83 Winchester Court
London W8 4AF

15th September 1971

My dear Bertie,

It was very good of you to send me a copy of your intriguing autobiography which - from me at any rate - you have kept hidden under a bushel all this long while. It has been of great interest to me to learn so much more than I knew before about your professional career, not to mention your private life. One fact surprises me. For some reason I always thought that I was your senior in age by a year or so, but now I find it is the other way round and shall therefore have to treat you with more respect than hitherto. The publishers are evidently confident of a "high-class" demand; otherwise they might not have issued it at the same price as that of the slightly more bulky *Music Lover's Companion*.

Your reference to an aggressive-looking irate farmer having "composed many works" prompts me to send you a copy of one of them. This was composed while I was still at Oxford, and indeed was part of the "exercise" which helped me to secure my musical degree. It was performed half a dozen times in 1928, the first two performances being conducted by John Tobin (in Liverpool), the remainder by myself. The usual cast was Gwyneth Edwards (she didn't become Mrs Hughes until five or six years later), Gladys Parr, Sidney Russell and BernardROSS. This little jeu d'esprit was also to have been included in the last week of the "London Opera Festival" (December 1929/January 1930) as a curtain-raiser to HÄNSEL and GRETEL, but owing to financial difficulties that last week was cancelled at a few days' notice. I had been rehearsing it with a cast including Joan Cross and Sumner Austin. Up till then this Festival had been an artistic although not commercial success. Jack Westrup had conducted Monteverdi's ORFEO, GerVASE HUGHES Handel's JULIUS CAESAR, Leslie Heward Mozart's LA FINTA GIARDINIERA and Beecham DER KX:GIXK. FREISCHÜTZ. Among the singers were Doris Lemon, Thea Phillips, Marjorie Parry (later the first Mrs John Barbirolli), Tudor Davies, Dennis Noble, Arthur Fear and Norman Allin.

If French Railways and "The Music Critics" fail to get anywhere I think I shall have to start on my own autobiography - although I doubt if anyone would pay £3 for it.

Again, many thanks indeed.

P.S. The fable of the knight who in order to test his wife told her that he laid an egg was discovered by my librettist Alfredd Booth in *The Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry*, published, I fancy, in the early eighteenth century. "Creevey" was a not-too subtle allusion to the gossiping writer of *The Creevey Papers*.

CASTLE CREEVEY

This short one-act opera proved quite entertaining. The story is "founded upon an old French legend", and composer and librettist are under a considerable debt to the great lights of the Savoy for their treatment. Mr. Hughes, however, exhibited quite a facile style, which he will doubtless turn to good account. - *Liverpool Echo*.

Mr. Hughes has a flair for dramatic writing which should in the course of a few years give him a recognised place among English composers of light opera. The concerted writing was particularly interesting. Immaturity only evinced itself in a rather obvious mixture of styles. The two principal influences which divided his allegiance appeared to be Armstrong Gibbs and Sullivan, although he had obviously made a many effort to escape from the spell of the latter. Occasional modern harmonies, and a judicious use of the modes, raise the work well out of the commonplace. - *Daily Telegraph*.

This little extravaganza, written in pseudo-archaic English and with satirical intent, accepts whole-heartedly the conventions of ballad-opera according to the Gilbert-and-Sullivan formula and plays swiftly. The music is fluent and tuneful, the orchestration apt. Besides songs an excellent madrigal, a vivacious duet between the two servants, and other concerted numbers are introduced. Mr Gervase Hughes, the composer, is chorus-master to the B.N.O.C., and already shows enough knowledge of the stage to make dialogue and music run smoothly together; he is able to empty modern idioms without making his music cease to be "light", though he has not yet acquited strongly individual style. Castle Creevey is a promising essay in a form that makes a strong appeal to British taste, and it was enthusiastically received by a large audience. - *The Times* (Frank Howes).

The libretto...

...written in pseudo-Shakespearean English, has a distinct charm about it, for all its absurdity. In the music the principle of the madrigal prevails, though modern idiom is not pedantically avoided. Mr. Hughes has what so few English composers have - a sense of the stage. He can score aptly and his themes are always pleasing. - *Evening Standard* (Philip Page).

This, a rather inconsiderable little satire on the old problem "Can a woman keep a secret", was frankly treated as a ballad opera: spoken dialogue interspersed with short lyrical numbers - solos, duets, and two quartets for the four principals (there was no chorus). Much of the music is charming and grateful to the ear, most of it being in the quasi-modal, downright open-air style commonly described as "English music". Two pieces, a song in praise of wine and a quartet in the madrigalian style, were outstandingly good. Mr Hughes distinctly has something to say worth saying, and his matter and manner are alike good. - *Belfast Telegraph*.