The author, now at the age of thirty-two, is one of the leading contemporary German composers. Only recently he caused a sensation and aroused much opposition with the new version of his opera "König Hirsch". From Naples, his residence, he wrote this letter to the editor-in-chief of schlagzeug.

The premiere of Nachtstücke und Arien (Nocturnes and Arias) at the Donaueschingen Music Festival in 1957 led to a veritable scandal, after which Hans Werner Henze's music has not been performed there ever since.
Excerpt from the autobiography "Reiselieder mit böhmischen Quinten: Autobiographische Mitteilungen 1926–1995"

In 1954, the composer experienced his first scandal at the Roman premiere of Boulevard Solitude. The claqueurs had been paid by someone else. And Igor Stravinsky, the greatest living composer at the time, was denied entry to the opera house, the Teatro Costanzi. Here is the excerpt from Henze's autobiography: