Olga Rudge & Ezra Pound: "What Thou Lovest Well..."

110 Rare and Unforgettable Concerts
Savoy Hotel at a choice table in the window. Then to the first night of Der
Rosenkavalier at Covent Garden, ‘‘where His friend, [Sir Thomas] Beecham
conducted marvelously, even if he did . . . leave the singers tailing
after.’’ Covent Garden was ‘‘jam-packed, and there were a lot of old
frumps and a few good-looking young things (female), and no good
looking males, and old [Isadore] de Lara with one foot in the grave, Lady
Colifax, Lady Lowery (looking like the wreck of the Hesperus), the Duchess
of York. And if you saw the way the patriotic British female sti√ens to
attention for the ‘God Save the what-you-may-call him,’ chest out, hands
at sides, just like a Tommy on parade at the mention of [the] holy nime
[name] . . . no wonder poor old [King] George leads a pure and virtuous
life.’’
Adrian Stokes turned up, ‘‘most shatteringly beautiful,’’ and took Olga
to dine in Soho. He had searched out and copied rare texts for the Cavalcanti
opera, and was the recipient of Pound’s encouragement, publicity,
and instruction while laboring over the first volume of his masterwork,
Stones of Rimini.
Inspired by Olga’s presence in Rapallo for part of each year, Ezra was
organizing a series of concerts fashioned after the string quartets that
flourished in the ‘‘chambers’’ of every Italian town during the Renaissance.
The idea had come to him when he and Olga attended a concert
with Manlio Dazzi in Cesena. Could Rapallo, another small town of some
fifteen thousand people—ten thousand of whom were contadini who lived
in the hills—support such a series with first-rate music?
Long favored by British travelers and the Romantic poets, Rapallo
remained a retreat for writers and artists in the 1920s and 1930s. Max
Beerbohm’s villa was just outside the town, and Expressionist painter
Oskar Kokoschka, and Nobel Prize winners Thomas Mann, Gerhart
Hauptman, and W. B. Yeats often were seen strolling along the seaside
promenade. As Yeats described the ambiente: ‘‘On the broad pavement by
the sea pass Italian peasants or working people . . . a famous German
dramatist, the barber’s brother looking like an Oxford Don, a British
retired skipper, an Italian prince descended from Charlemagne and no
richer than the rest of us, and a few tourists seeking tranquility. As there is
no great harbor full of yachts, no great yellow strand, no great ballroom,