Schoenberg, Arnold.

containing autograph corrections, suggestions, comments and queries written mainly in pencil on five publisher's printed cards and one leaf of manuscript paper, signed in several places by the composer ("Schoenberg"; "Sch"), most of the over 70 autograph music examples written on printed staves, some written on staves drawn by a single-stave rastrum, with a number of additional corrections and comments written on strips of manuscript paper and affixed to the cards etc., some entries in red and black ink, and also pink, green, mauve and blue crayon, some erasures and corrections



...Ich habe z.B. die Verwendung "kleiner Noten" durchaus nicht verboten, und wenn ich mich vorsichtig ausgedruckt habe, so nur, um damit nicht zu provozieren, dass es darin von kleinen Noten wimmelt. Ich hätte schon im 1. u 2. Satz oft es besser gefunden, wenn manchmals die kl. N. im Klavier stünden als dass ununterbrochen (fast) 1-2 kl. Zeilen vorhanden sind. Bitte, um Gottes willen! falle nun nicht ins Gegenteilige Extrem!...Ich bestehe nicht durchaus auf meinen Verbesserungsvorschlägen...Ich überlege eben, ob ich mit meinen Korrekturen nicht (in allen Sätzen) oft ungerecht war. Vielleicht, weil man als Komponist von einem Arrangement niemals befriedigt sein kann...Der Klavierauszug scheint ja als Ganzes gut zu sein, wenn ich auch glaube, dass du oft zu grundsätzlich Stimmen weggelassen hast, die leicht mitzuspielen wären...Aber ich überlasse die entgültige Fertigstellung deinem eigenen Urteil: du sollst mir keine Korrektur davon mehr schicken...



9 pages, on five publisher's printed cards (c.50.8 x 22.7cm) and one irregularly cut leaf of manuscript paper (c.33 x 24cm), printed stamps of the composer ("Arnold Schoenberg / 116 N. Rockingham Ave. / Brentwood Park / Los Angeles, Calif. / Tel. W.L.A.35077"), Los Angeles, 1938, where dated, splitting along folds, occasional slight smudging of the pencil



together with two typed pages of Schoenberg's instructions to Felix Greissle concerning the preparation of the keyboard reduction of the orchestral score ("Anweisungen für die Herstellung eines Klavierauszuges des Violin Konzerts..."), with some autograph annotations, comprising fifteen detailed points, numbered '1' [sic]-'XV', no place or date



...VI. Der Klavierauszug soll nicht ausschauen wie ein "Klavierstück von Schoenberg" sondern, wenn schon nicht wie eins von Chopin oder Schumann, so vielleicht wie eins von Brahms oder besser, wie ein Klavierauszug von Otto Singer. Keine Experimente, keine Probleme, sondern immer das Einfachste. Zwei Stimmen, wenn Sie gut spielbar sind klingen am Klavier besser, als drei noch so interessante, wenn sie schwer spielbar sind [the last five words in Schoenberg's autograph]...



The contents of the leaves are as follows:



[1] One unnumbered leaf of manuscript paper containing musical suggestions and comments regarding bb.37, 51-52, 116-119, 124-125, 177 and 211, 1 page



[2] One sheet with printed heading 'List of Errata (Queries) Nr.5 [number '5' added in manuscript]' containing musical suggestions etc. regarding bb.296, 297, 298, 301, 316, 330, 332-333, 334, 337, 340-341, 347, 357/358, 367, 368/369, 371, 372/373, 379, [on the verso, numbered '6' and signed by the composer ("Schb"):] 383, 388, 392, 394/395, 401, 402, 406, 407, 408, 409/410, 412/413, 415, 418, 422, 423/424, 425, 428, 429, 438 and 444/446, 2 pages, signed and dated by the composer ("Schoenberg...14/I:38")



[3] One sheet with printed heading 'List of Errata (Queries) Nr.7 [number '7' added in manuscript]' containing musical suggestions etc. regarding bb.446, 447, 448, 450, 454, 456/457, 458, 461/462 and 465/466, 1 page, signed and dated by the composer ("Sch...Januar 38")



[4] One sheet with printed heading 'List of Errata (Queries) Nr. 9 ['9' added in manuscript]' containing musical suggestions etc. regarding bb.475-477, 480/481, 482/483, 484, 485, 487, 486, 489, 490, 491, 494, 497, 498, 499, 500/501 and 502, 2 pages



[5] One sheet with printed heading 'List of Errata (Queries) Nr.12 ['12' added in manuscript]' containing musical suggestions etc. for bb.588, 590, 591-593, 595, 596, 598, 599, 596, 600, 605, 606, 607, 608, 616, 617, 618 and 621, 2 pages



[6] One sheet with printed heading 'List of Errata (Queries) Nr.13 ['13' added in manuscript]' containing musical suggestions etc. regarding bb.623/627, 628/630, 632, 635, 639, 648, 681, 715, 718/719 and 723, 1 page

Arnold Schoenberg Center (www.schoenberg.at/6_archiv/satellite/satellite_g8_e.htm).

 

 

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This is an important, extraordinarily rich and apparently unpublished, source for one of Schoenberg's major works, the Violin Concerto, Op.36. These leaves are not recorded in the critical report to the volume containing Op.36 in the Schoenberg collected edition (Arnold Schönberg: Sämtliche Werke, IV/15 (1988), ed. T. Okuljar).

Schoenberg's Violin Concerto Op.36 was the first major composition begun by the composer following his emigration to America on 31 October 1933. Composed between 1935 and 1936, it was first published by Schirmer in 1939, in score and in a reduction for violin and piano. Responsible for preparing the latter was the composer's son-in-law Felix Greissle (1894-1982), a private pupil of Schoenberg's in Vienna who, in 1921, had married the composer's daughter Gertrud. Greissle was Schoenberg's preferred arranger, arranging around sixteen works of Schoenberg's in all, including, in addition to the Violin Concerto, the Chamber Symphony no.1, Op.9, the Wind Quintet Op.26, the String Quartet no.3, Op.30, and the Variations on a Recitative, Op.40.

A particularly notable aspect of this remarkable series of densely-written leaves containing Schoenberg's queries and suggested corrections for the keyboard reduction is the fact that many of the composer's suggested versions were not incorporated by Greissle in to his edition. A note on one of the leaves makes it clear, however, that, in general, Schoenberg found Greissle's arrangement good, and that he was content to leave the final decisions to his son-in-law.

Possibly more important still than Schoenberg's many musically divergent suggestions are some of the lengthy elucidatory comments by the composer, which provide valuable insights into his musical aesthetics. In one notable passage, discussing a repeated chord pattern, found in bb.475ff., Schoenberg draws parallels with the textures and rhythms in works by Schubert, including the 'Erlkoenig' and the Piano Sonata in A minor, Op.42. Such observations find their counterpart in the no less remarkable two-page typed list of instructions to Greissle concerning the keyboard reduction, where we read :

...The keyboard arrangement should not look like a 'keyboard piece by Schoenberg', rather, if not like one by Chopin or Schumann, then perhaps like one by Brahms or, better still, one by Otto Singer. No experiments, no problems, just what's simplest. Two parts, when easily played, sound better on the piano than three, be they ever so interesting [translation]...