Letter from Schenker to Cotta, dated June 4, 1906 [ not in Schenker’s hand: ] [ in Schenker’s hand: ] Sehr geehrter Herr ! Für Ihren liebenswürdigen Warnungsbrief vom 31. Mai|1 sage ich meinen besten Dank. So bleibe es also bei einem Bande, aber nun habe ich mich entschlossen, das Nachwort separat, etwa unter dem Titel: [']„Beethoven oder Wagner?“ ein Nachwort zu den M. Th. u. Ph.' erscheinen zu lassen. Ist das nicht der beste Ausweg, nachdem ich auf das Nachwort sehr viel Gewicht lege u. eine Reduktion|2 des Inhaltes nicht mehr durchführbar, u. auch nicht, in Anbetracht der Tendenz, wünschenswert ist? Ein Hinweis am Ende des Hauptwerkes wird auch das separat, aber gleichzeitig erscheinende Nachwort aufmerksam machen u. umge- { verso } kehrt.3 Ich bitte um freundliche Mitteilun[g] ob Ihnen dieser Plan angenehm ist ? Nochmals bestens dankend verbleiben © Heirs of Heinrich Schenker; reproduced here by kind permission of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Cotta-Archiv (Stiftung der Stuttgarter Zeitung), Marbach am Neckar. |
Letter from Schenker to Cotta, dated June 4, 1906 [ not in Schenker’s hand: ] [ in Schenker’s hand: ] Dear Sir, I am most grateful for your kind cautionary letter of May 31.1 One volume let it be, then. But I have now decided to publish the Afterword separately under some such title as [']“Beethoven or Wagner?": An Afterword to the New Musical Theories and Fantasies.' Don’t you think that is the best way forward seeing how great a store I set by the Afterword, and how impracticable—indeed even undesirable, considering the views it expresses—a reduction2 is at this stage? A statement at the end of the main work will also alert the reader to the Afterword, to be published separately but simultaneously, and vice versa.3 {verso} Please let me know whether this plan is acceptable to you. But let me yet again ask you to give me the opportunity to finish at least the music examples to Part II. I should much prefer to go through these once again correcting them on the originals themselves, and since I should like to get out of Vienna at the end of June, exhausted[?] as I shall be from the term’s teaching and my work, it would be convenient to be able to use[?] my own library.4 In the country, it would be virtually impossible to carry out the corrections of the music, since I by no means have in my head which works are quoted in Part II, and therefore they would be somewhat ..........[?] Might it perhaps be possible for you very kindly to keep this in mind?[?] With grateful thanks once again, I remain © Translation Ian D. Bent 2005. |
COMMENTARY: FOOTNOTES: 1 OJ 9/31, [8]. 2 Reduktion looks like Redaktion, but the latter makes less sense in view of Cotta’s recommendation in the previous letter that he “den Umfang des Nachwortes wenn irgend angängig einzuschränken” (to restrict the extent of the Afterword if at all possible). 3 The announcement in Harmonielehre appears in the Vorwort, on p.VII :"Aus demselben Grunde werde ich auch nicht unterlassen, noch vor der Publizierung meiner 'Psychologie des Kontrapunktes' zur Bekräftigung und Nutzbarmachung der vorliegenden Harmonielehre eine Supplementschrift unter dem Titel: 'Über den Niedergang der Kompositionskunst,-- eine technisch-kritische Untersuchung' zu veröffentlichen." (For the same reason, I will not neglect, before the publication of my Psychology of Counterpoint, and to reinforce and put into practice the present Theory of Harmony, to publish a supplementary text entitled "The Decline of the Art of Composition--a Technical-critical Inquiry.) 4 S is saying that he needs to correct the proofs in his Vienna apartment, before going on holiday, so as to have access to his scores for the music examples. SUMMARY: © Commentary, Footnotes, Summary Ian D. Bent 2005.
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