November 24, 2006

Rosé, Arnold (Rosé Quartet)

Arnold Josef Rosé (1863-1946), Austrian violinist. One of the leading violinists of his age, Rosé began his career with studies at the Vienna Conservatory under Carl Heißler (1874–77). After four years spent on tour as a soloist, Rosé was appointed concertmaster of the Vienna Hofoper (where he worked closely with Mahler, to whom he was related by marriage, during the latter’s directorship) and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras in 1881, remaining until 1938, and was also concertmaster at Bayreuth 1888–96. In 1882, he founded the Rosé Quartet with his brother Eduard, a cellist. Later, Rosé taught violin at the Vienna Conservatory from 1893 to 1901 (when he left in protest against the introduction of the Meisterklassen) and 1908–18 (Tittel; MGG: 1908–1924). In 1938 he moved to England.

The Rosé String Quartet was one of the leading chamber ensembles in Europe. It gave many first performances, notably of works by Brahms, Pfitzner, Korngold, Reger, Schoenberg, and Webern. These included the premières of Schoenberg’s First String Quartet, Op.7 (February 5, 1907) and First Chamber Symphony, Op.9 (February 8, 1907), both of which Schenker attended (Schoenberg having drawn his attention to them), commenting caustically in his diary, and his Second String Quartet, Op.10 (December 1908).

Rosé’s and his quartet’s commitment to the German/Austrian Classical repertory and its personal association with Brahms disposed Schenker favorably to them in the 1890s (see early reviews); however, their increasing advocacy of new music aroused his disapproval. In 1908, he described Rosé’s playing as “oppressed by the dark and somber power of school pedantry, ungainly and monotonous, lacking color and warmth, like a nag in harness that sits and broods, waiting dully for the coachman’s signal.” (diary February 28, 1908).

There is no known correspondence between Schenker and Rosé. Elsewhere in the correspondence, Rosé is mentioned:

OJ 13/27, [4], October 14, 1901 (Roentgen to Schenker)

WSLB 200, February 19, 1914 (Schenker to Hertzka)

Mentions in diary entries include:

OJ 1/6, p. 33, February 5, 1907 (Schoenberg First Quartet première) (Fed., 211)
OJ 1/6, p. 34, February 8, 1907 (Schoenberg Chamber Symphony I première)
OJ 1/7, p. 80, February 28, 1908 (Fed., 248)
OJ 3/5, p. ?, March 28, 1926 (Fed., 248)
OJ 4/1, p. ?, October 18, 1927 (Fed., 217, 249)
OJ 4/8, p. ?, February 15, 1933 (Fed., 249)

Bibliography:

Federhofer, Hellmut, ed., Heinrich Schenker als Essayist und Kritiker (Hildesheim: Olms, 1990), passim
Federhofer, Hellmut, Heinrich Schenker nach Tagebüchern ... (Hildesheim: Olms, 1985), pp. 248–49
NGDM1 & 2
MGG
Tittel, Ernst, Die Wiener Musikhochschule ... (Vienna: Lafite, 1967)

November 23, 2006

Schenker Institute, Hamburg : Prospectus

Prospectus of the Schenker Institute, Hamburg, undated [1931-34]

Source: OJ 58/41

SCHENKER-INSTITUT

Private / höhere Lehr- und Forschungsanstalt / für Musik

Gegründet 1931

Die Ausbildungsstätte für höchste / künstlerische und wissenschaftliche Ansprüche

Direktion: Felix-Eberhard v. Cube

Sekretariat:
Hamburg 13, Louisenallee 2, I. Stock, Fernsprecher 44 27 70
Sprechstunden: Mo., Mi., Fr. von 12-13 Uhr

{2}
In einem Privatinstitut
wird die individuelle Ausbildung, welche die spezifischen Anlagen jedes einzelnen Studierenden sorgfältig entwickelt, in Verbindung mit der Universalität der zur Wahl gestellten Lehrfächer besonders gepflegt.

Das Schenker-Institut ist die einzige Lehranstalt auf dem Kontinent, welche neben der Unterweisung in allen klassischen und modernen Tonsatzlehren ihren Studienplan auf den neuzeitlichen Forschungsergebnissen und Lehrmethoden des Wiener Musikgelehrten und - Pädagogen Prof. Dr. Heinrich Schenker aufbaut.

