Pièce 182 - Letter from Donald Tovey to Elizabeth Trevelyan

1 item; typed letter with MS salutation and initialled signature

Hedenham Lodge, Bungay, Suffolk. - Sorry to have kept [Peter] Rybar's "Prelude and Fugue" for so long, which shows a 'great natural talent for counterpoint in a classical language'. Wishes he could give 'more definite advice': Rybar shows no sign of a liking for modern music, but would need 'a lot of the dullest grammatical training before his work could become masterly', which at his age he would find 'disgusting', yet Tovey doubts whether he could 'assimilate a training in a modern style'. If at the age of twenty-four his 'mind is as 18th-century as this composition', it is too broad 'for the narrow modern disciplines that are the only alternatives to anarchy'. Thinks he himself could keep him interested if he could teach him at Edinburgh. [Paul] Hindemith has the 'most disciplined mind in all modern music', and Rybar should definitely study with him 'if politics permitted', though Tovey does not know what the result would be; Rybar seems to have an 'excellent violinist's ear, but a mere pianoforte-keyboard ear for fine detail in polyphony'.