Letter from W. H. Auden/C. Kallman to H. W. Henze, January 6, 1959
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- 1958-12-01: from Henze
Following
- 1960-01-12: to Henze
- 1960-07-07: from Henze
[Typescript]
77 St Mark’s Place
New York City 3
New York
U.S.A.
1st letter 1st letter
from Auden-Kallman
ever*
‡
Delighted to get your letter.
Chester & I would love to collaborate with
you on an opera,provided we can earn some money thereby.
What would you say to this idea?*A re-incarnation of the Daphnis-Chloe
story*,set in an imaginary Forio
* in about 1910. One of them would bexx‡ have
been brought up by‡ grape-growing contaox‡dini, the other by pescatori.*
Gnatho the rich queen,would be a version of Norman Douglas,withxxxx‡ the anti-
Christian romantic "Pagan".*
L‡
(O‡ur copy of the novel is in Kirchstett‡en
*,and
I have‡ forgotten her name),who teaches Daphnis the arts of love,a German
Baroni‡n from San Angelo,etc,etc. Toughxxxxx‡ Though one wouldn’t need a proper
chorus, we think we should need a quartetxxxxxxx‡
quartette‡ of Forian Gossips at the side
of the stage throughout,who wouldxxxxx‡
would‡ amorally comment upon the action
and invariably get everything wrong,ie,They[sic]‡ would think that X & B,werexxxx‡
Y & A were having affairs when in fact it was X & Y, A & B,they would alwaysxxxxxx‡
predict that N
wont[sic]‡ marry M when they do,or that K will marry L when he
doesnt[sic]‡,etc.* A straight romantic love story with a buffo background.*
Chester gets back to Kirchstetten in April;I have to go first to Oxford
*
and will get xout[sic]‡
‡
in the middle of June. I am enchanted with the place.
As regar‡ds the Mezzogiorno,I am getting too old for the strange:the
Krau‡ts
*
Germansxxxxxxx‡ can be monsters like Hitler,or idiots like H. H. Stuckenschmidt,but
I undretanxxxxxxxx‡ understand them in a way that I shall never understand Wops*.
Let us know your reaction, and please come to see us in
Niederösterreich.
love
Wystan
Editorial
Author(s)
General Remark
The content of this letter has already for the first time been published (without the “P.S.” by Kallman) by Henze in his Autobiography, pp. 162-163.
Responsibilities
- Editor(s)
- Elena Minetti
- Transcription
- Elena Minetti; Irmlind Capelle
Tradition
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Text Source: Basel (Schweiz), Paul Sacher Stiftung (CH-Bps), Sammlung Hans Werner Henze, Abteilung: Korrespondenz
Shelf mark: Auden, Wystan HughPhysical Description
- Document type: Letter
- Dünnes weißes Papier
- Faltung: 1mal längs, 1mal quer
- 1 folio
- 1 written page
- Dimensions: 280x216 [mm] (HxW)
- Rand links: 4cm
- Zeilenabstand: 1,5zeilig
- Absätze eingerückt
- Text leicht nach rechts verschoben.
Material
Extent
Layout
Writing styles
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1.Typescript.
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2.Handwriting, Henze, Hans Werner, pencil.
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3.Handwriting, Auden, Wystan Hugh, ballpoint pen (blue).
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4.Handwriting, Kallman, Chester, ballpoint pen (blue).
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5.Handwriting, Henze, Hans Werner, pencil.
Text Constitution
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"1st letter 1st … from Auden-Kallman ever"added in the top margin, Text turned clockwise (315°)
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Following: handwritten, pencil, Henze, Hans Werner
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Following: Typescript
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"59"Underlining, handwritten, pencil, supposedly by Henze, Hans Werner
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"be"deleted by overtyping
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"y""t" replaced with "y"
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"o"deleted by overtyping
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"with"deleted by overtyping
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"O""I" replaced with "O"
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"t""e" replaced with "t"
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"have""ahev" replaced with "have"
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"i""n" replaced with "i"
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"Tough"deleted by overtyping
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"quartet"deleted by overtyping
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"quartette"added above
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"would"deleted by overtyping
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"would"added above
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"wrong,ie,They"sic
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"were"deleted by overtyping
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"always"deleted by overtyping
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"wont"sic
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"doesnt"sic
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"xout"sic
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"… Oxford and will get xout"The letter "x" is faded.
