Not that I can immediately point to the literature in support, but I believe this was absolutely standard practice amongst composers and (even more so, and where different) arrangers of orchestral/ operatic music of the time for piano duet - and for precisely the reasons you suggest. Domestic music-making in the late 18th and much of the 19th centuries had a virtually explicit role to play in matchmaking. 

We thank Mr. Now for drawing to our attention this "rumour," of which until now we had been either entirely not or only in some way subliminally aware. After a little consideration though it does seem to us to be not unlikely - not merely a likely story.

First of all, we ourselves have in the East experienced a pickle very similar to that of Vom Rath, instigated by a perceived broken undertaking; in our case the weapons of choice were thank Goodness a bottle of ink (not avoided) and later a rock from behind on a crowded street (adroitly deflected since we have eyes in the back of our head) rather than bullets or acid.

Here are two worthwhile links, but reliable sources for and substantiations of the most interesting parts are as Mr. Now has indicated absent. Following Mr. Derks's suggestion we performed a quick scan of Peyrefitte's oeuvre in this regard but to no avail.

http://www.anoca.org/he/vom/herschel_grynszpan.html

http://www.roizen.com/ron/grynszpan.htm

It is said that vom Rath had two sobriquets: "Madame l'Ambassadeur" and "Notre Dame de Paris" - it is unusual may we say for the one person to have two, so he must have earned them by being quite outstandingly outrageous. Or it may all be fiction. This is something which is susceptible of confirmation and we encourage budding historians to set to work before it is too late. Here he is - is that a duelling scar we see?


Also Herschel Grynspan is said to have met vom Rath in a "gay bar" ("le Boeuf sur le Toit" - shades of Milhaud the plump polytonalist of the "wrong-note" school) which again in our (vast) experience seems very likely given his (poor Herschel's) life story and situation up to that point and the fact that it was Paris.

Gide - who like Peyrefitte was certainly in a position to know - seems to have believed it, but we did look up his Journal for 1938 and were rather surprised not to find the quoted passage. Again this is something susceptible of confirmation through careful scholarly research; we need to get hold of Professor Döscher's article for a start.

So - and here is the important question in the context of this thread: if Gide knew how could Tippett not have known? We may conclude that Tippett too did know may we not, and that fact must throw additional light upon this work of his - especially upon the second of its three sections ("The Child enmeshed in the drama of his personal fate and the elemental social forces of our day"). But in fact the text of this second section (all written by Tippett himself incidentally - jolly old Eliot so popular and omnipresent at one time rejected the task) is more about the accepted version of the mother the aunt and the uncle, with the possible exception of these lines towards the end:

            "He shoots the official -
            "But he shoots only his dark brother -"
            "And see - he is dead."

So perhaps even here Tippett in his self-conscious English way was not being entirely straightforward.

P.S. Mr. Now mentions 1957, presumably because it was the year of the Wolfenden Report; but actually 1967 was more significant; nothing much changed in practice until then was that not so . . .

Oh, but Ron, surely King Priam is quite uncharacteristic in not having a character or characters with whom Tippett might obviously have identified, unlike for example Dov in what I personally think is his most interesting piece, The Knot Garden.

King Priam strikes me, though, as a possibly excellent but certainly uncharacteristic piece, rather as if he'd decided to be sensible for once (I could never fall in love with it!).

Point taken (just!) about the threesome, but there's not a single thing in The Knot Garden that embarrasses me, Ron!

One more word if we may venture it about Tippett's young hero Herschel Grynspan, who is incidentally rumoured to have survived the war returned to Paris and there supported a family of four through his labours as a motor-garage mechanic (even to this day we wonder?): the strangest thing in his whole story is that in June 1940, while being transported to the south with other young prisoners, his train was attacked and he found himself free. What was his reaction to this unexpected freedom? He made his way to prison A many miles away and presented himself. Told that they could not at that to say the least difficult time take him in, he made his way to prison B many miles away again and presented himself there. There is much food for thought in this story we find. We do think of Genet of course, but it is really the principle behind monastic life down the ages that we cannot put out of our minds is not it.

Ron and co- know if there's a recording of last opera 'New Year' anywhere?-Texan commission I think, audacious stylistic moves which I though came off (eg considered idiosyncratic take on Rap).

mf, tinners, no, there's never been a commercial recording of New Year; however, thanks to the convoluted series of swaps and surprises that underpin this board, I'd not be at all surprised if a rather pleasant PM were to come your way shortly....