481 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19211011 10/11/21
VWL434 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19171001 Oct 1st [1917]
VWL487 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19220118 18/1/22
VWL480 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19211007 7/10/21
VWL491 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19220202 2/2/22
VWL3124 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Stanford Robinson (BBC) 19491030 [30th October 1949?]
VWL408 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Stainer and Bell 19140713 July 13th 1914
VWL2311 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Sir Adrian Boult (BBC) 19470730 30th July, 1947.
VWL3631 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Rutland Boughton 1940---- [1940s?]
VWL3633 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Rutland Boughton 19400312 March 12 [early 1940s]
VWL2307 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Roy Douglas 19470710 July 10 [1947]
VWL579 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert F. McEwen 19250510 [10 May 1925]
VWL133 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ralph Wedgwood 190204-- [?Early 1902]
VWL857 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ralph Greaves 19300430 April 30 [1930?]
VWL4599 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Percy Dearmer 1925---- [1925]
VWL1754 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Oxford University Press 19430309 [9 March 1943]
VWL1899 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin (OUP) 19450729 [29th July 1945]
VWL1681 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin (OUP) 19420825 Aug: 25 [1942]
VWL2012 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin (OUP) 19451027 Oct 27 [1945]
VWL2164 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin (OUP) 19470407 [7th April 1947]
VWL1578 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin 19410831 Aug 31 [1941]
VWL1694 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin 19420928 Sept 28 [1942]
VWL1679 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Norman Peterkin 19420809 Aug 9th [1942]

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