© Royal Ballet RB 'Ondine' reviews 'Ondine' reviews recent RB reviews Richard Jones on Adolphe Adam and Giselle Richard Jones reviews

Hans Werner Henze was born in Gütersloh, Westphalia, in 1926. He was the eldest of six children. Germany at this time had not long been a republic; the Kaiser had fled after defeat in World War I, and the constitution of the new German government had been drawn up in the old Saxon town of Weimar in 1919. In 1925 Hindenburg had taken office as president, and would remain so until 1933, when Hitler’s rise to power would spell the end of the ‘Weimar Republic’. Henze’s father, Franz, had served in the First World War, and had been injured at Verdun. He was now working as a teacher in a school at Bielefeld, formed on progressive lines.

Music in Germany during the 1920’s had continued to build upon the strong traditions established during the 19^th century. In particular, there had been two noticeable strands, two sides to German music, with battle joined between their proponents. The tradition leaning towards classicism as seen in Brahms on the one hand, and the self-styled ‘art-work of the future’ of Wagner and his followers on the other, had brought about vigorous argument amongst critics and commentators; these strands in German music had been continued, with the music of Mahler (1860-1911) and the dominant figure of Richard Strauss (1864-1949) representing the more romantic tradition (though in his later years Strauss exhibited a considerable change of style). In the 20^th century, the tradition of German classicism was continued by composers such as Max Reger (1873-1916), who sternly opposed descriptive (or ‘programme’) music, and kept to abstract forms such as sonata, fugue, and variations. Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) occupied a particularly important place in early 20^th century German music. His early influences were Reger and Strauss; later he showed the influence of Stravinsky and Bartok. His mastery of compositional technique, combined with a gentle lyricism, marked a style that was firmly rooted in tonality with a very individual harmonic idiom.

A more openly emotional romanticism on the other hand was embraced by the Viennese Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), whose first works displayed a continuation of the legacy of Wagner with their intense chromaticism; Schoenberg provided a musical equivalent of the expressionist art that was prevalent in the early years of the 20^th century. In Verklärte Nacht (1899) – later choreographed by Tudor under the title Pillar of Fire - Schoenberg responded to the poetry of Richard Dehmel with a score that is a music-drama for string sextet. His music thereafter proceeded to greater chromaticism until he could no longer pretend to be writing in any particular key; his work of this period (generally referred to as ‘atonal’) includes especially Pierrot Lunaire (1911), being settings of the poetry of Giraud (in German translation) for singer (using Sprechgesang – a mixture of speech and pitched sounds) and instrumental quintet. In 1923 Schoenberg first presented to the musical world his method of composing with twelve notes; all pitches of the chromatic scale were to have equal importance rather than one being a key-centre. With this development he proceeded to become an enormous presence in field of new music; in 1925 he was invited to Berlin as teacher of composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts. In some ways, Schoenberg’s intellectualism drew together some of the differing strands of classical and romantic tendencies in German music; Schoenberg himself always saw the need to communicate feeling through music.

In 1926, the year of Henze’s birth, insidious forces were making their presence felt in German society. Two creative artists who sought to satirize acquisitive German society and the dangers beneath the surface made their point through the medium of music theatre, though they would both have to leave Germany during the 1930’s: Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill produced their Drei Groschen Oper (The Threepenny Opera) in 1928, two hundred years after its model, The Beggar’s Opera, first came before London audiences.

