A few days later I received a letter from Bill Brown: Dear Hilary, I have resisted writing this letter, but the strain is too great. So, you’d better know, in my unworthy opinion, among the many exciting and felicitous and moving things that went to make up Saturday’s St Matthew Passion at St George’s nothing matched your playing of the obligato in No. 58. Your total absorption in the piece, the nuances, the timing of every minutest detail, and the sheer beauty of the sound you and your pipe produced, were unforgettably lovely. Flute playing has (I confess with shame and apologise to all your many excellent colleagues) never before moved me like this. I am prepared to accept that it may never do so again. So thank God and you for this unique performance. I think I am one of those rare folks who have actually seen a nightingale in full song. It was in daytime of course and I had him under binocular observation for three utterly fascinated minutes. He not only sang from his ankles (as Jean de Reszke said a man should) but the whole tone, the earth from which it sprang, indeed the whole riotous late-April Spring were all concentrated into the bird’s throat. You achieved this same effect on Saturday. You filled the whole place with the ultimately inescapable question: ‘What think you of Christ?’ Thank you. My love to all at Ashmansworth. << less