The Grateful and the Dead - ACE260.2

Audience waiting for music to start at rock concert. VO says that, for many years, British composers received money from the mysterious Rex Foundation of San Francisco, but had no idea who was behind it. The Grateful Dead – including skeleton musicians – in concert. Phil Lesh explaining that they don’t have time to play as many benefits as they are asked to, but the Foundation allows them to select worthy causes. Concert performance. VO Lesh. Band in concert, in rehearsal and elsewhere. Sinfonietta (1948) by Bernard Stevens plays over variety of images of English countryside, cyclist, village of Great Maplestead, Essex, June 1992: Lesh VO. Letter from Rex Foundation delivered to Stevens’s home. Stevens’s widow Bertha, says how delighted she was to receive this communication, not just because of the financial support, but because it showed appreciation of the quality of her late husband’s music. Portrait of Bernard Stevens, and home movie footage of him; Bertha’s VO saying she feels her husband was unjustly neglected because he didn’t conform to the musical establishment, and because he declared himself to be a Humanist and a Communist. Lesh talking about Stevens’s use of serial or twelve-tone techniques, but was nonetheless accessible and familiar that interested him. Bertha in recording studio; her VO says that they had no idea who was behind the Rex Foundation that was financing recordings of her husband’s music. Orchestra recording Stevens’s Sinfonietta. Bertha says it was not just the money, but the encouragement that this represented. Bernard Stevens’s tombstone. Bertha VO.