Having completed his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in 1892 (the same year that his opera Caedmar was produced at the New Olympic Theatre in London and his drama Rameses II published by D. Stott), Bantock launched the New Quarterly Musical Review in 1893 under his editorship, to which he, Wallace and Newman contributed in later issues; he also toured the provinces between August and September as musical director of a travelling opera company and met Tchaikovsky after the composer had conducted his Fourth Symphony at a Philharmonic concert. Wallace, who had studied at the RAM in 1889 (the same year that Newman began his work as a clerk in the Bank of Liverpool), had already had several works performed, including his vocal scena Lord of Darkness in 1890 and his ‘Shelley Trio’ (a song setting from Prometheus Unbound, ‘My Soul is an Enchanted Boat’ for voice, piano and violin), the orchestral suite The Lady from the Sea, and his first symphonic poem, The Passing of Beatrice, in 1892. Wallace's Spanish Songs were premiered on 17 May 1893 and his orchestral prelude The Eumenides on 21 October at the Crystal Palace. Newman had already published a number of essays under his pseudonym in the secular journal National Reformer from 1889, and in 1893 contributed several articles to the Free Review, established by the freethinker John M. Robertson.

1 GRANVILLE BANTOCK TO ERNEST NEWMAN

Dear Sir

In answer to your communication of the 24th inst, just received, I write to inform you that your article will appear in No 2, which will come out on August 1st. Proofs will be sent to you early in July, which I will ask you to return to me as soon as corrected. I notice that your article is signed “Ernest Newman.” Do you wish to keep it, or write under your own name?

Yours very truly

Granville Bantock.

To.

Wm. Roberts Esq

Liverpool.

2 GRANVILLE BANTOCK TO WILLIAM WALLACE