Das Institut umfaßt folgende Abteilungen:

A. Konservatorium der Musik für Laien, Anfänger und Liebhaber der Musik.

B. Vorbereitung auf die staatl. Privatmusiklehrerprüfung für alle Studierenden, welche die Berechtigung zur Erteilung von berufsbildendem Musikunterricht anstreben.

C. Meisterschule für Komponisten und Instrumentalsolisten für alle diejenigen, welche die höchste z. Zt. erreichbare Qualifikation als Tonsetzer, Solisten oder Pädagogen erlangen wollen.

D. Institut für Musiklehrerfortbildung.

Für die Aufnahme in die Abteilung B und C ist Mittelschulreife bzw. Abitur erforderlich. Aufnahme in D nur nach Ablegung der staatl. Privatmusiklehrerprüfung.

Absolventen des Instituts erhalten ein Abgangszeugnis. Die am Institut absolvierten Semester werden von auswärtigen Hochschulen auf Antrag in Anrechnung gebracht.

{3}
VORLESUNGS - UND ÜBUNGSPLAN

HistoricumProf. Dr. Wilhelm Heinitz
Hist. RepetitoriumIngrid Nottebohm
Psychol. Pädag., PhilosophicumDr. Wilhelm Schmidt-Scherf
MathematicumDr. Helmut Baumann
Komposition, Theoreticum I, II, IIIFelix-Eberhard v. Cube
Theor. RepetitoriumHans Wingert
Musik. ElementarlehreUrsula Bosch
ChorklasseHerbert Langhans
KammermusikklasseHannele Semann-Osbahr
OpernkorrepetitionKapellmst. Friedrich Buck
Dramat. UnterrichtGertrud Buck-Möllnitz
OrchesternachwuchsJohannes Lorenz
Labor für ElektromusikHerbert Weigelt

{4}
Das Institut übernimmt auch die theoretische Ausbildung von Schülern externer Privatlehrkräfte. Für jedes Solohauptfach stehen einige Hamburger Solisten zur Verfügung.

Honorarbedingungen :

Instrumental-Einzelunterricht:jährlich DM
Unterstufe240.-
Mittelstufe360.-
Oberstufe480.-
Theoretische Fächer - (Klassenunterricht)480.-
Vollstudium pauschal720.-

Eintritt: 1. April und 1. Oktober: für Laien jederzeit
Kündigung: 1. Januar, 1. April, 1. Oktober jeweils 4 Wochen vorher schriftlich

Zahlung monatlich oder quartalsweise voraus

Freiplätze in beschränkter Anzahl nach Prüfung durch die Sozialbehörde

(Änderungen vorbehalten)

Schacht & Westerlich

November 14, 2006

Messchaert, Johannes

Johannes Messchaert (1857-1922), Dutch baritone. After studies in Cologne and Munich, Messchaert returned to Holland in 1881, where he taught at the Amsterdam Conservatory. A frequent collaborator with pianist Julius Röntgen, Messchaert toured prolifically, establishing a reputation as one of Europe’s most sought-after singers of Lieder and oratorio. He moved to Germany (Wiesbaden) in 1900, and thereafter held various conservatory appointments, ultimately attaining the post of professor at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik.

Schenker first reported, with great enthusiasm, on Messchaert’s singing in the Berlin weekly Die Zeit (1896; repr. in Federhofer 1990). A mutually admiring relationship developed, and Messchaert engaged Schenker as his accompanist during a tour of the Habsburg Empire in January and February 1899.

Correspondence between Messchaert and Schenker survives as OJ 12/54. Other materials survive as OJ 35/5 (concert programs and tour itineraries), OJ 59/11, 70/27 (Messchaert/Violin correspondence), and 72/10 (portrait).

Elsewhere in the correspondence, Messchaert is mentioned in:

NMI V 176-02, March 15, 1901 (Schenker to Röntgen)

OJ 13/27, [1], March 18, 1901 (Röntgen to Schenker)

NMI C 176-01, April 13, 1901 (Schenker to Röntgen)

OJ 13/27, [2], April 22, 1901 (Röntgen to Schenker)

OJ 13/27, [4], October 14, 1901 (Röntgen to Schenker)

vC 14, April 29, 1928 (Schenker to Cube)

vC 17, July 13, 1928 (Schenker to Cube)

Bibliography:

Hellmut Federhofer, Heinrich Schenker nach Tagebüchern ... (Hildesheim: Olms, 1985), 18-19, 178-80;

Hellmut Federhofer, Heinrich Schenker als Essayist und Kritiker. Gesammelte Aufsätze, Rezensionen und kleinere Berichte aus den Jahren 1891-1901, ed. Hellmut Federhofer [Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1990], 318-19

Elizabeth Forbes, “Johannes Messchaert,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 2001), vol. 16, 490-91;

Thomas Seedorf, “Johannes Meschaert,” in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik, 2d ed., ed. Ludwig Finscher (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1994–), Personenteil, vol. 12, cols. 61-62.)

