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WSLB 77 : 6-21-11

Handwritten letter from Schenker to Hertzka (UE), June 21, 1911

Sehr geehrter Herr Direktor!

Da ich in wenigen Tagen abreise,1 erlaube ich mir Sie anzufragen, ob ich für Zwecke einer etwaigen Korrektur die Bände: Wagner, Riemann, Kretzschmar, Grove, Weingartner etc.2 meiner Sommerfracht beizupacken habe oder ob die Korrektur erst für September zu erwarten sei, in welchem Falle ich jene Bände zu Hause lassen könnte. Beileibe will ich damit nicht etwa einen “Druck” auf die “Druckerei” üben,3 denn Sie können von selbst annehmen, daß mir ein Sommer ohne Korrektur willkommener ist. Indessen will ich, wenns sein muß, meinen Pflicht gegenüber unserem gemeinsamen Sproßling gerne auch im Sommer erfüllen. Vielleicht empfiehlt sich dieses sogar mit Hinblick auf die im Herbst abzuhaltenden Vorlesungen,4 in denen ich just auf die „IX.” oft zurückzukommen Ursache habe. À propos, IX: ich vergaß Sie bei meinem letzten Besuche zu fragen, was es für {2} eine Bewandtnis mit der von Ihnen geplanten Dirigier-Partitur hat?5 Haben Sie diese Idee aufgegeben oder nicht?

In dieser Woche steht mir, sofern Dir. Bopp|6 Wort hält, eine definitive Unterredung bezüglich des Bach’schen Wohlt.-Kl.-Bandes (II) u. der Beethoven’schen Sonaten bevor.7 Ich fürchte indessen, daß daraus nichts wird, so schön die Sache auch im Dezember 1908 mit einer Anregung seitens des Direktors u. mit Ihrer tapferen Einladung begonnen hat.8 Es wäre ungerecht, wenn ich gerade Ihnen gegenüber, der (wie ich mich selbst in den Briefen überzeugt habe) die größtmögliche Courtoisie an dem Tag gelegt hat, verschweigen wollte, was als das Hinderniß des Zustandekommens anzusehen ist. Ein echt österreichische|9 Nuanse ist es – bitte, lachen Sie nicht! – : die Eitelkeit des H. Präsid. v. Wiener|10!! Hier der Sachverhalt. Vor 2 Monaten wurde ich durch einen Brief des Dir. Bopp aus meiner Arbeit aufgescheucht, der mich zu sich bat, dort teilte er mir mit, daß {3} unsere Sache auf dem besten Wege sei, daß ich eventuell eine Probe dem Ministerrium vorzulegen haben werde, wobei aber eine negative Entscheidung eigentlich „ganz ausgeschlossen“ wäre, u. daß endlich H. Präsident „mich zu sprechen wünsche.”11 In gebührender Höflichkeit überließ ich dem letzteren Tag u. Stunde zu bestimmen, u. ich hoffte, bei einer mündlichen Unterredung mit Hinweis z.B. auf eine ähnliche Unternehmung in Berlin, wo an Prof. Beyschlag|12 die Abfassung des Werkes im Vertrauen u. ohne Vorkost überlassen wurde, u. mit Hinweis endlich darauf, daß ich durch so u. so viele Arbeiten doch ungleich mehr als ein beliebiger anderer Musiker in Österreich approbiert u. qualifiziert erscheine, durchzusetzen, daß ich nicht erst außer Zusammenhang eine Extraprobe vorgelegen hätte. Zu dieser Unterredung kam es indessen gar nicht, denn der H. Präsident ließ mich gar nicht erst bitten.13

