Schoenberg, Arnold.

sent to [Felix Greissle at] his publishers G. Schirmer Inc., about their study score of  the Fourth Quartet Op.37 and also including, on the second page, extensive remarks about Greissle's piano arrangement of the Violin Concerto, written by the composer in black and red ink and pencil on a printed form  ("List of Errata (Queries) Nr....Interrogator [inserted: "ArnoldSchoenberg"] Name of the Work [inserted: "Streich-Quartett"] Date ["20/X"] 19["37"]..."), with Schoenberg's corrections to the cello part in bar 109 of the first movement of the Quartet, including autograph notation, expressing his praise of the edition overall, and his reservations about certain peculiarities and exaggerations, regarding the size of the time signatures, and the use of the accentuation marks, explaining that he still has twenty or thirty pages of the score to complete; concerning the Concerto, Schoenberg urges to him keep the piano arrangement practical, testing it out with a pianist and adding, in red ink, further remarks about notation of the percussion parts in a separate percussion score



2 pages, folio (c.34 x 23.5cms), New York, 20 October 1937, creasing along central fold

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This is a very rich and comprehensive critique, in which Schoenberg makes observations on the peculiarities of Schirmer's edition of the Fourth Quartet Op.37 and Greissle's piano arrangement of the Violin Concerto. Schoenberg praises the beautiful edition of the Quartet in general, but observes that certain typographical elements are exaggerated, expressing the fear that the accentuation marks have been taken to extremes and will soon be used reversed to spell out the mirror canons. Schoenberg writes out the incorrect and corrected versions of the cello part at bar 109, but these are not observed in Schirmer's edition, so this manuscript may be a commentary on "certain peculiarities" rather than intended proof corrections.  He lists three general aspects of Schirmer's edition that he feels are overdone: 1) he finds the time signatures in the score far too large; 2) he had expected Schirmer to fit more bars on a page, so that it should not be more than seventy pages long; 3) it would have been better if the movements started on new pages. 

Turning to Greissle's piano score [of the Violin Concerto], Schoenberg suggests that he has a moderate pianist try out the arrangement and, if he cannot play it fluently (provided it's the score that's at fault), then simplify it, admitting that coping with the accidentals, rhythms and themes is inevitably difficult, recommending he take as his model the arrangements of his Suite Op.25 and Pierrot Lunaire, rather than the edition of the Wind Quintet

...Du solltest absolut einen mässig guten Pianisten es dir vom Blatt vorspielen lassen und was er nicht fliessend spielen kann, (wenn auch fehlerhaft) erleichtern!  Der Auszug wird dann noch immer schwer genug sein durch die [accidentals in musical notation], durch die Rhythmen und durch die Thematik! Seine einzige Schönheit kann in der leichtern Spielbarkeit bestehen und das Klavier klingt nicht am besten, wenn es viel zu spielen hat, sondern wenn alles gut in der Hand liegt...