(Author: Kevin Karnes, 2006)

November 9, 2006

Wolf, Hans

Hans Wolf (1912-2005), German conductor and educator, pupil of Schenker’s in the 1934/35 season. Wolf was also a student at the University of Vienna, where he wrote a PhD dissertation on the concepts of musical motion in 18th-century theory. His article in Der Dreiklang (1937) describes vividly Schenker’s manner of teaching in private lessons. In September 1934, Wolf traveled to Hamburg and was (as a Jew) prevented from returning to Austria by the Nazi authorities; Furtwängler, at Jonas’s and Schenker’s request, intervened to facilitate his return. — Wolf emigrated to the USA in the late 1930s, teaching in Iowa then serving with the US Army in World War II; from 1969 on, he worked for Seattle Opera; from 1981 to 1996, he directed Tacoma Opera.

His correspondence to Schenker survives in OC (5 items and 2 joint items) and OJ (15/26: 4 items).

In addition, Wolf is also mentioned in the following items:

OJ 9/34, [40], June 2, 1934 (Cube to Schenker)

OJ 5/18, 57, September 28, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 5/18, 59. October 16, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 5/18, 60, October 25, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 12/6, [39], November 28, 1934 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [40], December 19, 1934 (Jonas to Schenker)

Wolf’s writings before emigration:

—“Die musikalischen Bewegungsbegriffe in den Generalbaß- und Kompositionslehren des 18. Jahrhunderts als Fortsetzung der Lehre vom Kontrapunkt” (PhD diss., U. of Vienna, 1936 or 1937).

—“Schenkers Persönlichkeit im Unterricht,” Der Dreiklang 7 (1937), 176–84.

October 26, 2006

Schoenberg, Arnold

Arnold Schoenberg [Schönberg] (1874–1951). Austrian composer, earliest representative of Viennese musical modernism, creator of the twelve-tone method of composition, teacher of Alban Berg, Anton von Webern, and other composers in Vienna, Berlin, and, from 1934 on, in the U.S.A. Although Schoenberg’s musical style had its origins partly in Brahms and the Viennese Classical composers, Schenker became increasingly antagonist toward him from around 1910 because he saw him as advancing the stylistic innovations of Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, abandoning the Classical tonal tradition, and in the realm of theory espousing developing variation over repetition.

Relations between Schoenberg and Schenker
Contact between Schenker and Schoenberg was made first by the latter on September 12, 1903, after he had been engaged by Busoni to orchestrate Schenker’s Syrische Tänze für Pianoforte zu 4 Händen (Vienna: Weinberger, c.1899). The orchestration was not to Schenker’s taste because it “suggests the style of Richard Strauss,” but he evidently approved it, for the resulting performance took place on November 5, 1903. Schoenberg subsequently tried between November 10, 1903 and early 1904 to enlist Schenker’s participation in forming his Vereinigung schaffender Tonkünstler. Communications between the two continued into 1907, when Schoenberg drew Schenker’s attention to two concerts of his music (both of which Schenker attended and reported in his diary) and invited him to one of music by his pupils. The two evidently met several times, and were apparently on cordial terms until around 1910, when their relationship deteriorated.

The break-down was perhaps impelled by Hertzka’s contracting Schoenberg for Universal Edition in 1909 along with Mahler, Schreker, and Foerster; the issuing of UE’s 1910 catalogue containing Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet and Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11 may have been the catalyst to Schenker’s antagonism. First private signs of this were Schenker’s allusion to “a publisher that places its main emphasis these days on anti-musical music” in his letter to Emil Hertzka of February 7, 1910, WSLB 52, which conveys Schenker’s disillusionment with Hertzka’s break from UE’s original 1901 commitment to an Austrian edition of the “classics.” His resentment at what he saw as Hertzka’s promotion of Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre over his own works emerges in WSLB 75, May 17, 1911, and three years later he suggests that UE should use its profits from Mahler’s and Schoenberg’s music to subsidize its publication of his own writings, OJ 5/16, [2], May 1914 (draft).