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"ar""ra" replaced with "ar"
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"au""ua" replaced with "au"
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"Germans"deleted by overtyping
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"undretan"deleted by overtyping
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Following: handwritten, ballpoint pen (blue), Auden, Wystan Hugh
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Following: Typescript
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"au""ua" replaced with "au"
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"v""c" replaced with "v"
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Following: handwritten, ballpoint pen (blue), Kallman, Chester
Commentary
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"… from Auden - Kallman ever"Here, Henze notes that this is the first letter he received from the two librettists, whom he had already met in person. Their first meeting took place in the summer of 1951 in Forio d’Ischia. See Henze’s Autobiography, pp. 98-99 and pp. 162-163.
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"… Jan 6th,I9 59"Henze himself probably underlined "59" in the date, as if to emphasize the date the correspondence began, perhaps for archival purposes.
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"… you say to this idea?"The subject the librettists proposed for an opera in this letter would never come to fruition.
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"… the Daphnis - Chloe story" Daphnis and Chloe is an ancient Greek novel written in the Roman Empire by the Greek writer Longus.
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"… ,set in an imaginary Forio"Forio is a city on the island of Ischia, which was very significant in the friendship of the three authors of Elegy for Young Lovers. Like Auden and Kallman, in 1951 Henze also spent his summer vacations in Forio, where he would move the following year, and which was already a meeting place for world-famous artists and intellectuals. It was there, in the Caffè Maria Internazionale in the town square, that in 1951 the composer met the two librettists for the first time. See Henze’s Autobiography, pp. 98-99.
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contadini
- farmers
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pescatori
- fishermen
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"… the other by pescatori ."In the preface Auden and Elizabeth Mayer wrote to their English translation of Goethe’s Italienische Reise in 1962, the authors wondered if there was a country in Europe where the character of the people had been so unaffected by technological changes as Italy was, see Foreword, pp. XX–XXI. Probably because of this perception that Auden must have already developed at the time of this letter (1959), he uses the Italian language to refer to the ancient trades of the "farmers" who make wine and "fishermen" who would have raised Daphnis and Chloe.
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"… anti- Christian romantic Pagan ."As Federica Marsico writes in her article "Il poeta e la sua elegia del desiderio inappagato", p. 13, the reference to the English writer Norman Douglas, who had died only a few years earlier, in 1952, is significant: Douglas resided in Capri (another island of the gulf of Naples just south of the Island of Ischia) in the last period of his life, after having run into serious legal problems in England, due to his homosexuality.
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"L"abbreviation of "Lycaenion".
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"… is in Kirchstet t en"Auden had purchased a farm in Kirchstetten. This became the summer residence of the librettists.
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"… L when he doesnt ,etc."Unlike the previous initial to indicate the name of the character Lycaenion, the following letters are only meant to be representatives for the characters of the hypothetical quartet.
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"… story with a buffo background."Henze declined this proposal. His reply cannot be found, but in his Autobiography, p. 164, the composer writes that he would have liked "psychological drama, a chamber drama that would deal in the most general terms with guilt and atonement, in other words, with subtle and complex issues, and not with the all too pastoral and affected bucolisms with which they had tried to fob me offer in their letter of acceptance".
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"… to go first to Oxford"From 1956 to 1961 Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford.
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"… the strange:the Kr au ts"The word "Kraut" is an ethnic slur for a German.
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"… I shall never understand Wops" "Wops" is an offensive word for Italians.
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"… it should become too late."Auden writes that it might "become too late", probably alluding to the political situation of the Cold War that led to the division of Berlin by the wall, which was built shortly afterwards (the construction of the Berlin Wall began in August 1961).