With Hitler’s grasp on power being achieved in 1933, the apparatus of state censorship swung into action. Before long, a great deal of music was banned, and many musicians lost their livelihood; even mere association with someone deemed undesirable by the régime was enough to incur censorship. Schoenberg, being Jewish, was soon dismissed from his teaching position in Berlin, as were hundreds of others. In 1933 Schoenberg left Germany; by way of Paris he eventually reached the USA where he lived for the rest of his life. Prominent musicians such as the conductors Klemperer and Bruno Walter, the pianist Schnabel, and the composer Kurt Weill were also among those to be purged. Thousands of musicians sought a home in other countries. The music of Ernst Krenek (b. Vienna 1900) was banned since the Nazis assumed – incorrectly – that he was of non-German origin because of his name. Krenek was already a marked man as he had used jazz idioms in his opera Jonny spielt auf (Johnny strikes up) in 1926; although staged in 1927 in Leipzig to sensational success, further performances were prone to be disrupted by Nazi demonstrators who would not tolerate the association with Black American music. Krenek, who began a thorough study of Schoenberg’s methods in 1928, left Germany for the USA in 1938; he died in 1991. Alban Berg (b. Vienna 1885) and Anton von Webern (b. Vienna 1883) were labelled as tainted, being the two leading followers of Schoenberg, though neither was Jewish, and Webern was of minor aristocratic descent. Webern’s music was denounced as ‘cultural Bolshvism’ when Austria was annexed to Hitler’s Germany in 1938. Berg died in Vienna in 1935; Webern survived the war, but was accidentally shot by an American soldier in September 1945 at a time when the future of central Europe was still uncertain and life was subject to restrictions during the Allied occupation of Austria. His fierce intellectual approach would become a touchstone for the new generation of the musical avant-garde in post-war Europe.

The Nazi grip on the arts tightened throughout the 1930’s. At a rally in Düsseldorf in 1935, atonal music was declared to be “contrary to the rhythm of blood and soul of the German nation”. Music that the Nazis did not approve of was likely to be termed atonal and degenerate, whether or not it was actually atonal. Goebbels attacked both Stravinsky and Hindemith, believing (incorrectly) that both composers were atonalists. Hindemith continued to have a difficult time with the authorities; a point was made of the fact that his wife had a Jewish father (though she herself was Lutheran, and later became a Catholic). The conductor Fürtwängler (who was manipulated by the Nazis and had to undergo a denazification trial after the war) was also embroiled in the machinations surrounding Hindemith. After a spell in Turkey, and consequent return to Germany, the composer resigned his teaching post in Berlin and left Germany for the USA in 1937.

The school at which Henze’s father taught was closed in 1935 by government order, its progressive style being out of step with official views. Franz Henze then moved to Dünne, a small village near Bünne where he became a victim of Nazi propaganda. Books by Jewish and Christian authors were replaced in the Henze household by literature reflecting Nazi views; the whole family was expected to fall into line with Franz’s new thinking. The older boys, including Hans, were enrolled in the Hitler Youth. Although the Henze household was filled with talk of current affairs, Hans was also able to hear broadcasts of classical music (especially Mozart) and eventually his father realized that his son had a vocation as a musician. Hans was enrolled in the Music School at Brunswick in 1942, where he studied piano, percussion, and theory. With the study of new music being so difficult, Hans only knew about the music of Hindemith, Stravinsky, Bartok, Webern, and Berg from what information he had gleaned; their music was banned. His experience of performance remained with accepted classics, among which he came to love the operas of Mozart. In 1943, Franz Henze re-joined the army; he was sent to the Eastern front, never to return.

In 1944 Hans was conscripted for war service, and moved to Magdeburg. He was trained as a radio officer; together with a friend, he opened a bottle of wine when they heard that the Allied Forces had landed in France on D-Day. Later, when he became a prisoner of the British for a short while, he listened avidly to music broadcasts by the BBC; much later in his life he could still remember the feeling he had about the beauty of what he heard and how everything he found beautiful had been persecuted by the fascists. It was a relief to him that he had escaped the horrors of war lightly: those of his unit who were involved in tank battles against the Russian divisions in Hungary suffered appalling losses.

The young composer in Post-war Germany
With the beginnings of German post-war reconstruction, the country was divided into four sectors: Russia held control over the east, Britain had responsibility for the northwest, the U.S.A. looked after the south and France the west. Inevitably the arts were therefore pursued on a regional rather than national basis, as life in peacetime resumed. One of the more progressive forces in new music was provided by Southwest German Radio, based in Baden-Baden. This station, supported by the French, made a point of broadcasting music that had been written since 1933.

Having returned to Bielefeld, Hans helped to support his mother and siblings through various jobs. However, as he was approaching the age of 20 the time was right for further study in composition for which he would have to move from home. His first thought was to try to get to Berlin to study with the composer Boris Blacher, but this would entail moving from one sector of the country to another. He tried to make the journey secretly at night, but was arrested in the process. Eventually he turned his thoughts to Heidelberg, where he studied with Wolfgang Fortner. He could now apply himself to the detailed study of the music of composers such as Bartok, Stravinsky, and Hindemith.

There were also other opportunities for the study of new music, especially at Darmstadt. In the immediate post-war era, the musical avant-garde in Western countries sought a thorough and far-reaching development of the serial tradition of Webern. This was pursued with an evangelical zeal by many prominent composers, and a leading centre for the promotion of such developments was established in Darmstadt. The Polish-born French composer René Leibowitz was a leading exponent of serialism, having studied with Schoenberg in Berlin and (after 1933) with Webern in Vienna. He was a founder member of the Darmstadt Summer School, established in 1946. Central to the work at Darmstadt were the two leading exponents of radical new musical developments amongst the younger generation, Pierre Boulez (b. 1925) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (b.1928). Henze had some successful performances at Darmstadt, including an immediate success in 1946 with a neo-baroque work for piano, flute and strings, that brought him to the attention of Schott’s the music publishers. At the 1947 summer school, Henze turned his thoughts more thoroughly to serial technique, and it seemed for a while as if he might become a leader of young German composers in this idiom.

Inspired by dance
Henze did not ultimately feel inclined to follow the Leibowitz/Boulez/Stockhausen line with the single-minded dedication they exhibited. He was a more eclectic musician, and was not only open to other influences, but also particularly tended to opt for a more lyrical tonal style, with a recognizably traditional derivation, when writing for the theatre. He gradually felt more strongly inclined to write for dance rather than other forms of music theatre, an inclination that was reinforced to great effect when he saw the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in Hamburg in 1948. He said after the performance that it was “a revelation”, and that he did not know that such a kind of dance existed. The visit by Sadler’s Wells inspired Henze to write a choreographic poem, Ballett-Variationen, which was completed in 1949; in the same year he was appointed music adviser to a German theatre in Konstanz. Henze’s compositions were now often dance pieces or concert works imbued with the spirit of dance, such as his 1^st piano concerto and 3^rd symphony (both completed in 1950). Further commissions followed, especially when he was appointed artistic director and conductor of the Hesse State Theatre Ballet in 1950, a position he held until his move to Italy in 1953.

It was perhaps unsurprising that Henze found the visit of Sadler’s Wells such a revelation. Ballet in Germany has had a varied history. In the early days, it was provided as an entertainment at aristocratic courts such as Berlin, Brunswick, Darmstadt, Munich, Stuttgart. Noverre worked at Stuttgart in the 18^th century, and in the next century Taglioni danced there. Ballet in Hamburg was particularly strong under the leadership of Katti Lanner in the 1860’s, and Lucille Grahn was ballet mistress in Munich later in the same decade. However, modern dance gained an ever stronger following after Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis appeared in Germany in the early years of the 20^th century. Jaques-Dalcroze opened his institute in Hellerau (a suburb of Dresden) in 1911, and the return of Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman from Switzerland to Germany after World War I further strengthened the modern dance tradition. The tradition of ‘Ausdrucktanz’ as German modern dance became known faded after Jooss left Germany and as the Nazi powerbase took hold.

Apart from occasional visits by Diaghilev’s or Pavlova’s companies, there had been little strength in the tradition of classical dance in Germany between the wars. After 1945, a strong Russian influence inevitably developed in the east of the country; in what became the German Federal Republic after the amalgamation of the British, American, and French sectors, the development of ballet was patchy. In some centres it developed strongly while elsewhere theatres became particularly attached to a strengthening of the modern dance tradition (leading to such work as that by Pina Bausch at Wuppertal from the 1970’s). Ultimately British and American directors would make an impact (and Stuttgart would again become a noted centre for classical dance under John Cranko), but in the late 1940’s it was no wonder that Henze was so impressed by what he saw at Hamburg. The first ballet he watched was Ashton’s Scènes de Ballet. Not only was it the first time he had seen 20^th century classical choreography, but Stravinsky’s score was also new to him. He wrote a letter of appreciation to Ashton, introducing himself as a 22 year-old composer. The next time he wrote to Ashton he enclosed the score of his Ballett-Variationen, which he hoped Ashton might find of interest.