The first step in the public confrontation between the two, Schoenberg’s response to Schenker’s diatribes against Strauss and Reger in Harmonielehre (1906) and the Foreword to Kontrapunkt I (1910), was delivered in his own Harmonielehre (1911 and lengthened in the 1921 edition). Schenker first publicly named Schoenberg in his Erläuterungsausgabe of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, Op.111 (1915), and his most sustained, personalised critique, of the chordal treatment of passing-tones in Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre, appeared in Das Meisterwerk in der Musik II (1926), pp. 30–37 (Eng. trans., II, 12–16).

The surviving correspondence
Correspondence between the two men comprises twelve personal letters from Schoenberg to Schenker, which survive only in photocopies in OJ 14/15 (see also OJ 60/2), plus one circular letter from Zemlinsky, Gutheil, and Schoenberg, and two invitations; none are known to have survived from Schenker to Schoenberg.

References to Schoenberg in Schenker’s correspondence include the following:

WSLB 75, May 17, 1911 (Schenker to Hertzka)

WSLB 120, June 9, 1912 (Schenker to Hertzka)

WSLB 200, February 19, 1914 (Schenker to Hertzka)

OJ 5/16, [2], May 1914 (Schenker to Hertzka, draft)

WSLB 211, May 5, 1914 (Schenker to Hertzka)

DLA 69.930/10, December 21, 1922 (Schenker Halm)

vC 10, June 1, 1927 (Schenker to Cube)

DLA 69.930/15, July 11, 1927 (Schenker to Halm)

vC 28, January 12, 1930 (Schenker to Cube)

OJ 5/18, 33, December 21, 1933 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 9/34, [42], October 4, 1934 (Cube to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [39], November 28, 1934 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [40], December 19, 1934 (Jonas to Schenker)

Bibliography
See especially:

Carl Dahlhaus, “Schoenberg and Schenker,” Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 100 (1973–74), 209–15; reprinted in Schoenberg and the New Music: Essays by Carl Dahlhaus, ed. Derrick Puffett and Alfred Clayton (Cambridge: CUP, 1987), pp. 134–40

Bryan R. Simms, “New Documents in the Schoenberg–Schenker Polemic,” Perspectives of New Music, XVI (1977), 110–24

Charlotte E. Erwin and Bryan R. Simms, “Schoenberg’s Correspondence with Heinrich Schenker,” Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute V (1981), 23–43

Hellmut Federhofer, “Heinrich Schenkers Verhältnis zu Arnold Schönberg,” in Mitteilungen der Kommission für Musikforschung, No. 33 (1981), 369–90

Ian Bent, “’That Bright New Light’: Schenker, Universal Edition, and the Origins of the Erläuterung Series, 1901–1910’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 58/1 (Spring 2005), 69–138.

October 1, 2006

Bienenfeld, Elsa

Elsa Bienenfeld (1877–1942) studierte 1898–1903 Musikwissenschaft bei Guido Adler, weiters Komposition bei Robert Fuchs, Alexander von Zemlinsky und Arnold Schönberg. Sie dissertierte als erste weibliche Absolventin des Fachs Musikwissenschaft in Österreich 1903 an der Universität Wien über „W. Schmeltzl und sein Liederbuch (1544)“. Im Jahr darauf wurde sie zum wirkenden Mitglied der DTÖ ernannt.

Sie unterrichtete an dem von Eugenie Schwarzwald geleiteten Lyzeum für Mädchen in Wien und organisierte dort 1904/05 einen Kurs für Musikinteressierte (hauptsächlich Studenten Guido Adlers), in dem sie selbst zusammen mit Schönberg und Zemlinsky musiktheoretische und historische Fächer anbot. Bienenfeld setzte sich wiederholt publizistisch für die Zweite Wiener Schule ein. Sie schrieb von ca. 1906 bis in die 1930er Jahre Musikkritiken für das Neue Wiener Journal. Nach dem „Anschluss“ Österreichs an Nazideutschland 1938 wurde sie als Jüdin aus ihrer Geburtsstadt Wien deportiert. Sie starb im Konzentrationslager Klein Trostinetz bei Minsk.

