Henze, Hans Werner: Brief an Auden, Wystan Hugh. z.Zt. Berlin, Dienstag, 15. Februar 1966
author: Henze, Hans Werner
language: en
availability: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Hans Werner Henze-Stiftung (Dr. Michael Kerstan). (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Hans Werner Henze

z.Zt. Berlin 33
Oberhaardter Weg 45[^1]

[^1: Henze had been in Berlin since early January 1966 to assist the stage director Gustav Rudolf Sellner and the scenic and costume designer Filippo Sanjust in the preparations for the staging of the premiere of The Bassarids, since it was impossible to prepare the opera in Salzburg where the premiere was to be held, because the Festspielhaus was occupied for a new staging of Carmen conducted by Herbert von Karajan. See Henze's Autobiography, pp. 211-212 and pp. 208-209.]

15th Februar, 1966

Mr.
W.H. Wystan Auden
77, St.Mark’s Place
New York City 3, N.Y. 10003

Dear Wystan,

thanks a lot for your sweet letter. [Auden's letter to which Henze alludes here is most likely not preserved in the correspondence between Auden and Henze kept at the Paul Sacher Foundation.] In a few days I shall send you the whole German translation of the Bacchi[^2], than you can show it to Elisabeth Meier and other German speaking friends of yours to get their opinion.

[^2: Initially, Helmut Reinold was commissioned to translate the libretto of The Bassarids into German, but as the correspondence reveals, the three authors were not satisfied with Reinold’s work (the score states that Reinold arranged the text), but that the German text version was by Maria Bosse-Sporleder.]

I have been seeing various people of the German world of literature recently, and they all lamented about the fact that our works are published so badly in German and no German reader can get an idea of your potency.and importance. If only you would inform your agents that Suhrkamp for instance [The Suhrkamp publishing house does not seem to have published a German translation of any of Auden’s books.] would be happy to publish your opera omnia and instruct them to get into business [This word, written like this twice in this letter, seems not to have been written like this because of a mistyping.] with them things would be taken care of in the best way possible. If you would only tell me that you were interested in a publication of all your works by one publisher I would be happy to let the things get started.

I suffer deeply from the fact that so few people know your works and I would be very proud if those who cannot read English would at last be able to get acquainted with you.

Then there is another question: My friend and host here, Wenzel Luedecke, is a film- producer who is so bored with his business [This word, written like this twice in this letter, seems not to have been written like this because of a mistyping.] that only something very exceptional and original would wake him up and inspire him to produce a new work. Suddenly the idea came to my mind that you might be the right man to make a movie script which should be completely up to your imagination and phantasy. [The project outlined here never came to fruition: Auden apparently never wrote a plot for a film produced by Wenzel Lüdecke.] Let alone the money question. I’m sure, and so is Wenzel, that salvation for the stagnant

–2–

[Henze wrote the page number both at the bottom of the previous page and at the top of the second page itself.]

–2–

film– situation can come only from literature. Also the dialogues should be done by a poet and not by one of those idiots who usually do it and fuck everything. The only afterthought we have is that we would be glad to have Horst Buchholz and Folker in it. The rest is all up to you.

We have just seen a very good picture made by a completely unknown fellow who is 25 years old [Actually, Volker Schlöndorff was 27 years old at the time.] and seems to have an extraordinary talent as a director. The thing was Die Verwirrungen des Zoeglings Toerless using the original Musil dialogues.[^3] This might be a chap intelligent enough to direct something uncommon.

[^3: In 1966, Henze wrote the music for the film Der junge Törless (1966) for the young film director Volker Schlöndorff, based on Robert Musil's autobiographical novel, Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß (1906), which established Musil as an important writer. Henze later arranged the soundtrack into the chamber piece Fantasia für Streicher (1966).]

Please let me know your thoughts about this. I'm going to Rome for a few days end of this month [In his Autobiography, p. 209, Henze writes that he needed to come back to Rome to conduct the soloists of the Berliner Philharmoniker in a concert with his pieces.] and come back to Berlin in March for another fortnight.

Love,