Nurok has arranged a concert of music by young Russian composers to be played at the artist Makovsky's Salon exhibition, and has included three pieces of mine: 'Fairy Tale', 'Despair' and 'Suggestion diabolique'. They were to have been played by Pyshnov* but have now been passed over to Yovonovich**, a pianist known for his skill at sight-reading and for the possession of a fine soprano voice. Yovanovich was supposed to demonstrate how well he had learned my pieces by playing them through to me at Karatygin's house, but all he did was play 'Fairy Tale' execrably, and 'Despair' and 'Phantom' not at all. I made the appropriate remarks to him, in a fairly forthright but light-hearted manner, but Yovanovich took offence. Next day Nurok sent me a letter in which he asked me to apologize to the pianist. I wrote Yovanovich a charming but unapologetic note, having in fact rather taken offence myself at Nurok's attitude. As a result my pieces were not played and I ceased to attend the 'Evenings of Contemporary Music'.