Henze, Hans Werner: Brief an Auden, Wystan Hugh/Kallman, Chester. Dienstag, 19. Juli 1960
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/)

19th J u ly 1960
Dear Wystan Chester : [It is very likely that Henze deleted these words himself, either for a possible publication of the correspondence or for archiving and public access at the Paul Sacher Foundation.]

Just received your letter. Thanks.

Obviously, you are thinking that it is o l d Rennert who invented all these changes which is wrong,except for the things I told you he mentioned.[^1] Sorry to have mentioned old Giacomo. I quite agree with you about him,but when I mentioned him I did not think of aesthetics but of speed and timing and all that.As the music is coming out of me now, I feel it will be impossible to bombard the listeners with it more than necessary and I have to try to not weak e n my stuff by extending it.Anyway, thank you for having accepted some other things and I do hope that we will be able to come to some more agreements when we shall see each other.I have no intention to soften Hinty, [Here, Henze refers to his request in point 17 of the letter on July 7 1960.] I only would like to make him more complex or gi v e him some more Wie duftet doch der Flieder[^2], some more Stockhausen feierlichkeit[^3] during the exposition.

[^1: Here, Henze alludes to the changes he requested from the librettists in his letter on 7 July 1960. According to Henze's letter, Rennert – the opera's producer and festival director – had proposed changes regarding the setting of the opera (point 1 of his letter on 7 July 1960), at what point to put the long 75-minute interval, and the proposal to include a purely instrumental divertimento (point 14 of his letter of 7 July 1960).]

[^2: Was duftet doch der Flieder (How it smells of elder) (and not Wie as quoted here) is the first line of the monologue of the cobbler and mastersinger Hans Sachs in Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg .]

[^3: Henze used this expression to try to indicate a Stockhausen-like solemnity. In his Autobiography, p. 161, Henze talks about listening to Stockhausen's Kontakte and there too he uses the adjective solemn, writing as follows: Stockhausen's Kontakte on 11 June [1960] left a deep impression on me. I think it must have been the first of his pieces that I heard. Here were some genuinely novel ideas, new sounds and a total rejection of the patterns that had been customary until that time. The close link between instrumental music (piano and percussion) and electronics (which must have had something to do with delayed tapes) seemed to me both plausible and convincing. I watched as the room, which, at a solemn sign from the composer at his sound mixer, was plunged into operatic darkness at the start of the piece, slowly fell under the spell of this organistic hypnosis, producing a mood of almost religious devotion to which listeners were famously obliged to submit and which they could understand fully only if they suspended all rational thought processes.]

Just finished Hulda's big vision [Hilda's big vision scene is in Act I, Scene IV: Appearences and Visions.], now working on Toni's cherry tree aria[^4], have made sketches for You must listen . [This means that Henze was composing Act I, Scene IX: To-day's Weather.] Hope to do some more numbers of act 1 before coming up to Kirchstetten . -- Loving the text more and more and loving you both fòr having delivered such inspiring material. It's going to be very new (I have never repeated myself and I am just about discovering a n entirely new language for this work),so,Chester?,don't be silly and furious, and do help me to get a capolavoro being done.

[^4: Here, Henze is referring to Toni's aria in Act I, Scene X (A Visionary Interlude), which begins as follows: O far and unforgotten May! / My mother, dying, would each day / Await a dear delight / With me – / We saw one blackbird sing the white / Blooms from our cherry-tree.]

Looking forward to seeing you both.[^5]Will be there about August 3th or so -- Karajan will probably not play my Antifone in Salzburg: the master has taken a look at the score only just now and only now discovers to have not enough rehearsal time, the dear. [Karajan performed Antifone two years later with the Berliner Philharmoniker.]But I must go to Salzburg all the same, in order to see some other people.Did I tell y ou De Nobili is going to design our thing in Glyndebourne? I am very glad about that. Mitty is in Forio, I discovered, writing to Alessandro to get the rug over here. [At Kallman's request, Henze had contacted Alessandro to have a rug sent to Ischia for Mitty, perhaps because Kallman had damaged hers. See Kallman's letter of 6 July 1960.]

[^5: Henze would visit Auden and Kallman in Kirchstetten from August 4-6, 1960, as evidenced by Henze's entry in the two poets' guest book, which is kept at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas. See W. H. Auden (Biography) in: Auden Musulin Papers, entry to 4-6 August 1960.]

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