By the beginning of the 1960s Alwyn was approaching a change that would radically alter his private and professional life. Professionally he was exhausted. We know from Ariel to Miranda that by the mid-1950s he was already weary of toiling away at feature films, resenting the time and energy that he needed to pursue his ‘serious’ music. That weariness was exacerbated by advancing years, and the various nervous and physical strains that had always been a part of his artistic metabolism, the migraines, the neurasthenia stoked or alleviated by his heavy drinking and smoking. As the film commissions went on and on, so the concerthall work seemed to fizzle. The completion of the symphonic cycle in 1959 must have seemed the end of his career as a symphonist; in a sense, the very grandeur of his vision in creating it made symphonic progress beyond it difficult. His Second Piano Concerto had been put away unperformed, and understudied at the Proms by the lightweight Derby Day. His relationship with Carwithen had also reached a crossroads. In one of her many undated letters (but probably from around late 1960) she had plaintively hoped that ‘we shall be together soon – and so happy together – as ever. Seventeen years is a long time! But what fun we’ve had and so many memories which no one else knows about or can take away!’ This has shreds of happiness about it, but so many of her letters described her own worthlessness without Alwyn.