(In the event, Henze’s Ballett-Variationen soon received a first concert performance in Düsseldorf in September 1949; the score was first staged at Wuppertal in 1958).

A new life in Italy
Henze was now showing the ability to absorb various new influences, from jazz to the neo-classical style that was characteristic of Stravinsky’s music of this period. However, he was becoming more and more ill at ease in his native country. There were complex reasons for this, some personal. Politically, Henze had moved far to the left: he spoke later about his gratitude to the composer Paul Dessau (who had visited Henze in hospital in 1950); Dessau’s Marxist sympathies found a willing listener in Henze. It was impossible for Henze to forget the recent past, and his father’s association with the Nazi Party. He felt uncomfortable in the new Federal Republic where he sensed that old social structures remained with former Nazis in positions of authority. In December 1952 Henze received a commission for a new opera from his publishers. He asked whether it was necessary for him to live in Germany to fulfill this commission. When he was assured that residence in Germany was not essential, he left his homeland and drove south to Italy, a country he loved and one in which he felt more relaxed. Henze settled on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples. Also resident on the island were the composer William Walton together his Argentine wife Susana, who took a great interest in the young German composer. Other occasional visitors included the poet Wystan Auden as well as Frederick Ashton (Auden, with Chester Kallman, would produce libretti for operatic compositions by Henze completed during the 1960’s). Ironically, Henze left Germany in the same year as Paul and Gertrud Hindemith returned to Europe from the USA, though they settled in Switzerland.

By 1955, the year of the 10^th Darmstadt Summer School, Henze had moved far from the principles of the Darmstadt avant-garde; this was made obvious in his Quattro poemi for orchestra, written in that year. In January 1956 Henze left Ischia and moved to the mainland to live in Naples. His next two major works would be dance commissions: Maratona di danza for Visconti, and Undine. The commission for Visconti (“Dance Marathon”) dealt with a young boy from Rome killed by the dance marathon craze that was so popular at the time, and was completed in 1956. The music required the incorporation of jazz elements complete with on-stage band, a far cry from the romanticism that Ashton envisaged for Ondine.

Now living on the Italian mainland, Henze was influenced even more strongly by the colourful tradition of Italian vocal music; his Five Neapolitan Songs for the eminent baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau were written soon after his arrival in Naples. A later sojourn in Greece provided the opportunity to complete a work intended for another leading singer of the day: Kammermusik 1958, dedicated to Benjamin Britten, included settings of Hölderlin for the tenor Peter Pears (as well as involving the guitarist Julian Bream). Henze’s residence in Italy (he moved to Rome in 1961) as well as his love of the theatre seemed to promote in him a strong leaning towards music involving the voice. The influence of Mediterranean culture had led to a softening of his style and introduced a more lyrical quality to his music. By the time he had completed Maratona and Undine he was disowned by the Darmstadt purists as something of a lost cause who had betrayed modern trends: Boulez and  Stockhausen, now the leading lights of experimental music, even walked out of a performance of a Henze première in 1958. Henze said of himself that he knew that, at least in his stage works, he had never totally abandoned tonality; that there had always been a tension between retaining tonality and almost letting it go. The Darmstadt experience remained just one factor in the development of his extremely fertile musical mind.

Ondine
Walton had received a commission from the Covent Garden Opera which he fulfilled with his Troilus and Cressida (1954). Walton took Henze as his guest to the première in December of that year. Ashton then approached Walton concerning a ballet score: he had for some time wanted to choreograph a full length ballet based on Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s story of Undine, the water sprite who falls in love with a mortal man, with tragic consequences. Walton had not had a great success with his opera Troilus and Cressida, and felt disinclined to return to Covent Garden. He suggested to Ashton that Henze should be asked to fulfill the task; Walton had high regard for Henze’s music and had predicted a brilliant future for him.