Die Korrespondenz mit Schenker beschränkt sich auf die Jahre 1931–1933 (siehe OJ 9/15 und OC 50/14). Briefe Schenkers an sie sind nicht erhalten.

Bienenfeld wird auch in anderer Korrespondenz Schenkers erwähnt, siehe etwa

CA 171, 20. Juni 1920 (Schenker an Cotta) (Rezension).

In Schenkers Tagebuch wird sie ebenfalls genannt, so in

OJ 1/9, p. 119b, November 27, 1910.

Continue reading "Bienenfeld, Elsa" »

September 9, 2006

Verein zur Speisung und Bekleidung hungernder Schulkinder in Wien

Verein zur Speisung und Bekleidung hungernder Schulkinder in Wien (Association for Feeding and Clothing Schoolchildren in Vienna). Organization founded in 1912 by Betty Kolm:

On the basis of lists from teachers, the children in question were fed lunches for a small payment; during the wartime honorary presidency of Anka Bienerth, it was transformed into the Schwarz-Gelbe Kreuz [Black-and-Yellow Cross] [website: http://www.onb.ac.at/ariadne/vfb/fv_kshk.htm]

A „Verein zur Speisung hungernder Schulkinder in Wien“ was discussed three years before this founding date, in the Zentralblatt des Bundes österreichischer Frauenvereine, 4/2 (1909) [website: http://www.onb.ac.at/ariadne/vfb/02guibund.htm].

S was himself indirectly involved with this organization through his association with his pupil and benefactress Sophie Deutsch. Deutsch died in 1917, and evidently left a large legacy to the Verein with the stipulation that a portion of the annual yield be dedicated to the creation of two stipends a year for impecunious skilled composers and composition pupils, the choice of recipients to be made exclusively by Schenker: see OJ 12/31, [1] and [2], December 7, 1917 and July 1, 1924 (Ernst Lamberg to S), and mentioned also as the “Verein zur Ausspeisung armer Schulkinder” in OJ 5/25, [1], S to Josef Marx, October/December 1924.

(Schenker mentions Anka Bienerth in his letter to Hertzka (UE), WSLB 233, December 20, 1914.)

This organization is mentioned in the following letters:

WSLB 233, December 20, 1914 (Schenker to Hertzka)

OJ 12/31, [1], December 7, 1923 (Lamberg to Schenker)

OJ 15/31, [1], January 31, 1924 (Wunsch to Schenker)

OJ 12/31, [2], July 1, 1924 (Lamberg to Schenker)

OJ 5/24, July 8, 1924 (Schenker to Lamberg, draft

OJ 12/31, [3], July 11, 1924 (Lamberg to Schenker)

OJ 5/25, [1], October/December 1924 (Schenker to Marx)

September 3, 2006

Breisach, Paul

Paul Breisach (1896–1952). Austrian conductor. Numerous recordings of his conducting exist, including opera arias with Melchior in 1924 and 1925; in the early 1930s he was a conductor at the Städtische Oper in Berlin: a recording exists of his conducting Hans Gál’s ballet Scaramouche there in 1931, and he conducted the first performance of Schreker’s Der Schmied von Gent (disrupted by anti-Semitic riots) in 1932. He emigrated later in the 1930s. His debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York was of Aida in 1941 and his last performance there of Die Walküre in 1946; recordings exist of him conducting The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni at the Met in 1943 (GHCD 2203/4/5; GHCD 2236/37), and also works by Debussy, Duparc and others.

He was a pupil of Schenker’s from October 1913 for some years, and his lessons are recorded in Schenker’s Lesson Books (OC 3)—it is noticeable that Schenker devoted time in lessons with him to the orchestral repertory. He was also apparently a pupil of Schreker.

One postcard from him to Schenker survives (OC 44/14), and one letter to Jonas (OJ 36/99).

He is mentioned in other letters as follows:

OJ 5/18, 43, June 24, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 5/18, 59, October 16, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

(Sources: New Grove 2 ; Oster Collection Finding List; Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection Checklist; various websites)

August 2, 2006

Photogrammarchiv

Photogrammarchiv (full original name: Archiv für Photogramme musikalischer Meisterhandschriften (Archive for Photographic Images of Musical Master Manuscripts, but customarily abbreviated to Photogrammarchiv or to Meister-Archiv). An archive of photographic images (negatives; photostatic prints at original size) of “the most important manuscripts of the great composers,” housed in the Music Department of the Austrian National Library from 1927, and donated to that Library in 1957.

