![](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Beckett-to-Osborne.jpg\" "\\"ENLARGE")
<\/a>Enlarge to read.<\/a><\/font> Samuel Beckett to William Osborne We sat in a caf\u00e9 across the street from his apartment and talked for exactly an hour. He always met people in that caf\u00e9 instead of his apartment so he could get up and leave if he didn\u2019t like them. He was wearing a big overcoat and didn\u2019t take it off so I figured he would quickly leave, but he seemed to enjoy our discussions. From time to time he would unbutton a button on his coat. His coat was mostly open by the end of our visit. I wondered if people judged the success of their visits by how many buttons he undid.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you’re interested in hearing an excerpt of Osborne’s music, here’s one. (It’s not from the composition he sent Beckett.) The trombone is played by Abbie Conant. The score lets you follow along.<\/p>\n
from ‘The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 4, 1966-1989’<\/font><\/p><\/div> Serious readers of Samuel Beckett have been treated to four massive volumes of his letters. I haven’t read any of the collections. So I have to take the word of two readers who have, and both tell me the experience has been a form of slow torture. The letters are mundane and largely disappointing: “Dull, dull, dull,” I’m told. I’d bet that Beckett himself would agree. Nevertheless, the volumes do contain dozens upon dozens of interesting items, like the note to the composer William Osborne that appears in the latest collection, The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 4, 1966-1989<\/em><\/a>. Osborne has commented at length<\/a>, with charming and informative details, about meeting Beckett. This is some of what he said: <\/p>\n