Handwritten letter from Schenker to Cube, dated November 20, 1928 Mein lieber Herr von Cube! Zum 28ten herzlichsten Wunsch und Segen!1 Sie greifen wacker aus, nur so weiter! Doch möchte ich auch darüber hinaus Ihnen ein Wörtchen anvertrauen, um Sie für die bevorstehende Kämpfe zu stählen: Sie mögen sich wohl erinnern, daß ich oft die Überzeugung aussprach, der Weg zur Wahrheit wäre auch Vielen, ja Allen gangbar, wenn ich nur erst die Lehrer aus der[sic] Verlegenheit-Risse,2 wenn ich durch umfangreiche Veröffentlichungen von Urlinien sie von jeder Angst oder Scham befreite. Ich pflegte auf Riemann|3 hinzuweisen, der den Lehrern ganze Banquette gab, sie mit Allem versah, so daß sie nur zu greifen u. zu essen hätten. Mir gieng es aber vor Allem um {2} die erste Andeutung der Urlinie, der Baßchiffren usw. usw. Nun, da der “fr. S.” in Vollendung begriffen ist,4 der alle Fragen so gründlich met[h]odisch (in §§) u. so umfangreich löst, ist die Zeit gekommen, die ich auch an meine Url.-Mappen denke.5 Noch steht nicht fest, wie viel Urlinien der Beispiel-Band des “fr. S” verschlingen wird, ob nicht zuvor Beeth’s Eroica mit Url. als besonderes Bändchen erscheint6 (op. 106 gehört der “U-E”, muß also ebenfalls besonders mit Url. behandelt werden),7 jedenfalls erwäge ich den Plan, in absehbarer Zeit eine Urlinie-Mappe (ohne Text) folgen zu lassen, um den Lehrern recht viel Material in die Hände zu spielen. Auch habe ich H. v. Hoboken|8 mitgeteilt, daß ich, wenn es nicht anders sein könnte, meine Urlinien {3} handschriftlich dem Photogram[m]-Archiv9 übergeben werde, um es unter allen Umständen durchzusetzen, daß Musiker den Weg zu ihnen auf die billigste u. bequemste Weise gehen könnten. Wir wollen sehen, was möglich wird. Am 26. [recte: 25.] wird das Archiv offiziell durch den Minister eröffnet, daran schließt sich eine sog. Schubertforschertagung mit weiteren Empfängen beim Bundespräsidenten u. Minister.10 Trotz dem Verdienst meiner ersten Anregung, sonstiger Förderung in Schrift u. Tat, trotz der Kurator-Würde[,] trotz allen offiziellen Einladungen, trotz aller Geneigtheit, mich aufs äußerste hoch “auszuzeichnen”, trotz allem halte ich mich von den Dingen gänzlich fern. Ich bleibe zu Hause. Unsere Regierung, unsere Musikerschaft hat zu viel auf dem Gewissen, {4} als daß ich auch mit ihnen zu ihren Spässen verbünde. Nur zu dem (übrigens ebenfalls von mir angeregten) Tautenhayn-Abend11 bei Hob. gehe ich hin (26.), dort treffe ich noch Vriesl.,12 Dahms,13 Oppel (Leipzig),14 Kinsky,15 u.a. Nur das tue ich.16 Der junge Albersheim hat seine Eltern in Köln von ihrer[sic] Absicht, sie zu besuchen, verständigt.17 Lassen Sie recht bald hören, wie es Ihnen in Köln ergangen ist. Die “Gegenbeispiele” müssen langsam erobert werden! Keinen Snobismus treiben lassen. Zuerst das Gute, dann das Schlechte.18 Und nun Mut. Alles ist ehrenvoll auf dem Wege, den Sie gehen, jeder Irrtum ist von vornherein entschuldigt. Beste Wünsche u. Grüße von uns Beiden Ihr © In the public domain. |
Handwritten letter from Schenker to Cube, dated November 20, 1928 My dear Mr. von Cube, Most cordial wishes and blessings for the 28th.1 You are making steady progress; keep at it! But, above and beyond this, I should also like to entrust you with a few words, to harden you for the struggles that stand before you: You may well remember that I often spoke of my conviction that the path to the truth was accessible to many, indeed to everyone, if only I could free the teachers from the fissure of embarrassment,2 of all anxiety or shame, by extensive publications concerning Urlinien. I used to point to Riemann,3 who furnished the teachers with sumptuous banquets, provided them with everything so that all they had to do was to take and to eat. For me, however, what mattered above all was {2} the first notion of the Urlinie, the bass figures, and so on. Now that Free Composition is essentially complete,4 resolving all questions in such a thorougly methodical way (in numbered sections) and so comprehensively, the time has come in which I am also thinking of a folder of Urlinien.5 It is not yet clear how many Urlinien the volume of music examples can embrace, and whether it should be preceded by [my analysis of] Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, with Urlinien, as a separate publication6—the Erläuterungsausgabe of Beethoven’s Op. 106 belongs to Universal Edition, and must likewise be treated in a special way, with Urlinien7—in any event I am contemplating the plan of issuing a folder of Urlinien (without text), to provide teachers with a quite substantial amount of material. I have also communicated to Mr. van Hoboken8 that, if things cannot be done any other way, I would entrust my Urlinien {3} in handwritten form to the Photogram Archive,9 so that I might insist that, in all circumstances, musicians can have access to them in the cheapest and most convenient way possible. We shall see what is possible. On the 26th [recte: 25th], the Archive will be officially opened by the Minister; this will be followed by a kind of symposium for Schubert scholars, with further receptions given by the the President of the Republic and the Minister.10 In spite of the services I have given through my very early involvement, and by promoting [the Archive] in