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
VWL842 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Evelyn Sharp 19300202 Feb 2 or thereabouts 1930
VWL841 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ernest Chapman 19450210 Feb 10 [1945]
VWL840 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert Trevelyan 19300125 Jan 25 [1930]
VWL839 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Evelyn Sharp 19300119 Sunday Jan. 19: 1930
VWL838 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Stanford Robinson 19300119 Sunday [19th January 1930]
VWL837 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Rutland Boughton 19300110 January 10 [1930]
VWL836 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Harriet Cohen 19300106 [6 January 1930]
VWL835 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Evelyn Sharp 19300103 Jan 3/1930
VWL834 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Florence Maitland 190707-- [?July 1907]
VWL833 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert Trevelyan 19351226 [c.26th December 1935?]
VWL832 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Joan Western 19351225 Xmas day [25th December 1935]
VWL831 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Evelyn Sharp 19351224 Dec 24 [1935]
VWL830 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Harriet Cohen 19351217 [17 December 1935]
VWL829 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Harriet Cohen 19300107 7 Jan 1930
VWL828 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Hubert Foss 192910-- [?late 1929]
VWL827 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Alan Frank (OUP) 19351213 Dec 13 [1935]
VWL826 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Lucy Broadwood 192908-- [Before August 1929]
VWL825 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Rutland Boughton 192907-- Sunday [mid-July 1929]
VWL824 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Elizabeth Trevelyan 192903-- [March 1929]
VWL823 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to Cordelia Curle 192810-- [October 1928]
VWL822 Letter from Lady Wimborne to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19351212 December 12th l935
VWL821 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Joan Western 19351208 December 8 [1935]
VWL820 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Margaret Ritchie 192810-- [October 1928]
VWL819 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Harriet Cohen 19351202 [2 December 1935]
VWL818 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Lady Wimborne 19351201 About 1st December 1935
VWL817 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Imogen Holst 192910-- [Autumn 1929]
VWL816 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gustav Holst 192809-- [September 1928]
VWL815 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Evelyn Sharp 192708-- [August 1927]
VWL814 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gwen Raverat 19271001 [October 1927]
VWL813 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cedric Thorpe Davie 19351128 28 November 1935

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