Henze's dogs
While still living in Castel Gandolfo, in a house high above the lake, HWH had acquired a female dog named Dafne, a piccolo levriero italiano (Italian greyhound). He discovered her in a Roman pet shop where he had actually wanted to buy a cat - a traditional Roman New Year's gift. Dafne seemed to want to explain to him with her eyes: If you don't take me with you, I will die here in no time. Dafne was soon joined by the male dog Coccolo.
When Henze had moved into his house in Marino and after several generations of other levrieri, the composer brought an English whippet named James from London one day, winner of a beauty contest. Over time, the preference for these greyhounds, whether small Italian or large English, resulted in visitors to La Leprara occasionally bringing corresponding porcelain, bronze or wooden figurines to Marino. (It was quickly forgotten that Henze in the meantime had owned also bulldogs).
The two porcelain figures shown come from the Gardner manufactory in Moscow (called "Russian Gardner"); the origin of the little dog on the red velvet cushion can even be traced: It was originally in the possession of the Russian Tsar's house, from where it passed into the hands of the Battenbergs (Mountbattens). It was then passed on as a gift to Princess Margaret of Hesse and the Rhine, the great patron of art and music from Wolfsgarten near Darmstadt. Henze cultivated a close friendship with her from the late 1950s onwards, and so it is not surprising that the figure ended up in La Leprara's salon, with a proof of provenance written down by the princess herself on the reverse.
Animals appear very frequently in Henze's music - deer, monkey, horse, cats, a hoopoe and finally also a "white, very well-groomed little dog" in the dramatic poem Opfergang - Immolazione, which was premiered in Rome in January 2010. The composer had been carrying around the desire to set Franz Werfel's poem Das Opfer to music since the early 1950s, and certainly his last levriero, Aristeo, then provided him with powerful inspiration in the realisation of this wish.
