Item 72 - Incomplete letter from Donald Tovey to R. C. Trevelyan

1 item

9, Swan Walk, Chelsea. - Asks if it is on literary grounds that Trevelyan wishes to shorten Minos's invocation [in Act I of "The Bride of Dionysus"], as if not he prefers the earlier version. Intends to finish his sketch of Act I, then to work on his two string-quartets and symphony. Will then try scoring Act I; if this goes well he will sketch the others. In Act III, wants Ariadne to mistake the voice of the Satyr for that of Theseus for a second. There will be several difficulties with Dionysus: wants some real duet between him and Ariadne. Feels the line in the Labyrinth scene in which Ariadne refers to 'father & mother dear' must go: 'What would Samuel Butler say?'. Would like there to be 'more of a conventional love-duet' with Theseus in the Labyrinth. A paragraph headed 'a week later' states that Tovey feels the difficulties with Act III can be solved by getting the Labyrinth scene right, setting up two contrasted duets.

Missing first sheet; unsigned. Annotation at the end reads '?1910 - much earlier I think'