 Through the winter of 1959 – 60 Grainger continued to perform his own music , often covering long distances by bus or train ; he would not travel by air . On 29 April 1960 he gave his last public concert , at Dartmouth College in Hanover , New Hampshire , although by now his illness was affecting his concentration . On this occasion his morning recital went well , but his conducting in the afternoon was , in his own words , " a fiasco " . Subsequently confined to his home , he continued to revise his music and arrange that of others ; in August he informed Elsie that he was working on an adaptation of one of Cyril Scott 's early songs . His last letters , written from hospital in December 1960 and January 1961 , record attempts to work , despite failing eyesight and hallucinations : " I have been trying to write score for several days . But I have not succeeded yet . " 