The archive was founded in August 1927 (NGDM2) and launched publicly in November of that year in the form of an “Appeal” (Aufruf) issued by a curatorial board comprising Anthony van Hoboken, Heinrich Schenker, and Robert Haas (Director of the Music Division), and officially opened on November 25, 1928 (vC 21). The archive was assembled by Anthony van Hoboken at the instigation of his teacher, Heinrich Schenker. Its initial target repertory comprised: “the most important works of J. S. Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin, as well as of Domenico Scarlatti, C. P. E. Bach, Brahms and perhaps also of François Couperin.” Already by 1934, the collection numbered over 30,000 pages. The “Appeal” was directed at public and private collections, individual collectors, and antiquarian dealers to make the manuscripts in their possession available for photography. The primary purpose of the Photogrammarchiv was to place on public record the original autograph intentions of composers as a bulwark against faulty and wilfully altered editions. The Photogrammarchiv was to be accessible to scholars and devotees of music for study.

From early in his career, Schenker upheld the consultation of autograph manuscripts and early editions as essential not only for the editing of a work but also for its study and analysis. His study-editions of Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue of J. S. Bach and the late piano sonatas of Beethoven are exemplary of this principle. His belief in the need for a photographic archive long predates the founding of the Photogrammarchiv; alluding to the sound archives founded by Sigmund Exner at the Austrian Academy Sciences in Vienna in 1899, and perhaps also that founded by Carl Stumpf in Berlin in 1900, for ethnographic materials, both called “Phonogrammarchiv,” Schenker wrote a memorandum to the Austrian Ministry of Culture on July 19, 1913 stating:

"... that it is high time to preserve the originals from destruction, and to take official action [to this end]. If there are sound archives [Phonogrammarchive] in the Academy of Sciences or Arts, which preserve those things worthy of being remembered, why not archives of autographs?" (letter to Emil Hertzka: WSLB 167, p.9)

The value of the Photogrammarchiv was enhanced by the fact that the original manuscripts of many of its photographic copies were lost or destroyed during World War II.

The Photogrammarchiv is mentioned in the following letters among others:

OJ 5/18, [G], February 14, 1928 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 9/34, [13], July 6, 1928 (Cube to Schenker)

vC 21, November 20, 1928 (Schenker to Cube)

OJ 12/6, [13], July 14, 1932 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [38], September 25, 1932 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [16], October 1, 1932 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/9, [19], January 28, 1933 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [20], March 20, 1933 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [22], May 9, 1933 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [46], October 31, [1933] (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [23], September 12, 1933 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [30], March 16, 1934 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [32], June 11, 1934 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [33], June 29, 1934 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 5/18, 59, October 16, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 5/18, 60, October 25, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

_____________________
Sources:

NGMD2: “Hoboken”; “Libraries:" Berlin, Vienna; "Sound Archives": History, Europe-Austria

Oswald Jonas: “Schenker’s Editorial Work and the Vienna Photostat Archive,” Appendix B of Das Wesen des musikalischen Kunstwerks: Einführung in die Lehre Heinrich Schenkers (Vienna; Saturn-Verlag, 1934; Eng. trans. John Rothgeb, New York: Longman, 1982, repr. Musicalia Press, 2006)

July 16, 2006

Vrieslander, Otto

Otto Vrieslander (1880–1950). German composer, notably of Lieder (including a setting of poems from Giraud’s Pierrot lunaire in O. E. Hartleben’s translation, dating from 1904—eight years before Schoenberg’s melodrama cycle: both settings were commissioned by Albertine Zehme, but whereas Zehme performed Schoenberg's setting, she was dissatisfied by that of Vrieslander and never performed it). Resident in and around Munich for much of his life, he moved permanently to Switzerland in 1929.

Vrieslander was a pupil of Schenker only during the 1911/12 season: records survive only for January 5 to March 5, 1912, and Vrieslander took lessons twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays) between January 15 and February 29. He remained in contact with Schenker for the rest of the latter’s life as a member of the inner circle of long-time friends, former students, and supporters (others include, e.g., Robert Brünauer, Walter Dahms (a pupil of Vrieslander), Herman Roth, Hans Weisse, Viktor Zuckerkandl, and Reinhard Oppel).

