Henze, Hans Werner: Brief an Kallman, Chester. Castel Gandolfo (Roma), Donnerstag, 6. August 1964
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

Castel Gandolfo (Rom)
Via dei Laghi 18

August 6, 1964 [On the same day, 6 August 1964, Henze wrote another letter to Chester Kallman and Wystan H. Auden about The Bassarids.]
Dearest Chester,

It was wonderful to hear from you after you seemed to have completely disappeared and I did miss your and Wystan's news enormously.[^1] I am glad you found love in Greece and I wish you happiness from the center of my heart. [In his letter, Kallman wrote about his new Greek partner, Kosta.] I imagine you sunburned and in the best of spirits, and your hair constantly growing by means of those damned pills you recommended to me which made me fall ill. And did not one hair come out of my skull, although I admit some came out of my nose.

[^1: Kallman's letter, which Henze is replying to here, was written after a gap of over three years in the Henze, Auden and Kallman correspondence. In fact, the last letter Henze received before this exchange of letters was dated 17 March 1961 and his secretary's letter to Kallman was dated 25 September 1961.]

I have had quite a good time in Berlin and finished the first half of The Young Lord there.[^2] Then I conducted two concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic who I'll never forget for the beautiful sweetness of the orchestra and the enormous success I completely unexpectedly got (more calls than Karajan ever had in Berlin).[^3]

[^2: Henze lived in Berlin's Trabenstraße in the summer of 1964, where he composed the entire Act I of the opera The Young Lord, as he writes in his Autobiography, p. 191. Henze would continue to live in Berlin through the winter of 1964-1965 with a Ford Foundation fellowship, obtained at the same time as Ingeborg Bachmann and Wystan Hugh Auden.]

[^3: Henze conducted two very successful concerts on 9 and 12 April 1964, during which the Berliner Philharmoniker performed his symphonies. On that occasion (on 9 April 1964) Henze's 1. Sinfonie (composed in 1947) was also premiered. See Henze's Autobiography pp. 70-71 and also Rudolf Stephan, Henzes Sinfonien. Zu zwei Konzertabenden der Berliner Symphoniker, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung München (17 April 1964).]

Then I had a not so good time in a not so good place called Düsseldorf where I staged and conducted a difficult opera called The Prince of Homburg. [The opera Der Prinz von Homburg was performed at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, conducted by Henze himself, on 21 May 1964.] On weekends I went to Amsterdam and had a thing with a Dutch baby, or the Dutch baby came for the weekend to Düsseldorf but in the meantime it turned out not to be too glorious, submitting to the erroneous conviction of being terribly clever and desirable and that was that. Then I gave up being subsidized by the Ford Foundation and went back to Italy.[^4] The Young Lord is almost finished [In his Autobiography, p. 191, Henze writes that he completed the composition of the Act II of The Young Lord at Castel Gandolfo.] and I have started to complete my planning of The Bassarides, about which I am writing to both of you today. But now to the most important thing of the moment:

[^4: It is not known when and why Henze gave up the Ford Foundation scholarship. The composer was certainly awarded the scholarship in the winter semester of 1964-1965 and lived in Berlin at the same time of Bachmann and Auden, who were also recipients of the Ford Foundation scholarship, see Henze's Autobiography, pp. 190-191.]

Darling, I promise to do what I can for Kosta, [In his previous letter, Kallman asked Henze for help in finding a job in Germany as a model for his partner Kosta from Greece.] and in fact I wrote a letter today to Mr. Klaus Nickstadt who is the owner of Nick's Men Shop in Munich and in Berlin. He is very nice and he is also the only person I know in the whole world who has to do with advertising and therefore with models. I hope my attempt will be successful and I asked Nickstadt to write to you directly. Renate was really very ill a month ago and very unhappy and also she went away from Munich for awhile, so she might have forgotten to send you information. But now perhaps you could write to her again, after all she adores you and also she certainly knows more about those things in Munich than I do. Folker I cannot ask because he is on a tournee Hans Werner Henze –2– in South America and later the southern part of the U . S.A., and will be back only in the beginning of December.[^5] I miss him with such pain that it's almost physical and also understand better than when he was always around, that he is the noblest, most honest, and most mannerly hearted friend in the world and I thank God that he exists. I still don't know how to stand all those lonely months until he comes back, just whoring around and disliking it. Anyway, I shall work very hard and I am determined to make The Bassarides very, very good. I'm quite satisfied with what I did nel genere dell'opera buffa, and of course your predictions that it would be difficult were right but now it's getting very serious.

[^5: At the time of this letter, Folker Bohnet was Henze’s partner. In his Autobiography, p. 191, the composer writes about Folker's tour as follows: Folker had gone to South America with a German touring company, giving his Hamlet to the subcontinent’s German colonies. I had said goodbye to him at the airport in Düsseldorf and now felt a certain emptiness, not least because the tour was to last rather more than a year.]

Thinking of a job for Kosta I keep wondering why he should take a job which is so insecure and also limited in the future as a photo model. Usually, as far as I know, young actors or other professionalists are models for｜ [This is a stroke that separates two words that were written together.] the sake of some extra money; especially in a country like Germany which is not very remarkable where advertisement is concerned. On the other hand, in a town like Munich, any kind of job should be available because of the we l l known lack of available people. He could be, I don't know, for instance, a driver. He could of course work in a restaurant, just to mention the simplest things and it also might make him happier to have a steady job and in the long run to be able not to feel himself kept, which would be better for both of you. Please think about that and I'm pretty sure of being right.