| Description | Letter, written from The Hut, Bray, Berkshire, is addressed 'My dear Littleton' and is dated 1 September 1908. The content is fairly cryptic with references to 'the Brighton affair', Eastbourne, Godfrey and Bournemouth. It finishes with text headed 'Private' which is followed by news of his resignation of his 'Birmingham post', a reference to his position as Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham, the reason for his resignation given 'that I cannot remain in England during the winter'.
A full transcript of this letter appears in J. N. Moore, 'Elgar and his publishers. Letters of a creative life', Vol 2 1904-1934 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pp 707-708. Moore indicates that Elgar's letter is a response to one from Littleton which had enclosed two proposals. One was from Joseph Sainton, the conductor at Brighton, asking Elgar to conduct 'Gerontius' there in December and this is presumably an explanation of his reference to 'the Brighton affair'. The other proposal was for Elgar to conduct two concerts at Eastbourne. Elgar's references to Eastbourne, Godfrey and Bournemouth are explained by his fear of upsetting the conductor of the Municipal Orchestra at Bournemouth, Dan Godfrey (1868-1939) who had asked him many times to go to Bournemouth. |