Oban, Argyll, 26 Feb. 1978

Dear Sir, Thank you for sending me your Private Circulation letter no. 9 which I found interesting of course. You particularly invited any comment I might have arising out of the review. I feel that, whereas recordings nowadays may be nearer the true voice etc, - it is only partly fair to judge performances and voices solely on recordings. As the time gap increases it becomes for more and more people, and eventually everyone, the only evidence on which to form a judgement. In the future film and telerecording will also be evidence. Personally I always enjoyed Fancourt - at all performances from about 1922 until his retirement - perhaps the 1936 recording does not do him justice. Clearly the passage of time has its effect, but I never remember being disappointed with Darrell Fancourt, or later with Donald Adams. I do not remember seeing Derek Oldham more than a few times - he was very highly thought of in the twenties. I saw Martyn Green as a youngish man and Lytton as he was older and have never thought to try and compare them - in acting I think Martyn Green was superb and did not slavishly "ape" Lytton - and at the time I saw him he had a good singing voice. As to Leo Sheffield he was of course "terrific" in every part and always enjoyed - but whatever may have come out of the recording I never thought Sydney Granville had difficulty in following Sheffield. He may have had difficulty, but as far as I saw he never showed it - in fact I consider he was in all his parts one of the greats, and in the tradition which is now being carried on with even more subtlety by Kenneth Sandford - who is of course outstanding in the present company. YUM-YUM. Winifred Lawson was & always will be my "pin-up" for voice and acting in the soprano leads, and I have not seen her match as Yum-Yum - she was, too, a perfect Patience - and I've not seen anything to touch her Patience especially in acting, until seeing the present Patience lately, Barbara Lilley. PITTI-SING. I liked Aileen Davies, Marjorie Eyre, and more recently, Joyce Wright. KATISHA. I am surprised at your reviewer's very dogmatic comparison between Bertha Lewis and Ann Drummond-Grant. I agree the latter was excellent as Katisha and in other parts, but so was Bertha Lewis, she absolutely held the stage. I can only think that the comparison has relied too much on the recording for I think Bertha Lewis could hardly be bettered - though "Drummie" got vary near to it. Obviously we must turn to Mrs. Malaprop and agree that "caparisons are odorous". [Surely it was Dogberry? Ed.] In these cases I think they are also made difficult, and to some extent invalid because of the length of time over which one has to recall - and the dangers of comparing recordship. All the same there is interest and enjoyment in indulging in comparisons - so why not? Yours truly, Dr. S. J. Hadfield.

[It ought to be added that Selwyn Tillett never saw any of the singers on whom he commented in his review and was doing so purely from the records. The point raised by Dr. Hadfield that recordings often do not give you a true picture of what an artist was really like is a very valid one. John Barratt told me that on listening to the records he had a low opinion of Donald Adams (whom he has never seen). Furthermore, I have always been of the opinion that Kenneth Sandford's recordings do not do him justice, and that he will be judged severely by the next generation who will only have his records to go on; they may well wonder why we, who knew and loved him enthuse in the way Dr. Hadfield enthuses over Winifred Lawson, whom Selwyn Tillett cannot abide. Ed.]

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