Prades. - Was very happy to see Engelbert [Röntgen] again after so many years: he is just the same as always. Hopes that Lugano will be a good place for Engelbert and his wife; the surroundings are very beautiful, and there is decent music there, which he could influence, perhaps he could direct an orchestra. Has been busy with the organisation of the 1955 [Prades] Festival; the programme is not totally fixed yet but he thinks half will be Bach, with the cantatas played by the Bach Group of New York, the violin sonatas by Menuhin, the cello suites by himself and the concertos for piano by Serkin, Horszowski and Istomin. Thinks of dedicating the other half of the festival to chamber music by Schubert and Brahms. All this promised joy, though, is obscured by the sad things in life, particularly the grave state of health of Madame Capdevila.
Montepulciano (Prov. di Siena). - Has had news from Elsa Dallolio of I Tatti, who paid her first visit there on B.B. [Berenson]'s seventieth birthday: Mary [Berenson] dined and seemed well; his own opinion is that she is getting better but also grows intolerant of everything going 'against either her hopes or her prejudices'. Elizabeth is amazed at her fluctuations in health. However there is something 'big' in her so that those with her must 'feel the benefit of her greatness' even when sharing her life has inconveniences. B.B. was very healthy, but a month of life at I Tatti at the height of the season in Florence has tired him. Mary is due to go to Vienna soon, then B.B. and Nicky [Mariano] leave for Venice; he is tempted to join them there but put off by the heat. The music at Florence has been mixed: began with hearing [Adolf] Busch's rehearsals of the Brandenburg concerto and was very taken buy the performance, though he regretted the choice of the 'modern' piano over the clavichord despite Serkin's beautiful performance). The Weingartner performance of [Beethoven's] ninth symphony was uneven. Was sorry not to hear "Norma"; found Serafin's conducting of some other Italian vocal pieces lacking delicacy; Bruno Walter gave a good performance of [Mozart's] "Seraglio", an uneven one of Mozart's "Requiem", and a difficult Mozart concerto at Palazzo Vecchio. Saw Gluck's "Alceste" on an immense scale in the Boboli gardens. [John] Walker is here again and settled in Rome: B.B. is worried that he will be distracted by 'too many girls and women'. Hopes he will see Trevelyan at the Consuma in August, where he will go to allow Nicky to take her holiday in Sorrento. Hopes Bessie Trevelyan is doing well after her operation.
Originally enclosing another letter to Julian. The [Adolf] Busch-[Rudolf] Serkin visit was 'a great success'; his German was 'not up to the occasion' but that did not matter. Thinks they are going to Paris in November or December, but Elizabeth will send concert dates. Had meant to write to Betty Chetwynd and get her to go, but saw in the evening papers that her brother Philip has 'killed himself in a tube station' so she will probably be too upset. Did not know Philip as well as her other brother [Wentworth]. Will probably not go to Italy until January. So Julian has now met Cyril Connolly: he is 'a queer fish, very intelligent but very lazy'; always got on well with him, but has never been an intimate friend.