The war would have its effect on Alwyn’s new beginning. The technique he had determined to master would be stretched as much by film as by the concert-hall, and the pressure of war work (musical and otherwise) affected the opportunity for ‘serious’ composition. The first major works to mark his new determination to better his technique were the Rhapsody for piano quartet (1939), written for the London Piano Quartet, who performed it at the Duke’s Hall on 6 May 1940, and the Pastoral Fantasia for viola and string orchestra, which had its first performance on 3 March 1940, without an orchestra but with Curzon at the piano; the viola was played by Watson Forbes, who was again the soloist when the work had its full orchestral premiere at the Corn Exchange, Bedford on 3 November 1941, with Adrian Boult conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It is tempting to see this as the companion piece to the Concerto for oboe, harp and strings written at the end of the war; they are the musical book-ends of Alwyn’s concert-hall war. It signals a complete withdrawal from the troubles of its time; the happenings of the real world have been shut away (and indeed there is an argument that such feelings were confined by Alwyn to his symphonies, the first of which would be written long after the ending of hostilities). There were smaller works, too. His ‘Folk Tunes’ were performed by Watson Forbes (viola), Anne Baker (diseuse) and Mary Hunt (piano) at the County Cinema, Farnham on 5 May 1940, to raise money for the Lord Lieutenant’s Fund. Petrol rationing and a warm day had not helped to fill the auditorium. Alwyn’s flair for the nursery piano suite manifested in 1938 with Harvest Home (comprising ‘The Village Band’, ‘The Tinker’s Tune’, ‘Harvest Moon’, ‘The Church Bells Ring’), and From Town and Countryside (‘The Shepherd’s Song’, ‘A Ride on the Motor Bus’, ‘A Seat in the Park’, ‘The Shade of the Woods’, ‘The Soldiers March Past’, ‘The Far Cart’).