Item 21 - Letter from Stanley Makower to R. C. Trevelyan

1 item

Grosvenor House, Chiswick Lane, W. - has 'just taken off a pair of white kid gloves' after reading "Sisyphus" for the third time, this time aloud to [his wife] Agnes; claims to have worn them for each reading, as befitting 'a thing so elegant'. Is still 'too dizzy with the brilliance' of the piece to say anything coherent. Is curious about the 'appropriate sort of music'; imagines it as 'a mixture of Strauss the Waltz King with Strauss the composer of "Also sprach Zarathustra"', but there must be 'nothing gross... even the flattest farcical bits must be lightly covered in a starry enchantment'. Does not know how the musician can 'keep within the bounds of the verse', but expects this has been considered and is 'no good at metres'; in any case a listener can understand the lines 'even when mutilated by an unskilled reader', as Agnes followed them easily. Is afraid he took the first two acts 'too pompously', which was not the fault of the kid gloves as he forgot he was wearing them; took the last act 'more lightly and more colloquially' which he thinks Agnes wanted. Much refreshed by reading "Sisyphus", which came just as he had sent the second third of his "[Richard] Savage: [A Mystery Biography]" to the printer, and was kept at home and off his own work by sciatica. Hopes to get to the [British] Museum for more research tomorrow; supposes Trevelyan will not be in London for some time, but would like to meet, and hear more about the music. Postscript asking for a clarification of a point in the text.