ABSTRACT
The transcontinental dialogue between Cowell and Grainger covered a wide variety of topics. There are more than fifty prison letters from Cowell to Grainger from 1937 to June 1940. Cowell’s letters were consistently and rather obsessively devoted to the minutiae of five movements conceived for band, three of which became Celtic Set. Grainger had set the stage in the summer of 1939 for the premiere of Celtic Set by the Goldman Band, again remaining extraordinarily true and even protective of his friend Cowell. As the letters from Cowell to Grainger attest, the Goldman version of Celtic Set was a huskier outdoor counterpart to Cowell's San Quentin score and was the edition performed at the Golden State International Exposition. It was written on 24 August 1939, the day after Grainger and his wife Ella heard the New York City premiere of Celtic Set by the Goldman Band at the Guggenheim Band Shell in Central Park.
