Dodecaphony

Donna Perlmutter’s Jan. 4 interview with Erich Leinsdorf was read with serious misgivings. In the first place I reject his ranting against dodecaphonic music.

He seems to have forgotten that about 1960 he had planned to produce with the Boston Symphony in Tanglewood my stage work “Charles V,” a full-length opera (2 1/2 hours) written from the first to the last tone in the 12-tone technique. The project was not realized because he quit the Boston Symphony.

He also forgets that he conducted the premiere of the original version of this work in 1984 at the Vienna Opera House (whose orchestra is identical with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra). We obtained a half-hour’s standing ovation from a sold-out house.

Incidentally, this was exactly 50 years after this work had been commissioned and then rejected by the same opera house because it was classified by the already rampant Nazis as “degenerate music.”

When the opera was resumed two years later, Leinsdorf refused to conduct it, supposedly because he was not granted sufficient rehearsing time. A substitute, Guenter Lehmann, who had assisted him two years earlier, took over and did an equally excellent job.

ERNST KRENEK, Palm Springs

Krenek, 89, is considered a key figure in the evolution of 20th-Century music.