Ashton wanted a score that was essentially lyrical. The romanticism of the subject had given rise to previous musical incarnations of the water sprite. The legend of Ondine is popular in central Europe, and she appears in various national folk cultures; in Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s tale she is Undine (Ashton would change the Germanic names when he came to draw up ideas for his ballet). The writer de la Motte Fouqué took his name from French Huguenot ancestry: he was born in Brandenburg in 1777, his first name being taken from his godfather, Frederick the Great. He served in the Prussian army, and helped defend his country against Napoleon. He finally settled in Neunhausen, where he was able to write and allow his imagination full reign. His thoughts were based on strong Christian principles, rooted in a feeling for the ancient tradition of noble chivalry; he saw various mythologies as being steeped in that tradition. After the publication of de la Motte Fouqué’s story in 1811, it was inevitable that it would become the basis of an opera, appealing to the romantic composer with its juxtaposition of earthly and supernatural elements. In April 1845, the first performance was given of Lortzing’s opera Undine at Magdeburg; by 1856 the new opera had been produced in New York. The Slav equivalent of Undine is the nymph Rusalka, the heroine of Dvorak’s opera of the same name, first performed in Prague in 1901; Rusalka’s Song to the Moon remains a highly popular aria from this work. The water nymph has also inspired other musical composition, such as Debussy’s Ondine from Book 2 of his Preludes for piano (1911-1913) and Ravel’s Ondine from Gaspard de la Nuit (1908); in the hands of both composers the depiction of a watery environment suits their personal style of pianistic figuration ideally.

Tamara Rojo and Jonathan Cope on the
Royal Ballet Poster image for the
April 2005 run of Ondine
© Royal Ballet

For Henze, such a romantic subject was a new experience. Ashton had heard Henze’s opera König Hirsch (based on a magical transformation in a Gozzi fairytale) in Berlin, so he was sure that Henze was the right man for his project, and the two worked closely together. Henze, who had maintained contact with Ashton for some time, knew that he was being given a great opportunity, but would have to adjust his style to fit with the evocation of a romantic subject as envisaged by choreographer and designer. He attended many ballet performances at Covent Garden, frequently accompanied by Ashton who told him clearly what he liked and what he did not like in music for dance. Eventually the work was completed, but when Ashton heard a recording of the orchestrated score he realized that he would have to revise his ideas; the sustained orchestral sounds were such a contrast to the piano score and made him think very differently. Ashton wrote very warmly to Henze, especially praising the music for the second act which he said would require something completely different from anything he had done before. In the event, Ashton found the score much more difficult to work with than he expected, and had to be encouraged by Ninette de Valois in her forthright fashion when he was grappling with matching his choreographic ideas to the score. The première of Ondine, conducted by Henze, was given on 27 October 1958. The ballet was, of course, a paean to Ashton’s muse, Margot Fonteyn; other principal parts were danced by Michael Somes, Julia Farron, and Alexander Grant.

The Music for Ashton’s Ondine
The score is constructed with the certainty of technical accomplishment one would expect from a composer schooled in traditional German musical craft, shot through with a lyricism that emanates from his experience of Italian life and Mediterranean colour. The orchestration is vivid. In places, themes may sometimes not be easy to follow at first, but there is such a wealth of colour and variety in the music that greater familiarity with the score is amply rewarded. Henze remained an eclectic composer; there are various influences at work here, including the neo-classicism he absorbed early in his career as well as later experience. Henze assembles his musical ideas into an integrated whole that provides us with a rarity, a 20^th century full-length ballet score that has the depth of a masterwork.

