Letter from W. H. Auden to H. W. Henze, December 9, 1965

Writing styles

• 1.

  Handwriting, Auden, Wystan Hugh, ballpoint pen (blue).
• 2.

  Handwriting, Henze, Hans Werner, pencil.

Text Constitution

• 1.

  " (1964) "added below, handwritten, pencil, supposedly by Henze, Hans Werner
• 2.

  "(1964)"sic
• 3.

  "The Theme the Captain"sic
• 4.

  "already"uncertain transcription
• 5.

  "rounding"uncertain transcription
• 6.

  "Dionys"crossed out

Commentary

• 1.

  "… (1964)"As already observed in other letters, Henze may have later added the date of the letter in parentheses, in pencil, probably for archival purposes. In this case, he accidentally dated this letter to the year 1964 instead of 1965. The dating is ascertained from the content of the letter: Auden actually answers a question Henze had asked in his letter of 5 December 1965. Furthermore, he tells Henze that he made a mistake with his address, which is indeed wrong in the letter of 5 December 1965.
• 2.

  [Figure Description]An arrow points to the address.
• 3.

  "… get your letter at all."In his previous letter, Henze had, in fact, made a mistake in Auden’s address.
• 4.

  "… Bassarides left on Cytheron ."Here, Auden is referring to the beginning of Movement III, Part I of The Bassarids in which Pentheus orders the Captain of the Guard: “Take all your men. Pursue Them to Cytheron. Root them out. Kill. Kill. Kill.” In particular, Auden answers Henze’s question from his previous letter, explaining that the “them” refers to the Bassarids and not to the Captain’s men.
• 5.

  "P"abbreviation of "Pentheus".
• 6.

  "… , Dionys the Stranger etc."Here, Auden refers to a scene in Movement II, in which the Captain of the Guard arrived from Cytheron with some Prisoners: Agave, Autonoe, Tiresias, and a youthful Stranger (i.e. Dionysus), some male Bacchants and a young Woman with her daughter.
• 7.

  "… in motion about the translation."Here, Auden is alluding to the second translation the libretto of The Bassarids into German by Maria Bosse-Sporleder. The libretto was originally to be translated by Helmut Reinold, but his work caused numerous disagreements among the librettists, see for example Auden’s letter of 11 December 1964. The “piano score” Auden was to receive soon is also mentioned by Henze in a letter he wrote to Bosse-Sporleder on 5 December 1965, in which the composer wrote that she would receive the piano score with annotations. Further information lies in Henze’s correspondences with Reinold and with Bosse-Sporleder, kept at the Paul Sacher Foundation.
• 8.

  "… legal situation better than I."The agent would probably have had to deal with the legal situation of cancelling the contract with Reinold and concluding the new contract with Bosse-Sporleder, who had been working on the translation since at least October 1965.