1900 saw Bantock's appointment as Principal of the Birmingham and Midland Institute from September, and the birth of his second son, Raymond. His orchestral poem Thalaba the Destroyer was premiered on 4 May, and the full score of Christus was published by Breitkopf & Härtel. Wallace's lack of communication with Bantock led to the souring of their relationship; although no correspondence between the two survives after 1900, subsequent letters to Newman confirm that eventually their relationship was repaired. Newman made his first contribution to the Contemporary Review in 1900 with the essay ‘The Old Music and the New’.

93 GRANVILLE BANTOCK TO ERNEST NEWMAN

My dear Newman.

Many thanks for your bulletin. Glad to say Concert was a success in spite of Fowler's predictions of failure, & South African Wars. I have been laid up however since my return with acute pleurodynia, (not brickbats), & have been for four days confined to bed. Rodewald has the score of the Variations, and I have asked him to let you have it for your scalpel. If you care for the Pianoforte arrangement I can send that to you. What an aristocrat you are becoming, moving to Grove Street – ahem! Can you manage to let me have the Scores during the week? I must begin to get ready for our Tower season, & have not yet made my final selection. Can you spare an evening to run over here, as I am still an invalid & confined to the house. I can tell you all the news then.

What a mess you will soon be in! – moving. I pity you. When I came here I had fourteen cases of books & stamps!

Yours

GB

94 GRANVILLE BANTOCK TO ERNEST NEWMAN

Dear Newman

Why did you not come on to see me conducting Waltzes!!! etc last evening? Unsympathetic wretch! If you do not come over to the Tower one evening next week – why not Tuesday – I shall not present you with a copy of “Christus” – a few copies of which have just arrived. I have been revelling in “Taras Bulba” and its barbaric savagery.