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

139 Overture to War
concertos, motets, and arias, along with the Organ Concerto in A and the
Concerto in A Minor for four clavichords transcribed by Bach: ‘‘For this
occasion,’’ Casella wrote, ‘‘there was no question of presenting transcriptions,
but of reconstructing the original . . . where intermediary scores
were missing (second violins and violas), an attempt has been made to use
the Venetian style.’’ The concert version of the opera L’Olimpiade was
performed for the first time since Vivaldi’s death in 1741.
The Rapallo concerts continued in 1940, with a diminished audience:
‘‘Every activity, everbuddy settin’ waitin’ for one or other cat to jump.’’ In
June, Marshal Pétain, head of the French collaborationist government,
signed an armistice with Germany, and on June 14 Hitler’s army marched
down the Champs Elysées through the Arc de Triomphe.
Olga noted that Ezra’s letter of July 12 was the first opened by censors.
His almost daily correspondence was written in Italian, as if he feared the
censors might misunderstand English and confiscate them. He often commented
on the news: ‘‘Eddie [King Edward VIII, after his abdication Duke
of Windsor] appointed Governor of the Bahamas.’’ George Antheil’s
brother, who was just beginning a promising career with the U.S. Department
of State, was killed in an air crash in Finland.
Olga was concerned about Mary, who wanted to return to her foster
parents in the Tyrol for the summer. ‘‘It may be all right, her going back to
the soil, only . . . she will only be getting her head swelled by being most
important frog in a small puddle. . . . I do not like small puddles, and when
I get into them, my reaction is to dive completely under and pretend I’m
not there.’’
She heard that Dorothy Pound and some friends were planning to
travel to Siena in September for the Accademia concert week: ‘‘If His
legitime calklating to join her cronies here for Scarlatti, this one will not be
pleased.’’
Ezra had hoped to arrive in time for the Palio, but Olga wrote that there
would be no Palio till the end of hostilities. Like many others, the Sienese
imagined the war would end by September, when they would stage a
‘‘Victory’’ Palio. ‘‘If she wants to worrit about something,’’ Ezra replied
pessimistically, ‘‘at least base her troubles on the idea that cousin Adolf