Handwritten letter from Schenker to Cotta, dated May 29, 1906 [ not in Schenker’s hand: ] [ in Schenker’s hand: ] Sehr geehrter Herr ! Somit sende ich die letzten Korrekturbogen des ersten Teiles ein, u. nehme diese Gelegenheit wahr, Ihnen den Gedanken nahezulegen, ob es nicht am Platze wäre, den ersten Teil schon allein zu einem eigenen Bande (I) zu gestalten. Das Nachwort nämlich dürfte, der vergrößerten Anlage des Werkes, doch 5–7 Bogen betragen,1 u. würde daher mit dem zweiten Teil vielleicht sehr gut einen zweiten Band ausmachen. Doch überlasse ich die Erledigung dieser Anregung ganz u. gar Ihrem fachmännischen Ermessen. Jedenfalls bitte ich Sie sehr, mir weitere Fahnen zuschicken zu wollen. Es wäre mir sehr angenehm, wenn ich bis Ende Juni den zweiten { verso } Teil auscorrigieren könnte.2 Ich wäre dafür s[ehr] verbunden. Mit ausgez. Hochachtung © Heirs of Heinrich Schenker; reproduced here by kind permission of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Cotta-Archiv (Stiftung der Stuttgarter Zeitung), Marbach am Neckar. |
Handwritten letter from Schenker to Cotta, dated May 29, 1906 [ not in Schenker’s hand: ] [ in Schenker’s hand: ] Dear Sir, Herewith I send you the corrected proofs for the final gatherings of Part I, and I seize this opportunity to broach with you the idea as to whether it might not be appropriate to produce Part I on its own as the first volume (I). You see, the Afterword is likely, [in] the enlarged layout of the volume, to amount to 5–7 gatherings,1 and might perhaps therefore very suitably make up a second volume if put together with Part II. However, I leave the settlement of this proposal entirely to your professional judgment. At all events, I ask you please to send me further galley-proofs. It would be very convenient if I could have finished correcting Part II { verso } by the end of June.2 I should be greatly indebted to you for this. With kind regards, © Translation Ian D. Bent 2005. |
COMMENTARY: FOOTNOTES: 1 S reported this in CA 5–6, November 22, 1905, as likely to amount to one gathering. It is unclear in what sense the “Anlage” of the volume has been “vergrößert”; S seems to be making an excuse for the fact that his “Nachwort” has become hugely expanded since its first conception in 1905. The work, eventually entitled Über den Niedergang der Kompositionskunst,—eine technisch-kritische Untersuchung (The Decline of the Art of Composition–a Technical-Critical Inquiry), was never published, but survives in a typescript draft with S’s corrections as OC 31/28–153. An edition with translation and commentary, by William Drabkin, will appear in Music Analysis, vol. 24, Nos. 1–2 (March–July 2005). 2 S is presumably alluding to his practice of spending the Summer months in the South Tyrol. His diary for July 10 (OJ 1/5, p.13) records “Summer in Ötz in the Tirol.” SUMMARY: © Commentary, Footnotes, Summary Ian D. Bent 2005.
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