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
VWL765 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cedric Thorpe Davie 19350805 Monday [about 5th August 1935]
VWL738 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Vally Lasker 1922---- [1922?]
VWL637 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Lucy Broadwood 19281030 October 30 [1928]
VWL635 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Hubert Foss at Oxford University Press 19281001 [About 1 October 1928]
VWL592 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Christian Darnton 193705-- [May 1937?]
VWL579 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert F. McEwen 19250510 [10 May 1925]
VWL553 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Alan Frank (OUP) 193610-- [About October 1936?]
VWL491 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19220202 2/2/22
VWL487 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19220118 18/1/22
VWL481 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19211011 10/11/21
VWL480 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19211007 7/10/21
VWL434 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19171001 Oct 1st [1917]
VWL433 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19170923 Sept 23rd [1917]
VWL430 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19170522 May 22 [1917]
VWL429 Letter from Adeline Vaughan Williams to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust 19170409 April 9th [1917]
VWL408 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Stainer and Bell 19140713 July 13th 1914
VWL133 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ralph Wedgwood 190204-- [?Early 1902]

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