| 1975 |
January: Kim
Kowalke writes to confirm that Alan Forte has volunteered to advise him on
the preparation of his Weill dissertation.
19 February: Death of
Dallapiccola, in Florence.
March: Suhrkamp
publish ÜBER KURT WEILL in their Taschenbuch series. The
original English version of the introduction is published in two successive
issues of the Times Literary Supplement under the title Kurt Weill
and his Critics.
March: Boosey &
Hawkes Music Publishers and its Managing Director, Tony Fell, offer
Drew a senior post at their head office in London. Owing to current
commitments, D suggests postponement to October, and the Agreement to that
effect is signed on 1 April.
Spring: In New York
for planning meetings with Lotte Lenya, particularly with regard to the
Berlin Festival. Although Lenya's present advisers have objected to certain
passages in Kurt Weill and his Critics, she readily accepts that
her own doubts about the same passages may be due to a
misapprehension.
Summer: Lenya
withdraws from the Berlin Festival engagements, apparently on doctor's orders.
The programme specially planned for her is adapted to the new circumstances.
Much to Eckhardt's disappointment, no Berlin theatre or opera house will
participate in the 'Weill Portrait'. His only institutional supporters are the
West Berlin Academy of Arts and the two West Berlin radio stations.
Music Today twelfth
and thirteenth releases: Birtwistle;
Dallapiccola/Shaw.
August: The three
Weill concerts to be given at the Berlin Festival by the London Sinfonietta are
rehearsed in London, where Lenya's presence and advice is much missed. Robin
Holloway's new work (Concertino No.3) proves too demanding
technically to be prepared in time for its Berlin premiere, but will be
featured in a subsequent Sinfonietta series combining the Berlin repertoire
with new works by British composers.
September: After the
Festival events, D travels to Frankfurt with the Sinfonietta and their Artistic
Director, Michael Vyner, for a Weill concert sponsored by Hess Radio.
Immediately on their return to London, the Sinfonietta under their conductor
David Atherton record, for Deutsche Grammophon, seven of the pieces from the
Berlin programmes: Mahagonny Songspiel; Pantomime; Vom Tod im Wald; Happy
End; Das Berliner Requiem; Kleine Dreigroschenmusik; Concerto for Violin
and Wind Orchestra op. 12.
D's return from Germany is
marked by a letter from Alfred Rice, a New York attorney recommended to
Lenya by her friend Margo Harris. Rice introduces himself as
Lenya's new representative. Well known for his expert interest in estates of
prominent literary and theatrical figures, Rice requests the immediate return
of all research material lent by Lenya.
1 October: The first
day of D's full-time employment with Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers
Ltd. For the next seventeen years he will be in charge of the Contemporary
Music Department, and a member of the Executive Board, responsible to the Main
Board of the parent company, and thence to the shareholders.
November: Aaron
Copland is in London for celebrations of his 75th birthday. D broaches the
topic of Copland's neglected school-opera The Second Hurricane and the
problems inherent in its text, especially for European audiences. The
suggestion of a 'free' German adaptation elicits an enthusiastic
response.
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| 1976 |
March [?] In New
York, partly on B&H business, partly for ISCM score-reading (the 50th ISCM
Festival will be in Boston in October; this year's Jury-members are Elliott
Carter, DD, Jacques Guyonnet, Hubert Howe, Marlos Nobre, Aribert Reimann,
and Gunther Schuller). La Vie, a 'lost' ballet score by
Blacher is discovered by D in a New York collection, and later confirmed
by Reimann (a former Blacher pupil) as a unique and unlisted score that has no
other existence or title. Visit to Roger Sessions in Princeton. Meetings
there with Milton Babbitt, Edward Cone, and Claudio Spies.
D's numerous attempts,
throughout his stay in the USA, to contact Lenya by phone and in person
are unavailing. On his return to London he sends Lenya a letter of resignation
as a Trustee of the Weill Foundation and as a representative of the
Estate in Europe. He nevertheless affirms his continued willingness to resume
work on her behalf and Weill's should she consider it appropriate. The letter
is not acknowledged. Relations with Universal Edition in Vienna, especially
with regard to Die Bürgschaft, become strained. Little,
Brown and Company in effect withdraw from D's Weill projects.
In the New York press and
elsewhere it is announced that the first official biography of Weill will be
undertaken by Gottfried Wagner, the great-grandson of Richard Wagner.
Donald Mitchell -
currently Managing Director of Faber Music (which he had set up at the
suggestion of Benjamin Britten) - is responsible for Faber's music-books list,
and has been following the progress of D's LIFE & WORKS ever
since its inception in 1957. Faber & Faber have been from the start the
intended publishers in the UK. With that in view, Mitchell attempts to arrange
a meeting with Lenya in New York to discuss recent developments. Her
representatives ask him to deliver the typescript of the first volume to her,
at her Manhattan apartment. Lenya is unable to keep the appointment, and her
friend Margo Harris receives Mitchell unceremoniously. A 900-page typescript -
about half of a total of 950,000 words - is entrusted to her. Faber
subsequently receive a formal letter, signed by Lenya, claiming that it is
premature to issue the necessary copyright permissions.
In consultation with
Mitchell, D decides to abandon, for the time being, the biographical chapters,
and to link the critical accounts with brief chronologies - thereby obviating
most of the copyright problems but destroying the intended structure. For some
years to come, the LIFE & WORKS project will be in abeyance.
Only part of the photocopy typescript delivered by Mitchell to Harris will be
discovered among Lenya's papers after her death. The remainder has never come
to light.
Summer: Gottfried
von Einem has commended his former pupil Heinz Karl Gruber to Boosey
& Hawkes. D meets the composer in Vienna and attends the premiere of his
music-theatre piece, Gomorrah. A colleague currently working at
Universal Edition introduces D to Kurt Schwertsik (b. 1935), a
key figure in the post-war Viennese avant-garde.
Autumn: Tony Fell and
DD visit Benjamin Britten at his country retreat in Horham. It will be
their last meeting with him before his death.
15 November: An
exhibition entitled 'Weill-Lenya' opens at the Performing Arts Library at
Lincoln Center, New York. Like the exhibition itself, the handsomely designed
catalogue extends to the quarter-century since Weill's death. The documentation
neatly avoids mentioning any performances, productions, publications,
broadcasts, or recordings with which DD has been directly associated in the
past fifteen years (with one or two doubless accidental exceptions).
4 December: Death of
Benjamin Britten at The Red House, his and Peter Pears's home in
Aldeburgh.
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