Schenker Correspondence Project

Felix Salzer (1904–1986). Born in Vienna into the Wittgenstein family (his mother, Helene Salzer, was the sister of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the pianist Paul Wittgenstein), Salzer began his studies with Schenker in 1931. His earlier studies in theory and analysis were with Hans Weisse, starting in the 1920s. After Weisse’s emigration to New York in 1931, he and three other former pupils of Weisse (Trude Kral, Greta Kraus, and Manfred Willfort) became Schenker’s students, forming a “seminar” that met weekly. The published result of their studies was the Fünf Urlinie-Tafeln (New York: David Mannes Music School, 1932). On the dissolution of the seminar in 1934 he began private study with Schenker.

Salzer also studied musicology with Guido Adler at Vienna University, writing a dissertation “Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert,” and receiving a doctorate in 1926. He was a piano pupil of Malwine Brée (assistant to Theodor Leschetizky). In 1935 he received a diploma in conducting (with Oswald Kabasta) from the Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst (i.e., the Vienna Conservatory).

After Schenker’s death, Salzer taught at the newly established Schenker Institute in the Neues Wiener Konservatorium. To further the dissemination of Schenker’s ideas, he and Oswald Jonas founded the journal Der Dreiklang (nine issues, 1937–38).

In 1940, shortly after he had settled in New York, he joined the faculty of the Mannes Music School, taking over the position left vacant on Weisse’s death. He served as Director from 1948 through 1955; under his leadership the school became a degree-granting college, and he was largely responsible for developing the “Techniques of Music” curriculum, based on Schenker’s approach. He became Professor of Music at Queens College of the City University of New York in 1963; he taught there and later at the City University Graduate Center until the mid 1970s. He also continued to teach at Mannes, from 1962 to 1981.

Salzer’s major publications include Sinn und Wesen der abendländischen Mehrstimmigkeit (Vienna: Saturn-Verlag, 1935), Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music (New York: Boni, 1952; reprinted New York: Dover, 1962 and 1982), and Counterpoint in Composition: The Study of Voice Leading, with Carl Schachter (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969; reprinted New York: Columbia University Press, 1989). He contributed important articles to The Music Forum, which he founded in 1967 with co-editor William J. Mitchell.

The Schenker/Salzer correspondence survives partly among the Salzer papers now deposited at the New York Public Library (27 from Schenker to Salzer, 1930–1934), partly in the Ernst Oster Collection at the New York Public Library (three from Salzer to Schenker, 1934, OC 44/2, 36, 37), and partly in the Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection at University of California, Riverside, Special Collections (two from Salzer to Schenker, 1932, 1934, OJ 14/1, one from Salzer to Jeanette Schenker, 1938, OJ 14/1, joint Salzer-Jonas correspondence with Jeanette Schenker, 1935, OJ 5/36, 12/6 [copy in 14/1], and correspondence between Salzer and Jonas, Oster, and Siegfried Müller, OJ 36/53, 169, 188, 214, 71/31).

Salzer is mentioned elsewhere, including in the following documents:-

OJ 4/1, pp. 3148-50 : December 11, 1927 (diary entry)

OJ 5/18, 4 : March 16, 1931 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 12/6, [12], June 28, 1932 (Jonas and Salzer to Jeanette Schenker)

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

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

OJ 5/18, 23, February 7, 1933 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 12/6, [24], October 25, 1933 (Jonas to Schenker)

OJ 5/18, 41, April 23, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 5/18, 49, August 2, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 5/18, 55, September 13, 1934 (Schenker to Jonas)

OJ 12/6, [43], March 9, 1935 (Jonas to Jeanette Schenker)

OJ 12/6, [45], June 27, 1935 (Jonas and Salzer to Jeanette Schenker)

OJ 5/36, [1], July 2, 1935 (Jeanette Schenker to Jonas)

Author: Hedi Siegel