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

120 Rare and Unforgettable Concerts
a stubborn jaw, and much practical business sense. Encouraged by Ezra,
he later founded the New Directions press on his uncle’s estate near
Norfolk, Connecticut, to publish the works of Pound and other Modernist
writers.
The fragmentary diary abruptly ended when Olga returned to Paris via
Turin on November 20, then crossed the Channel to perform at the American
and British Women Composers’ Club on Grosvenor Street December
1. A concert of works by Americans featured pianist Jessie Hall (Mrs.
Thompson) with Olga, ‘‘the U.S.A. guest,’’ playing a sonata by Gena
Branscombe, the last selection on the program—an honor reserved for the
most accomplished artists.
London was preparing for a royal wedding, and Olga was taken down
Bond Street to see the decorations ‘‘at a local gathering, got up by the
young Balfour girl’’ (the earl’s daughter), and with the elder Richards
followed the wedding procession. Her generous friends produced a check
for ten pounds for a new gown for her Saturday afternoon concert, but
conservative Olga ‘‘didn’t blow 10 pounds, only 4 pounds 14 on an afternoon
dress . . . useful generally.’’
Homer and Isabel Pound had moved to the Villa Raggio, up the hill on
the opposite side of Rapallo, Ezra wrote. ‘‘He wd/ like to give her a
merrier Xmas,’’ but the only gift suggested was his old typewriter—if
Olga would purchase a new one for him in London!
To revive Ezra’s waning interest, Olga replied that she was just back
from London, where she had visited Adrian Stokes in his ‘‘amusing,
‘modern’ flat . . . divided up by curtains,’’ and added that when she went to
meet Don Arturo Brown at the Ritz, ‘‘he treated me to a tête-à-tête, not a
party as expected.’’
To even the score, in his last letter of the year a petulant Ezra urged her
to ‘‘make it new’’ when planning her repertoire: ‘‘He is very fond of her . . .
[yet] she take it straight that he was awake a good deal of last night, getting
disgusteder and disgusteder, and ready to throw up the whole damn
concertization . . . nauseating to think of doing the old zuppa inglese, same
trype you get six times a week at Aeolian [Hall]. . . . The natural contrast
for Stravinsky is Bach . . . fergit she is bored / by looking up a Haydn /