word and deed, in spite of a curator’s dignity, in spite of all official invitations, in spite of all inclination to “distinguish” myself as highly as possible, in spite of everything I shall firmly keep my distance from these things. I shall stay at home. Our government and our musical profession have too much on their conscience {4} that I should also join with them in their amusements. I shall only take part in the evening with Tautenhayn11 at Hoboken’s (which, moreover, I likewise promoted) on the 26th; there I shall meet up with Vrieslander,12 Dahms,13 Oppel (from Leipzig),14 Kinsky,15 and others. That is all that I shall do.16 Young Albersheim has notified his parents of your intention to visit them in Cologne.17 Let me know very soon how things went for you in Cologne. The “counter-examples” must be conquered slowly! Do not allow yourself to practise any snobbery. First that which is good, then the bad.18 And now: take heart. Everything along the path that you take is honorable; every mistake is excused in advance. Best wishes and greetings from the two of us Yours, © Translation by William Drabkin, 2006. |
COMMENTARY: FOOTNOTES: 1 On November 28, 1928, Cube was to give the first of a series of eight lectures on Schenkerian theory at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. 2 Verlegenheit-Risse: an example of Schenker’s use of mountaineering terms in a metaphorical sense. Riss is the term for a crack in a rock, including a large crack in which a limb or entire body can accidentally become caught. (Schenker is using a feminine form of the word, die Risse, instead of the correct form, der Riß.) 3 Hugo Riemann [create biogfile and link]. 4 The near-completion of Schenker’s final published work, Der freie Satz, is a common theme of many letters of the late 1920s. The work was published Vienna: UE, 1935). 5 This project was initially realized as the Fünf Urlinie-Tafeln or Five Analyses in Sketchform published in 1932 by Universal Edition (Vienna) and the David Mannes Music School (New York). Further “Urlinie-Mappen” were projected but never realized; some draft analyses from these appeared in Der freie Satz. 6 The analysis of the Eroica Symphony eventually became the centerpiece of the third and final yearbook of the series Das Meisterwerk in der Musik (1930). 7 An Erläuterungsausgabe of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata, Op. 106, was planned for the 1910s but held up—and eventually abandoned—because the autograph score could not be traced. 8 Click on Anthony van Hoboken. 9 Click on Photogrammarchiv. 10 The name of the Austrian Minister for Education, Richard Schmitz, is frequently mentioned in the foreword to the proceedings of the symposium (see note 16). 11 Tautenhayn was probably a musical presenter for Radio Vienna whose name comes up frequently in the Schenker-Cube correspondence (OJ 9/34, [14], October 4, 1928), and may have been Carl Tautenhayn, a composer of Viennese popular music (Schrammelmusik) who was praised by Schenker in his diary (Federhofer, Heinrich Schenker: Nach Tagebüchern, p.269) . The name E. Tautenhayn appears in the proceedings of the Schubert symposium (see note 10), as the designer of a Schubert medallion which was presented to all participants in the symposium. 12 Click on Otto Vrieslander. 13 Click on Walter Dahms. 14 Reinhard Oppel, pupil and correspondent of Schenker’s [create biogfile and link]. 15 Georg Kinsky (1882-1951), German musicologist, one of the foremost cataloguers of musical instruments and manuscripts of his day, and the principal compiler of Das Werk Beethovens (Munich and Duisburg: Henle, 1955), the standard thematic catalogue of Beethoven’s music. In 1928, Kinsky was a lecturer in musicology at the University of Cologne. 16 Although Schenker did not contribute to the Schubert symposium, he received a copy of the proceedings, a publication that specifically mentions the support of the Photogram Archive: Bericht über den internationalen Kongress for Schubertforschung Wien 25. bis 29. November 1928, veranstaltet mit Unterstützung des Archivs für Photogramme musikalischer Meisterhandschriften an der Musiksammlung der Nationalbibliothek in Wien (Augsburg: Bennor Filser, 1929). The Bericht is one of the very few books (other than Schenker’s own) that remained in his Nachlass (Oster Collection: Books and Pamphlets, 1) 17 Gerhard Albersheim [create biogfile and link]. When Schenker first learned of Cube’s plans to go to Cologne, he asked him to visit the parents of a pupil of his, Gerhard Albersheim, who lived there. See vC 20, October 8, 1928. 18 Cube had previously written of his intention to include counter-examples in his Cologne lectures, i.e. examples of (contemporary) works that did not give evidence of the clear tonal structure that his teacher’s theory insisted upon. Schenker himself had himself done this twice in the recently published second volume of Das Meisterwerk in der Musik (dated 1926 but not issued until 1927): an extract from Stravinsky’s Piano Concerto and (in an essay devoted to the work and specifically calling it a “Gegenbeispiel”) Reger’s Variations and Fugue on a theme of Bach, Op. 81. SUMMARY: © Commentary, Footnotes, Summary William Drabkin 2006.
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