At the slow opening of the score there is immediately a romantic sense of mystery, but the music then launches into a quicker tempo, brass fanfares propelling the music along with a rhythmically incisive motif. Lyrical writing for strings (marked andante) follows in a very approachable idiom, using a straightforward lilting rhythm; the comparative simplicity of this section is in marked contrast to the next, a vivace in which ideas are thrown around with one section of the orchestra set off against another, but all with an underlying consistent rhythmic drive. Contrast is also vital to the next movement; at one instant there is the most luxuriant string texture, soon followed by a solo clarinet, which is then joined by a sparse accompaniment. High strings, harp (for the watery effect) and occasional percussion provide another contrasting orchestral sound, before the composer again re-assembles his palette of orchestral colours, using solo instruments in small groups, or alone, or high violins in long notes soaring above moving fragments of ideas below. These contrasts of texture, tempo, rhythmic idiom, and orchestral colour occur within the first few numbers, and such contrasts continue throughout the work. Sometimes the quicker movements exhibit a very consistent rhythmic pattern, whereas at other times (such as the Finale of Act 1) the rhythms are more uneven, with sudden accents darting about in Stravinskian fashion, the music being punctuated here and there by astringent wind chords.

Act 2 begins by establishing once again an air of mystery with high violins and wind chords together with short fragments that are almost a brief reminder of the idiom of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring; a more fluid unison string theme then emerges. After changes of tempo within the first number of this act, the second movement seems to pick up influences from other musical styles; with the tempo moving on, there is a hint of the rhythmic impulse and swooning that Ravel sometimes used. The next movement features solid writing for a chorus of brass instruments, after which high violins are heard over a very low accompaniment, the sort of thing Prokofiev might have done, though the effect is very different. After more writing for the individual voices of the orchestra, a pas de trois follows; above a gently undulating accompaniment lyrical melody lines are heard, with the oboe able to penetrate the whole texture in expressive fashion. The variation that follows starts busily in the violins; anyone at all accustomed to the traditions of 19^th century ballet music will immediately recognize its provenance. After more bold brass interventions, with prominent timpani and incisive pizzicato chords in the strings, the music adopts a more advanced idiom, with patterns of notes that are harder to follow: the effect is to prepare the way for the tension in the music that follows for the finale of the act. There is an urgency to this music as brief ideas are tossed around within the orchestra.

The opening of Act 3 starts with a striking unison theme in the strings, soon interrupted by strident brass; the string theme gathers intensity as this opening movement (marked recitative) progresses. An altogether sweeter sound in the strings is heard in the ensuing adagio, with a solo violin soon heard floating above the rest of the orchestral texture. The sweeping sound of violins together is heard in the next number, marked con eleganza; here it is easy to discover traditional sequences in the music as sections of the melody are repeated at different pitches. Brass fanfares are to the fore as they help introduce the pas de seize; after the entrée the adagio that follows imaginatively contrasts horns with high woodwind; the harp, employed sparingly, also adding to the overall effect. The pas de seize moves through various tempi and orchestral textures; quiet lyrical moments may suddenly be interrupted by incisive brass and timpani. The variation just before the coda is consistently brisk in its rhythmic impulse. The coda starts slowly and quietly, but vigorous brass writing soon introduces a faster tempo before the whole section finishes Largo solenne. A new section (marked Scene) connects the pas de seize to the final divertissement, beginning with a vigorous and brilliant entrée. A pas de six in the same tempo includes virtuoso writing for the piano as the music hurtles along; the piano is also strongly featured as the tempo relaxes a little (but not much!) for the ensuing pas de trois, though the orchestra once again gets the bit between its teeth for a second pas de trois (the pianist having more virtuoso work with rippling cascades of notes) before Stravinskian rhythms emerge for piano and orchestra at the beginning of the pas de dix-huit. Henze continues to run the whole gamut of orchestral texture during the variations that follow: high violins en masse, sprightly wind writing, brass chords punctuating the highly charged rhythmic style, and a continuation of bravura piano writing all contribute to great effect. The momentum is maintained during the opening of the pas de six that follows; the orchestra then introduces a valse for a general dance (pas d’ensemble) that could almost belong to one of Ravel’s more advanced scores. A pas d’action then begins to prepare us for the finale.

After the frenetic movement of much that has gone before, sparse textures with solo instrumental sounds floating above quiet accompanimental figures create a different sound world; the tempi are slower, and strings gently introduce the Dance of Sorrow, which then gains in intensity with a richer string texture. During the next variation, oboe, harp, and pitched percussion provide another watery timbre before the ballet moves to the final pas de deux, replete with rich sustained writing for the violins, and on to the ending of the ballet. The final movement again uses a many-coloured orchestral sound, starting with gently pulsing chords that have a sweet but melancholy dissonance; Palemon, having received Ondine’s fatal kiss, is taken back to the sea by his love, his dead body to be held by her in an eternal embrace.

