David Drew
British writer, editor, music publisher, recording producer

Annual Records 1977-81
Boosey & Hawkes, ISCM, HK Gruber, Simon Rattle, Markevitch, Roger Sessions, Cornelius Cardew; Lotte Lenya

During the previous quarter Boosey & Hawkes have already signed exclusive publishing agreements with Robin Holloway and Tona Scherchen-Hsiao. To these is now added an agreement with Heinz Karl Gruber (henceforth published as HK Gruber, and invariably known to friends and colleagues by his childhood nickname 'Nali'). An agreement with Kurt Schwertsik follows early in the New Year.

February: To Cologne with Tony Fell for the premiere by Tanzforum of their first production in the Opera - a full-length ballet provocatively entitled Walzerträume, with a score commissioned from Kurt Schwertsik on the recommendation of Mauricio Kagel, Tanzforum's 'house' composer. The Tanzforum public demonstrates against Schwertsik, the general public is delighted. Walzerträume - later revised as Wiener Chronik 1848 - is Schwertsik's first score under his exclusive contract with B&H.

May: In Bonn for 51st ISCM Festival. Helmut Lachenmann's Accanto and Wolfgang von Schweinitz's Mozart Variations. Talks with both composers. Gruber and Otto M Zykan perform Zykan's Lehrstuck 'On the Example of Arnold Schoenberg'.

22-29 April: In New York on B&H business - no contacts with Lenya or her representatives. Informal meeting - one of many over a 20-year period - with Hans W Heinsheimer, writer and former music publisher (Universal Edition, Boosey & Hawkes, G Schirmer). A one-day visit to Princeton to visit Roger Sessions and his wife at their home in Stanworth Lane.

September: Publishes HK Gruber: A Formal Introduction from Two Sides, in Tempo 126.

21-27 September: First visit to Poland - for Warsaw Autumn Festival and for talks in Cracow with PWM (the Polish State Music Publisher). In Warsaw a team from the BBC is making a documentary about Lutoslawski, whom D had first met six years before, at the Styrian Autumn Festival in Graz.

6-11 October: In Graz for the Styrian Autumn, and the premiere of Schwertsik's Violin Concerto on the 9th. The Concerto proves as controversial, and as divisive on 'party' lines, as Walzerträume in Cologne in February. 20-25 November: Gruber's first official visit to England. He is the singer in the world premiere - with Simon Rattle conducting the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - of his own chanson-cycle, Frankenstein!!, based on poems by H.C. Artmann. The premiere on 25 November is attended by the Mayor of Liverpool and other dignitaries, a large audience of loyal subscribers, and a cross-section of local poets and jazz musicians. It is a triumphant success (and over the next two decades Frankenstein!! will become one of the most widely performed works of the post-war era).

Extensive collaboration with IRCAM and the Ensemble InterContemporain on programmes to be mounted at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, in connexion with the forthcoming Paris-Berlin exhibition.

January [?]: Following discussions with the Brecht Estate regarding a new American-English version of the Weill-Brecht opera Aufstieg und Fall der Mahagonny, the US representative of Universal Edition advises the Management of New York's Metropolitan Opera that the one translation readily available for use in the production to be directed next season by John Dexter and conducted by James Levine is the 1963 version by Geliot and Drew. Following a conference in London with John Grandi - the Met's emissary - D identifies more than a hundred passages in the 1963 translation that need urgent repairs. The collaboration with The Met proceeds smoothly. Opera News commissions an article on the opera.

March: In Vienna with colleagues from Berlin preparing a double 'Composer-Portrait' of Gruber and Schwertsik for the forthcoming Berlin Festival.

Summer: First meeting with Igor Markevitch at his home in St Cézaire (Alpes-Maritimes), eventually leading to the acquisition by Boosey & Hawkes of all his music previously published by Schott in Mainz and Suvini Zerboni in Milan.

Publication: Beiträge zu einer musikalischen Perspektive - Contribution to Paris-Berlin 1900-1933, a substantial volume published in connection with the Centre Pompidou exhibition.

September: Predictably shunned by Berlin's New Music enthusiasts, and not yet of interest to a wider public, the Schwertsik-Gruber 'Portrait' nevertheless provides a basis for its successors in 1987 and 1992.

November: D in New York for the start of Mahagonny stage rehearsals, standing in for Dexter at the first general meeting of the complete cast. Subsequent discussions with Teresa Stratas (Jenny), Astrid Varnay (Begbick) and other members of the cast prove stimulating and rewarding. Lenya, who had been present at solo rehearsals and production meetings before his arrival, does not reappear. His article for Opera News has already been proofed and passed for publication when D is informed that it has been withdrawn for unexplained reasons. At the premiere on 11 November and the reception thereafter, Margo Harris is a prominent member of Lenya's party. Lenya and D are not to meet until the following year.

At a private meeting in New York, Kim Kowalke informs D of his concerns about the future of the Weill-Lenya estate, and expresses his personal support. Yale University has awarded Kowalke his doctorate. His dissertation has since been extensively re-worked for publication, and has just appeared, to general acclaim, under the title Kurt Weill in Europe.

New Year: The start of a critical 5-year period for the Boosey & Hawkes Group as a whole. Increasing competition from the USA and the Far East has affected the fortunes of the instrument division; and the publishing wing, profitable though it continues to be, is under pressure from many sides. A new Chief Executive calls in a firm of Management Consultants, with a brief to examine 'artistic' as well as business parameters.

March: The New York City Opera mounts Silver Lake, an American version of Weill's Der Silbersee, with book and lyrics by Hugh Wheeler and musical adaptations by Lys Symonette. The company's press officer, Sheila Porter, invites Kowalke and Drew to lead a one-day symposium on Silver Lake at Carnegie Hall. Lenya attends. Temporally estranged from Harris, she cordially invites D to visit her at Brook House whenever he returns to the States.

August: In Tanglewood for the contemporary-music week. Gunther Schuller conducts the US premiere of Gruber's Frankenstein!! with the composer as soloist. Aaron Copland is prominent among Gruber's supporters. D talks again with Copland about The Second Hurricane. D Visits Lenya at Brook House. Poor health has not weakened her spirit.

September: Double issue of Tempo, largely given over to Markevitch and his music. (D's inadequate contribution, written under pressure of time as a replacement for a commissioned piece that missed the mark altogether, will in effect be withdrawn some seven years later, and revised in the form of a short monograph).

Autumn: Recent discussions with Cornelius Cardew - now emerging from his Maoist phase - renew an old friendship. Cardew is commissioned to translate the essay by Helmut Lachenmann which will be published in Tempo in December.

Publications: Why Must Arden Die? - revised version of 1967 article published in The Music of Alexander Goehr.

26 February: In Boston for the premiere of Maxwell Davies's Second Symphony (BSO under Ozawa). Visits Lenya at Brook House. Though terminally ill, she remains resolute.

March: Attends a Bartók conference in Detroit convened by Antal Dorati and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and delivers a paper 'Bartók and his Publishers' .

2 April: Lenya and Kowalke attend the first meeting of the Weill Foundation's reconstituted Board of Trustees. It is the last Lenya will attend.

27 November: Lenya dies, aged 83. The legal and other problems besetting the Weill-Lenya legacy find a satisfactory and in many respects ideal solution, thanks to the courage, determination, and vision of Kim Kowalke.

December: Tempo 134 is largely devoted to Roberto Gerhard. It contains D's Note on the music of Gerhard's Cantata (1931).

Wolfgang von Schweinitz joins B&H catalogue.