Vrieslander advocated several projects (all ultimately abortive): in 1915, a second edition of Schenker’s Harmonielehre (which he used in his own teaching, and on which he wrote three unpublished commentaries between 1910 and 1925 and compiled a list of typographical errors), and adding exercises and assignments (which Schenker resisted); in 1918, a Festschrift for Schenker’s 50th birthday; in 1919–20, the founding of a Schenker Institute in Munich; in 1921, with Hoboken, the publishing of inexpensive Urtext editions and a periodical; in 1926–27, a Festschrift for Schenker’s 60th birthday; in 1927–28 a monthly Schenker periodical planned by Weisse, Salzer, and Jonas; around 1927, a Schenker monograph-cum-anthology; and in 1932 a student edition (Schulausgabe) of Harmonielehre (of which he was then making a “concentrated” version) for use by Josef Marx at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik (=Conservatory) . After Schenker’s death, Jeanette Schenker wished Vrieslander to produce a new edition of the Harmonielehre, gave him Schenker’s personal annotated copy for this purpose from which he copied out Schenker’s numerous additions, and in 1938 signed a contract with him at UE for which he was paid an advance—but the annexation of Austria intervened.

It was Vrieslander who apparently recommended Victor Hammer, certainly Herman Roth, and Anthony van Hoboken to Schenker. He also advised Hoboken in the building up of the latter’s collection of first editions. In 1920, Vrieslander served as intermediary with the publisher J. G. Cotta of Stuttgart by delivering the manuscript of Kontrapunkt II to them; and more importantly in 1924 as an intermediary with the Drei-Masken-Verlag of Munich in dealings that resulted in the publication of Schenker’s Das Meisterwerk in der Musik (1925, 1926, 1930), the proofs of which he assisted in correcting.

After encountering Schenker’s Hamonielehre, Vriselander underwent a sharp break with his previous compositional style (even destroying copies wherever possible), his new beginning occurring in 1916. Schenker thought highly of Vrieslander’s work from that time on, describing his Lieder as “the best since the death of [Hugo] Wolf,” and “among the best that the Lieder repertory has to offer from the post-Brahms era.” Schenker states in 1917 that he commissioned a work from Vrieslander and subsequently paid him money from the stipend fund created by Sofie Deutsch. Under Schenker’s influence, Vrieslander made a “critical edition with elucidatory appendix” (dedicated to Schenker) of C. P. E. Bach’s Kurze und leichte Clavierstücke: Neue kritische Ausgabe mit erläuterndem Nachwort [Short and easy keyboard pieces: new critical edition with elucidatory afterword] (Vienna: UE, 1914), which the cover title significantly characterized as: Erläuterungsausgabe (elucidatory edition: the term that Schenker himself used for his publications on the late Beethoven piano sonatas); he also wrote the monographs C. P. E. Bach Lieder und Gesänge (Munich: Drei-Masken-Verlag, 1922) and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (Munich, 1923), and contributed the article “Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach als Theoretiker” to Von neuer Musik (Cologne 1925). Vrieslander also wrote articles about Schenker and his work: Musikblätter des Anbruch, February/March 1923; Die Musik, 19/1 October 1926, 33–38; Deutsche Tonkünstler-Zeitung, March 5, 1928; and Der Kunstwart, 43 (1930), 181-189.

The majority of the correspondence between Schenker and Vrieslander forms part of the Vrieslander Nachlaß, which is privately owned by Heribert Esser (the letters from Vrieslander to Schenker having been mostly returned by Jeanette Schenker). There are 18 letters from Vrieslander to Schenker in the Oster Collection (OC 18/5–22 passim; OC 54/11–140 passim (Cotta-Verlag); OC 69/2–3: 1925–26, 1932–33); 2 letters from Schenker to Vrieslander and 12 from Otto and Helene Vrieslander to Schenker in the Jonas Collection (OJ 5/42 and OJ 15/4: 1912, 1917–20, 1935–39), and 5 from the Vrieslanders and Herman Roth to Schenker (OJ 13/30: undated); 1 from Vrieslander to Violin (OJ 70/43: 1912), 1 from Vrieslander to Robert Brünauer (OJ 71/37: undated), 1 from Hans Weisse to Vrieslander (OJ 71/40: [1918], concerning the 50th birthday Festschrift), and a portrait of Vrieslander and Roth (OJ 72/13). The Vrieslander correspondence is an invaluable repository of biographical information about Schenker himself, his pupils, and contemporaries.

