‘Brief Encounter, 1931’

Extract

In the Spring of 1931 the German section of the ISCM staged a small-scale festival at the old-fashioned, but horticulturally attractive spa of Pyrmont in Lower Saxony. Apart from a witty and graceful Violin Concerto by my friend and co-student from Schreker's masterclass at the Berlin Academy of Music, the Polish-American Jerzy Fitelberg (son of the renowned conductor of the Warsaw Philharmonic, Grzegorz Fitelberg), the quality of the works performed was rather poor. They were certainly lacking in colour against the background of rare azaleas and bulging rhododendrons.… My own piece, now (luckily) lost for ever – a Promenadenmusik for small orchestra, meant to flatter the ‘genius loci’ – was a flop, though Aaron Copland and Marc Blitzstein were both generous about it.