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
VWL707 Letter from Clive Wigram to Ralph Vaughan Williams 19350517 17th. May, 1935.
VWL706 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Harriet Cohen 19350510 May 10 [1935]
VWL705 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Arthur Bliss 19350427 April 27 [1935]
VWL703 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cedric Thorpe Davie 19350418 April 18th 1935
VWL702 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gerald Finzi 19350417 April 17 [1935]
VWL701 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 193909-- [September 1939]
VWL700 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Diana Awdry 19350415 April 15 [1935]
VWL699 Completed registration form for Ralph Vaughan Williams’s cultural national service 193908-- [Summer 1939]
VWL698 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 193908-- [August 1939?]
VWL697 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 194108-- [August 1941?]
VWL696 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Professor H.G. Fiedler 193905-- [?May 1939]
VWL695 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herma Fiedler 193807-- [?July 1938]
VWL694 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herma Fiedler 193806-- [Late June 1938]
VWL693 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Arnold Goldsbrough 193802-- [After April 1935]
VWL692 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Cedric Thorpe Davie 193703-- [?Mid or late March 1937]
VWL691 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to William Rothenstein 193703-- [?About March 1937]
VWL690 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Diana Awdry 19291016 [16th October 1929]
VWL688 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Harriet Cohen 19291003 [3 October 1929]
VWL687 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Elizabeth Maconchy 193912-- [Christmas 1939?]
VWL686 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ursula Wood 193911-- [November 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]
VWL682 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Robert Müller-Hartmann 193908-- Sunday [before September 1939]
VWL681 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to W.W. Thompson at the BBC 19290730 [30 July 1929]
VWL680 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Rutland Boughton 19290721 July 21 [1929]
VWL679 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Rutland Boughton 19290712 [12 July 1929]
VWL678 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to W.W. Thompson of the BBC 193907-- [July 1939]
VWL677 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Sylvia Drew 193906-- [June 1939]
VWL675 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to H.G. Fiedler 193906-- Sunday [?June 1939]

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