Barnet, Miguel: Brief an Henze, Hans Werner. undatiert
author: Barnet, Miguel
language: en
availability: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Not before 2 July 1976, not after July 1976[^1]
Brother;

[^1: Barnet congratulating Henze on his 50th birthday suggests that this postcard was written after 1 July 1976. In addition, Barnet writes that he read reviews on We come to the river and probably an article published on July 25. It is therefore assumed that this postcard was written in July 1976.]

I was really happy to hear again from you and your plans. [The previous letter in which Henze tells Barnet of his plans has not yet to be located.] Horace Ové [An arrow links the name Horace Ové to his address in London, which Barnet wrote in the top right-hand corner, next to the place for the stamp.]
5 a Greencraft Gardens
London N.W. 6
328-7340
London
, from England will film Cimarrón . [A film by Ové about El Cimarrón does not seem to have realised. Michelangelo Antonioni also wanted to develop a project based on this work. See Barnet's letter to Henze on 21 July 1970.] Has he written to you? I gave him your address and hope he'll ask for your collaboration = music, of course.

He is now in Trinidad and will soon reach London again. Congratulations again for your 50th birth. [Henze's 50th birthday was on 1 July 1976.] I have read some comments in the papers. Also on your new opera We come to the river . The big and fluent river of your heart. Forget the silly people who will never reach your dimensions. [Something different was originally written and then the word dimensions, over it, but the original text is no longer legible.][^2] Friends are always just a few. among them you can always count on me. I am expecting to see you in Cuba for Cimarrón in July.[^3]

[^2: Among the various articles Barnet might have read may have been the rather negative one by John Rockwell, entitled Henze's First Opera in a Decade Seen in London in the New York Times on 25 July 1976, p. 58. Here, Barnet seems to be defending Henze from Rockwell's criticism that his music was not compelling enough.]

[^3: Henze never returned to Cuba after 1970. A performance of El Cimarrón in Cuba was planned on July 1977 (see Barnet's later letter), however, it probably never took place because years later Barnet still complains in a letter to Henze that he was not able to see a live performance of the work.]

Miguel Barnet

Hans Werner Henze
Via la Leprara 0047
Marino
Roma
Italia

[Picture of a 16th-century galleon, moved by the wind, surrounded by flying seagulls.]