Handwritten letter from Schenker to Cotta, dated January 11, 1909 Sehr geehrter Herr ! Ich war gerade im Begriffe die ersten Blätter abzusenden, als Ihr Kl. Vgkatalog1 mit den Fragen kam. Bitte, ja. Natürlich, u. mehr als das, ich ersuche Sie auch das Titelblatt bei Bd. I auf den übrigen Exemplaren umzudrucken, d.h. dort den Namen anzuführen, wie folgt: N. M. Th. u Phantasien (bleibt!) von Heinrich Schenker (ohne Dr. Titel!)2 u. überlasse Ihnen den Zeitpunkt hiefür3 zu wählen, ob es erst gleichzeitig mit der Ausgabe des Kontrapunktes oder schon jetzt zu geschehen hätte. Da ich nicht sobald eine II. Aufl. des Bd. I, (trotz oft sehr entusiastischen Briefen aus Deutschland, z.B. von Prof. Rudorff, Mitglied des Senats der Kgl. Hochschule in Berlin u.s.w.4) zu erwarten habe, war ich genötigt bei S.7 der Korrektur eine etwa 2 ½ Druckseiten umfassende Polemik einzuschalten, die im Interesse des Bd. I auszutragen war.5 Die nächsten {2} Blätter aber gehen ruhig vor sich, ohne nennenswerten Zuwachs. © Heirs of Heinrich Schenker. |
Handwritten letter from Schenker to Cotta, dated January 11, 1909 Dear Sir, I was on the brink of sending off the opening pages when your small publications catalogue1 arrived with its questions. Yes, please. Of course, and I would be glad moreover if you would also re-set the title-page of vol. I in the remaining copies, giving the name there as follows: “Neue Musikalische Theorien und Phantasien” (unchanged!) “by Heinrich Schenker“ (with no “Dr.” in front of it).2 And I will leave you to select the deadline for this3—whether it should wait and be simultaneous with the publication of Counterpoint, or whether it should go ahead right away now. Since I had not been expecting a second edition of vol. I so soon (despite frequent, very enthusiastic letters from Germany, e.g. from Prof. Rudorff, member of the Senate of the Royal High School in Berlin, etc.4), I had felt compelled to insert a wide-ranging, roughly two-and-a-half-page polemical statement into p.7 of the proofs, which it was very much in the interests of vol. I to implement.5 However, the {2} pages that follow that run on smoothly, without any additions to speak of. With kind regards, © Translation Ian D. Bent 2005. |
COMMENTARY: FOOTNOTES: 1 Reading of Kl. Vgkatalog uncertain, since there appears to be a dot over the “g”. As there is apparently no letter to which this responds, presumably Cotta has recently sent him the preceding catalogue, or a proof of the new catalogue, annotated with questions about the reprinting of vol. I, Harmonielehre. (There is no reference to a new edition in OJ 9/31, [21], December 30, 1908, to which he had in any case partly responded in CA 91, January 4.) 2 This is how it appears on the series title-page subsequent to the first edition. 3 hiefür: Austrian for hierfür. 4 Recent letters to Schenker from Ernst Rudorff are OJ 13/37, 4, October 1, 1908, and OJ 13/37, 5, November 21, 1908. Ernst Rudorff (1840–1916), German pianist, teacher and composer with whom S struck up a correspondence in 1908 that lasted until Rudorff’s death. See Federhofer, Nach Tagebüchern, pp. 199–210. 5 S has clearly reverted to Kontrapunkt at this point. The most likely candidate passage for this is the section in small type running from partway down p.10 to the top of p.14 (just short of three pages = trans., bottom of p.6 to two-thirds down p.9), which engages in polemic against E. F. Richter (where he cross-refers to Harmonielehre, §§90–92), Hugo Riemann, Siegfried Dehn, and Heinrich Bellermann. It could, just possibly, refer to the whole subsection II, pp. 8–14 (trans. pp. 6–10). SUMMARY: © Commentary, Footnotes, Summary Ian D. Bent 2005.
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