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.
Describes his sessions with his analyst: 5 days a week, is aware he has to do all the work, while the analyst merely restates what he has said; describes the work he needs to do for his PhD; describes the many concerts he has attended, the two highlights already described: concerts by Solomon and Curzon, followed by Beethoven conducted by Walter, Koussevitsky with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Toscanini in a non-broadcast benefit concert at Carnegie Hall, with the result that he heard the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th in 10 days. Read [Graham Greene's] 'The Heart of the Matter'; asks if PS has resumed psychiatric sessions on his return to Cambridge.
Describes a 'magnificent' concert featuring Clifford Curzon with Bruno Walter and the N.Y. Philharmonic, which brought back memories of the glorious weekend with PS before he left for Paris; it's been a great year for English pianists, describes a concert by Solomon and also mentions Myra Hess; is getting on well with Frances [Whyte], but no break on the matrimonial front; is pleased to read what PS had to say about analysis, that the work is all the patient's; says PS is a lot sicker than he is, and will have to do a lot more work; describes his religious problems, has been studying Will Herberg, appreciates that he writes meaningfully about Judaism.