Otherwise I will feel that you have cast me aside, which I can’t believe.
I think I am progressing with the horn. My tongue, though, is very sluggish. And people begin to object to my practicing.
And now I reach a point where my respect and affection for you and Mrs. Weiss pass bounds, and I am afraid of seeming not sincere, but believe in my deep respect and friendship.
To Herr Jawlinski12
[ca. 1935] | 1207 Miramar, Los Angeles
Herr Jawlinski
Ich kann nicht Deutsch schreiben oder sprechen, aber ich bin sehr freudig, weil ich habe eines Ihnen Bilder gekauft. Jetzt ist es in mir.
Ich schreibe Musik. Sie sind mein Lehrer.
Ich will mehr schreiben aber ich kann nicht geben auf Deutsch alles was ich will.
Es war #116
To Mrs. Adolph Weiss
January 3, 1935 | 1207 Miramar, Los Angeles
My dear Mrs. Weiss:
I wish that you were here enjoying the very beautiful weather that we are having. The hills are all intensely green, and from my window I awake to look at snow-capped mountains. The air is very gentle and the sunlight is brilliant and warm. I hope that you are not angry with me for telling you about these things, because I don’t mean to be boasting of them; I only wish that you were enjoying them.
It has taken me a few days to get back into the swing of working, but I’m there now and enjoying writing exercises and working on my song. Mother says that I may buy a flute, but I am going to wait until Mr. Weiss arrives; he may have something to say about what kind, etc.
Mr. Buhlig is giving several concerts which I’m going to hear. A modern one with Copland, Scriabin, Busoni, Schoenberg, Chavez and Bartok; then a Bach program (two toccatas and the Goldberg Variations); three Beethoven Sonatas, 106, 110, 111, I think; and the last will be the Art of the Fugue. He is much better, and says, in fact, that he hasn’t felt better in at least ten years.
Don is staying with relatives in San Fernando, California. Henry left a few days ago for Menlo Park. We had an excellent trip across country. I was sorry that Don changed his mind about Santa Fe.
I am wishing with all my heart that this letter finds you well and not too burdened with the illness in Mr. Weiss’ family. And that the coming year will be an excellent one for you and Mr. Weiss.
Did you know that Bertha Knisely,13 the music critic who mentioned the Santa Barbara idea to Mr. Weiss, has given up her position and eloped with a painter to Spain?
Mother’s being on the newspaper makes it possible for her to get tickets for anything she wants to go to,14 so that I will be able to attend any concerts there are that I want to. I am going to go to the Philharmonic whether I like the programs or not, because I think it is very necessary to hear as much music as I can.
I am also enjoying the records Henry gave me. We have a phonograph, not a very good one, but it goes around. I find Mr. Weiss’s songs more and more beautiful.15
I know that you are probably very busy, but I should like to hear from you.
I have not tried to get in touch with the Schoenbergs but shall wait, as you asked me to, until Mr. Weiss arrives, unless, he is, by accident, at one of the concerts in Buhlig’s home.
To Pauline Schindler
January 11, 1935 | Los Angeles
Dearest Pauline:
Your letter came—your parenthesis—and I love it because I shall steer clear of all directions except a bee-line for you.
Life has been hectic and the sky beautifully cloud-filled, sunlight and then beautiful shower-baths. Palm-trees and acacias in bloom and all sorts of things I took for granted for too long. I feel bristling with spontaneity: I love you.
At last I heard some of the Kunst der Fuge. What can I say but that listening receives one into a new broad heaven, awakening and including, I feel where you have been. Nothing I have ever heard is at all similar. Oh, for a blindness to all else!
Buhlig is giving three recitals in his home Sundays: Jan. 20, 27 and Feb. 3. Beethoven, Bach, Modern (respectively). Subscriptions $2.50 or single admission $1.00. 8:30 p.m. He wanted me to tell you so that if people in Ojai coming down were interested they would know about it through you if you knew and told them. That keeps me from taking Weiss to Santa B. but I am coming to see you next week. The car has become a problem and I lose all spontaneity about asking for it, because it has to do with mother who needs it in her work.
I have been phoning people right and left and finally we have the returns of the concerts definitely up to $137.50. The idea was Calista’s in order to pay Buhlig’s railway fare.16 We won’t stop till we get to $240. It is exciting and I enjoy it because it is for Buhlig.
It is, of course, conclusively shown that I know nothing about modulation, but so much the better, because then I can go on working till I do. I hope very much that my work is not so bad that Weiss will give me up as a bad job.
I met Schoenberg and he is simplicity and genuineness itself. There was analysis of the Dance Suite hanging up on the wall like a mural.
Did I tell you that I met another teacher-to-be of mine tonight: Wendell Hoss,17 a friend of Weiss, who will teach me to play the French horn. I think it will be better than the flute. And I will stop smoking and join an orchestra.
I feel all the friction you have in reading this letter. What is an orchestra, you ask, or a French horn, or harmony, or collecting money for tickets? Nothing at all but a series of essential farces. Do they touch you? I think not.
To Pauline Schindler
January 18, 1935 | Location not indicated
Dearest,
There was a little open space the other day: I was walking and thinking of you in Ojai, an open space of country, and suddenly I knew what wildness was. I hissed and grunted and felt myself expanding with a big heart ’til for a moment I was out of my mind and only tremendously alive.
I did not know you were wild and intoxicating. And now I have only very present memories. Life has been short, has only begun. And I can see in the corner your eyes, never turned away. And your hair is some kind of a promise, I don’t know of what, perhaps that it will reach your shoulders and that I may bury myself in it.
Perhaps I am satisfied that you, whom I know are a fragment, you are entirely another’s. And yet, these days you are always with me.
It is late and I am tired and I love you and want to be with you.
I am sure there is something unexplainably and mysteriously sacred about the Valley, something including evil.
To Henry Cowell
[ca. 1935] | Location not indicated
Dear
