Yesterday was a Delius festival for us. In the morning I played Appalachia with Buths, in the aft. the Piano Concerto. He has a splendid command of it & will play it magnificently. For the time being we propose to do it on the 21st Oct. He was also quite enchanted by Appalachia, admittedly not without expressions of dogmatic pangs of conscience ("after all we cannot completely renounce our education"), but I confidently believe that he will do it at the 1905 Musikfest. At first we went deeply into each single section, with several repeats, afterwards we played the whole thing right through again from A-Z. It sounds pretty good even on 2 pianos. During the concerto one rather misses the distinction between the timbres, I am very curious to hear it. But the 5/4 time will not be exactly easy for the orchestra. Item - we admire & love your truly original genius! Salem Aleikum!