Postscript
Henze has continued to fulfill many commissions, both for the theatre and concert hall. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s he became heavily involved in political activity during that era of student unrest. The first performance of an oratorio dedicated to Che Guevara after the guerilla leader’s assassination in 1967 was an occasion for scandal and chaos. A red flag was hung by students from the podium where Henze would conduct, and there was then a boycott by orchestra and chorus: accusations were flung in various directions.

In calmer times, during recent decades, Henze has continued to be in considerable demand as a teacher as well as fulfilling numerous commissions as a composer. He has also been rewarded with various honours, and has been composer-in-residence for both the Berlin Philharmonic and the Tanglewood Festival. He has contributed especially to the festival in Montepulciano where his leadership involved a number of new compositions. Henze has been involved in a summer school named after him in his home town, and in 1988 was appointed to direct the Munich Festival. Symphonies have been commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic as well as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, while among his many commissions and extremely varied output, music for dance has remained a focus for his work. The ballet score Orpheus (1978), for example, was inspired by Monteverdi’s opera Orfeo, this score being written at the time the composer was mourning the death of his mother. Naturally, in a period of reflection over recent decades, there has also been revision of earlier scores in the light of experience.

Despite the difficulties associated with the choreographic interpretation of Henze’s score for Ashton’s Ondine, the revival is most welcome. Of course it is well known that the ballet was regarded as a concerto for Fonteyn (and all that that implies for succeeding generations); being at the height of her powers she gained the greatest plaudits from the critics who attended the première. However, if Henze provided Ashton with a score that was more difficult to interpret than the choreographer bargained for, despite the time spent in joint preparation for the composition of the work, that is nothing less than has happened with many other full-length ballets throughout dance history. Tchaikovsky worked closely with Petipa for Sleeping Beauty, but he was not going to be restricted by the great choreographer; Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet was famously rejected at first in Russia as being undanceable; and Stravinsky challenged Nijinsky to the point that Marie Rambert was brought in to help prepare The Rite of Spring (and that wasn’t his only challenge!). Ondine was a bold collaboration. Henze was anxious to complete his part of the ballet to the choreographer’s satisfaction, and after the first night was ecstatic about Fonteyn’s performance.

Ondine was not the only première accorded to Henze at Covent Garden. In July 1976 the first performance was given of his opera We Come to the River, described as ‘actions for music’. For this controversial piece, presented as a morality tale with a political message, Henze also directed the staging. 

Thirty years after the première of Ondine, Henze was once again conducting the orchestra of the Royal Opera House for Ashton, but this time for a more poignant occasion: the choreographer’s memorial service in Westminster Abbey in November 1988, when he directed a performance of the much-loved 2^nd movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21.

It must be hoped that the latest revival of Ondine will prove to be a deserved accolade for Henze as well as according the ballet its rightful place in the Ashton centenary season.

Select Bibliography

Balanchine, George
Balanchine’s Festival of Ballet (Doubleday & Co. Inc.1977; W.H.Allen & Co., London 1978)

Butler, Audrey
Collins Dictionary of Dates (HarperCollins, Glasgow, 1996)

Grout, Donald Jay
A History of Western Music (3^rd edition, J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd, London, 1981)

Kavanagh, Julie
Secret Muses – The Life of Frederick Ashton (Faber & Faber, London, 1996)

Kennedy, Michael
The Oxford Dictionary of Music (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985)

Koegler, Horst
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ballet (2^nd. Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1982,  upated 1987)

Rickards, Guy
Hindemith, Hartmann and Henze (Phaidon Press Ltd., London, 1995)

Rosenthal, Harold and John Warrack
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (2^nd. Edition,
Oxford University Press, Oxford 1979)

Sadie, Stanley (ed.)
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2^nd Edition, Macmillan, London, 2001)