Vrieslander’s list of errors in, and his copy of Schenker’s additions to, Harmonielehre survive as OJ 18/6; his three commentaries (72pp, 468pp, 472pp), are in the possession of Mr. Esser.

Vrieslander is mentioned countless times in other correspondence with Schenker, including the following:

WSLB 73, December 17, 1910 (Schenker to Hertzka (UE))

WSLB 118, June 4, 1912 (Schenker to Hertzka)

WSLB 197, January 4, 1914 (Schenker to Hertzka (UE))

OC 52/138, January 5, 1914 (Herztka (UE) to Schenker)

WSLB 202, April 1, 1914 (Schenker to Hertzka (UE))

OC 52/142, April 2, 1914 (Hertzka (UE) to Schenker)

WSLB 236, January 18, 1915 (Schenker to Hertzka)

WSLB 244, March 29, 1915 (Schenker to Hertzka)

OC 52/170, April 2, 1915 (Hertzka to Schenker)

WSLB 264, November 26, 1915 (Schenker to Hertzka)

OJ 1/16, pp. 647-648, April 11, 1917 (diary re: Elias gift)

OC 1/34r, February 24, 1918 (Schenker to Türkel: award of Sofie Deutsch stipend)

CA 174 = OJ 5/6, [1], August 21, 1920 (Schenker to Cotta)

CA 177, September 22, 1920 (Schenker to Cotta)

CA 178, September 25, 1920 (Vrieslander to Cotta)

CA 179 = OJ 9/32, [44], September 27, 1920 (Cotta to Schenker)

CA 180, October 4, 1920 (Cotta: receipt for MS of Kontrapunkt II)

CA 181–182 = OJ 9/31, [45], October 5, 1920 (Cotta to Schenker)

CA 183, November 6, 1920 (Schenker to Cotta)

CA 185–187, November 16, 1920 (Cotta to Schenker)

CA 189–190 = OJ 9/31, [46], February 5, 1921 (Cotta to Schenker)

OC 52/573, February 16, 1923 (Hertzka to Schenker: Bekker, Kretzschmar)

OC 52/574, February 20, 1923 (Hertzka to Schenker)

OC 52/366, January 30, 1924 (Hertzka to Schenker: biography)

vC 5, October ??, 1926, (Schenker to Cube)

vC 10, June 1, 1927 (Schenker to Cube)

OJ 9/34, [9], October 29, 1927 (Cube to Schenker)

vC 12, November 9, 1927 (Schenker to Cube: monograph)

OJ 9/34, [10] January 30, 1928 (Cube to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [1], February 1, 1928 (Jonas to Schenker

OJ 12/6, [2], February 9, 1928 (Jonas to Schenker)

vC 13, February 12, 1928 (Schenker to Cube)

OJ 5/18, G, February 14, 1928 (Schenker to Jonas: periodical)

OJ 12/6, [3], March 3, 1928 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 9/34, [11], April 24, 1928 (Cube to Schenker)

vC 14, April 29, 1928 (Schenker to Cube)

OJ 10/18, [3], July 11, 1928 (Elias to Schenker: monograph)

vC 21, November 20, 1928 (Schenker to Cube)

vC 28, January 12, 1930 (Schenker to Cube)

vC 29, June 9, 1930 (Schenker to Cube)

OJ 9/34, [21], June 25, 1930 (Cube to Schenker)

vC 30, June 10, 1930 (Schenker to Cube: Vrieslander's character)

OJ 5/18, 1, October 7, 1930 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 5/18, 12, August 28, 1932 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 12/6, [14], August 30, 1932 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 5/18, 14, September 23, 1932 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 12/6, [38], September 25, 1932 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [16], October 1, 1932 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [17], November 27, 1932 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 5/18, 24, March 22, 1933 (Schenker to Jonas: Harmonielehre revision)

OJ 5/18, 48, July 29, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 5/18, 50, August 7, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

OC 44/43, September 24, 1934 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 10/18, [10], February 17, 1935 (Elias to Jeanette Schenker)

___________________
Sources:

NGDM2 "Vrieslander"
Baker’s1972 "Vrieslander"
personal communication from Heribert Esser
Federhofer, Nach Tagebüchern
Oster Collection, Finding List
Jonas Collection, Checklist
R. Wason, „From Harmonielehre to Harmony ...,“ Fourth International Schenker Symposium, 2006
personal communication from Prof. Wason