“Grifo Poliziano” 2015

“Dear mayor, dear ladies and gentlemen,

thank you very much for this precious distinction, the “Grifo Poliziano” you just awarded to Maestro Hans Werner Henze. I would like to tell you a story that happened to me two yesars ago. On the small Caribbean archipelago Turks and Caicos, close to Cuba, I went to see the Maestro's old friend, the Canadian Claude Giroux who generously supported the Cantiere in it's early years, from 1976 to 1980. His wife, Singer Maureen McNally who sadly deceased 10 ears ago, enriched the Cantiere during these years with her beautiful voice. At the end of my stay I was looking for a present for Claude in the only food store of the little island. And what did I find there, at the end of the world? Wine from Chile, Argentina, France and three different types of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. These I gave to Claude, and he was really happy – he remembered every detail of the time he spent in Montepulciano and said that 40 years ago this excellent wine could be found nowhere in America, let alone Turks and Caicos. I replied, maybe at that time there was not even a shop there, but it is also true: Outside of Italy the Nobile was completely unknown, only some connoisseur maybe happened to appreciate it. 40 years after the creation of the Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte the Vino Nobile has conquered the world and has become an important Italian export item. I don't mean that it was only the fame of the Cantiere that has spread the popularity of the wine, crucial were also the artists: they came to Montepulciano and took the bottles home, shared and enjoyed them with friends and colleagues and turned back here for years to spend the summer with wine and music. Along with the increasing popularity of the Cantiere there opened arts and crafts shops, new restaurants, hotels and bed and breakfast establishents started. It might probably be seen as a slow development, though it is well sustainable in a place, where before there was only depression and recession.

Maestro Henze did not only promote the Vino Nobile abroad, but he helped numerous Italian musicians, conductors and composers with their international breakthrough. Riccardo Chailly and Gian Luigi Gelmetti, to conductors have started their careers here at the Cantiere. The composers Giorgio Battistelli (he has been artistic director of the Cantiere for a couple of years), Lorenzo Ferrero, Marco Stroppa, Ada Gentile and Lucia Ronchetti received commissions by Henze – for a festival in Austria or for the important Munich Biennale – the International Festival for New Music Theatre. Henze has promoted Italian stage designers and painters for theatre projects in Austria, Germany and the US, among them Renzo Vespígnani, Filippo Sanjust, Lila de Nobili and Nanà Cecchi. On the other hand, the Maestro has learned a lot about the art of stage direction, tastefulness and artistic precision from his close and distinguished friend, Luchino Visconti. He often spoke of Visconti's staging of La Traviatas in Milan with Maria Callas as primadonna assoluta – this production remained a bright star in the heaven of opera for his whole life.

Though living in Italy since 1953 (the enormous success of his opera “Boulevard Solitude” allowed him to abandon a permanent job), Henze received his first commission in Italy in 2010 on occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Orchestra Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. However, we must not neglect another commission: The children from Montepulciano came to Marino in 1980 to ask Maestro Henze for a new children's opera. He immediately postponed the work for the new piece (“The English Cat”), commissioned by the Stuttgart State Opera, for two years and started to compose “Pollicino”. This piece with a libretto by Giuseppe di Leva, inspired by Italian, French and German fairytales and provided with psychoanalytic profoundness, succeeded in becoming a model for today's children's opera. This is still an important contribution to carry Montepulciano's name and reputation out in the world. So, in the next months there will be three new productions of “Pollicino” in Linz (Austria), St Gallen (Switzerland), and Torino (Italy).

Behind all these commitments – for Montepulciano, for children and artists, there is an overwhelming generosity and philanthropy Henze has ever lived for, as well as an artistic idea which means, that artists are supposed to exit from their ivory towers and to meet real human beings; the music would have to be infected with reality – this is the idea of “musica impura” - and the artists would finally become part of the society which means they would keep in mind the social relevance of their work for the common good.

This is exactly the legacy and the task Hans Werner Henze has left for us artists.
Thank you!

Michael Kerstan
Director and Foundation council Hans Werner Henze-Stiftung