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
VWL699 Completed registration form for Ralph Vaughan Williams’s cultural national service 193908-- [Summer 1939]
VWL685 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Imogen Holst 193910-- [Autumn 1939]
VWL684 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 193910-- Sunday [October 1939]
VWL683 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Imogen Holst 193909-- Sept [1939]
VWL655 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Maud Karpeles 193902-- [Early February 1939]
VWL448 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to L.J. Pollard 19190203 3/2/19
VWL444 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Edwin Evans 19180608 8/6/18
VWL436 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cecil Sharp 19171228 Dec 28th [1917]
VWL435 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Sir Alexander Kaye-Butterworth 19171202 Dec 2nd 1917
VWL433 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19170923 Sept 23rd [1917]
VWL432 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gustav Holst 19170804 Aug 4 [1917]
VWL429 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19170409 April 9th [1917]
VWL423 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Constance Machray 19160405 April 5th [1916]
VWL422 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Edward J. Dent 19150424 [24 May 1915]
VWL421 Letter from Charles Hubert Parry to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19150119 Jany 19. 1915
VWL420 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Special Constabulary Chelsea Company 19141124 Nov 24th [1914]
VWL410 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Edward J. Dent 19141008 [c.8th October 1914]
VWL406 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gustav Holst 19140701 [1 July 1914 ]

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