With the production of Constant Lambert's last ballet "Tiresias" in 1951 and his death not long afterwards it was the end of an era for the Royal Ballet.... The ballet had been composed a year before but we were anxiously awaiting the orchestration in order to prepare the parts. All be brought us was the first number on outsize manuscript paper that would not fit into any folder, the rest arrived in small sections which had been orchestrated by a number of his friends: Robert Irving, Dennis ApIvor, Christian Darnton, Elizabeth Lutyens and Dr. Gordon Jacob. Lambert had decided to use an orchestra without violins or violas, with a large wind section, cellos, basses, percussion and solo piano. As the first performance drew near I was away on tour and Tim Killar was copying day and night. At the first rehearsal Lambert decided that he needed a few more bars as an Interlude and this he dictated in the stalls to the hapless Tim who was obliged to lie on the floor as the only flat surface on which to write. He then copied the parts, passing them direct to the players in the pit as he finished each one. The ballet was over an hour long and was not received with rapture, the number portraying the copulation of two snakes giving a certain amount of offence to an audience in 1951. By being drastically cut it was shortened to fifty minutes an in the following years I took the opportunity of editing out some of the discrepancies in orchestration arising from its having been scored by a committee! I had to make a new full score anyway as every orchestrator seemed to have used a different size of paper and it was impossible to bind it all together in a presentable fashion. << less