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
VWL3191 Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Mrs Ross Lee Finney 19581122 22nd November 1958
VWL3179 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to John Barbirolli 19490611 June 11 [1949]
VWL3153 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to John Ireland 19490814 [14] Aug [1949]
VWL3135 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Arnold Barter 19491013 Thursday [Oct 13/49.]
VWL3134 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Howells 19491013 13th October, 1949.
VWL3114 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to G.E. Moore 19491109 9th November, 1949
VWL3079 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to John Tressider Sheppard, Provost of King’s College Cambridge 19491116 16th November, 1949
VWL3055 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Lisette and Robert Longman 19491204 Monday [?4th December 1949]
VWL3053 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Frederick Page 19491228 28th December, 1949.
VWL3033 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Lewis Crow 19530513 13th May, 1953.
VWL3031 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Messrs Crow 19530420 20th April, 1953.
VWL3022 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Patrick Hadley 19490608 8th June, 1949
VWL3021 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19490608 8th June, 1949
VWL3020 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19490605 June 5/49
VWL2985 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Percy Young 19490428 28th April, 1949
VWL2939 Letter from Adeline Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19481230 December 30 [1948]
VWL2835 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Percy Young 19481020 20th October, 1948.
VWL2834 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Howells 19481014 14th December [i.e. October], 1948.
VWL2831 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Geoffrey Cumberlege 19540626 June 26th 1954.
VWL2810 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Katharine Thomson 19481014 Oct 14 [1948]
VWL2806 Letter from Genia Hornstein to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19481011 11.X.48
VWL2803 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Byard 19480927 Sept 27 [1948?]
VWL2791 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to T. Tertius Noble 19480904 4th September, 1948
VWL2786 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Michael Kennedy 19540210 February 10th 1954.
VWL2682 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Percy Young 19530513 13th May, 1953
VWL2600 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert Müller-Hartmann 19480522 May 22nd, 1948.
VWL2595 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Nikolai Malko 19480429 29th April, 1948
VWL2407 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Frank Howes 19520502 May 2nd [1952]
VWL2398 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Mary Glasgow 19471016 16th October, 1947.
VWL2397 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Arnold Goldsbrough 19471016 16th October, 1947

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