Then came the climax of the week. Cara Verson - whoever she is; to me she looks like an enlarged porcupine – had advertised for weeks that she was going to give in the Jordan Hall here, a whole programme of modern music. I was al excited; it was unprecedented, and very courageous of her in this dead city, etc., etc. And I put so much hope in that damned concert. It came: and I find it difficult to talk about it. It was a tremendous program – Malipiero, Kodály, Hindemith – and – joy of joys! – the Copland Variations. That, I guess, was the premiere in Boston. Well, to get to the point, I don’t know whether you knew it was going to be played here, but if you did, how did you allow it? In short, she gave really no performance at all. I can stand a bad performance, but not no performance. She began the thing wrong, played about two measures, skipped some variations, got lost again, skipped about 5 pages, played a few measures out of tempo – entirely without discernmentm without any idea of rhythm – and kept this us (playing little measures from choice variations) until she reached the coda. The she played about half of it and called it a day. I was purple – I wish I could let you know how incredibly bad it was. It was the work of an imbecile. I left then and broke dishes in the Georgia cafeteria. Do you see what that farce meant, Aaron? The few people that were there thought she was wonderful – such a touch! (!!!) They tried to look intellectully intelligent about the music when the whole performance was one of bafflement! The one little chance that this little town gets to hear some modern piano stuff – (nobody dares to do it at a recital) – we find instead the complete distortion of the whole art, a perversion of these people’s attitude when we need every resource to show them the right thing, correctly done. And where did this foul woman get press notices for her folder? Aaron, find that woman and have her put away. She’s fatal. << less