Sie werden fragen, welchen Sinn es haben mag, mich sprechen zu wollen u. anderseits es dazu nicht kommen zu lassen, – nun, des Rüffels Lösung {4} ist einfach die, daß der H. Präsident sich offenbar auch mir gegenüber, als wäre irgend ein hergelaufener Fagottist u. Clarinettist, herausnimmt, den musikalischen “Gessler”14 zu spielen : trotzdem ich es bin, der die Arbeit zu leisten hat, will er, weil er Präsident ist, gebeten werde, mir die ”Gnade” zu erweisen u.s.w. Ich weiß sehr genau, daß seine Präsidentschaft nur mit der geistigen Unmündichkeit der Lehrer an der Akademie, die nicht einmal eine Sitzung aus Eigenem fertigbringen, zusammenhängt, bin aber dennoch nicht gewillt, einen “Fall” zu spielen, da ich weit wichtigeres zu tun habe. Für keinen Fall werde ich mich dazu hergeben, den Präsidenten um eine Arbeit zu – bitten, die im Grunde u. mit Recht von mir erbeten wurde. Hat man es hier getroffen, Bopp nachzuweisen, ebenso Godowsky,15 Gregor,16 denen ich wohl überlegen bin, so fällt es mir nicht ein, Tanten, Cousinen auf “österreichische Art” in die Ämter zu schicken, um eine nützliche, schöne Arbeit zu erlangen.17 Entweder man wünscht die letztere, oder nicht, u. zw. von mir {5} oder von einem Anderen : wünscht man sie von mir, so muß wohl auch die Form darnach gehalten werden. Ich schreibe Ihnen dieses Alles, weil ich sehr genau weiß, daß Sie mit mir eines Sinnes sind. Es ist sogar möglich, daß[corr] Dir. Bopp, trotzdem er mir für E[n]de dieser (laufenden) Woche die Unterredung durch den Diener eigens angekündigt hat, dennoch das Datum umgehen wird, als wäre es nicht er selbst gewesen, der Ihnen u. mir die Anregung im Jahre 1908 gegeben hat. Ich nehme diese Störungen meiner Arbeit vorläufig ruhig hin, – behalte mir aber vor, bei passender Gelegenheit auf die Nähere des “dunkelsten Beamtentums” hinzu[we]isen. Man soll doch auch in der Öffentlichkeit wissen, wieso es kommt, daß wohl ein Cotta von Bülow so viele Erklärungen u. Ausgaben, noch vor 50 Jahren, drucken konnte, ein Ähnliches aber in Österreich nicht einmal noch im J. 1912 denkbar ist. Man wird über den “Gessler” lachen, u. das soll man auch . . .

Indem ich mir Antwort auf meine erste Frage {6} erbitte [?] den Ausgang der trüben Affaire aus dem J. 1908 zu berichten verspreche,18

zeichne mit besten Grüßen
Ihr ergebener
[ sign'd: ] H Schenker
21. Juni 1911

P.S. An obigen Sachverhalt ist nichts geändert worden dadurch, daß der Präsident das Komturkreuz u.s.w. erhalten hat . . . Bekanntlich hat kein ”Fall” ja einen hohen Orden gekriegt!

© In the public domain.
© Transcription Ian D. Bent 2006.

Handwritten letter from Schenker to Hertzka (UE), June 21, 1911

Dear Director,

Since I am off in a few days,1 I take the liberty of inquiring whether I back to pack the volumes [by] Wagner, Riemann, Kretzschmar, Grove, and Weingartner, etc.,2 in my Summer shipment for use in any proof-correcting, or whether the proofs are not to be expected until September, in which case I could leave those volumes at home. On no account do I want to put any “pressure” on the “printers”3 in asking this, for you can infer for yourself that a Summer free of proof-correcting is more welcome to me. However, I will, if needs must, gladly fullfill my duty with respect to our common offspring, even in the Summer. Perhaps this is a good idea with a view to the lectures that are taking place in the Fall,4 in which I shall certainly often have reason to come back to the Ninth Symphony. A propos the Ninth: I forgot to ask you {2} at our last meeting how matters stand over conducting score planned by you?5 Have you given up this idea?

This week, if Director Bopp6 keeps his word, a definitive interview awaits me regarding the Bach Well-tempered Clavier (II) and the Beethoven Sonatas.7 I fear, however, that nothing will come of it, however enticingly the idea began back in December 1908 with a suggestion from the Director and with your courageous invitation.8 It would be wrong if I were to conceal from you, of all people, who (as I have become convinced from your letters) exhibited the greatest possible courtesy at the time, what must be regarded as the obstacle to its realization. It is a quintessentially Austrian|9 nuance—please do not laugh!—: the vanity of President von Wiener10!! This is the nub of the matter. Two months ago I was disturbed in my work by a letter from Director Bopp summoning me to his office, where he informed me that {3} our case was in good shape, that I would probably have to submit a sample of the work to the Ministry, in which case a negative verdict was really “quite out of the question,“ and finally that the President “wished to speak with me.”11 With fitting graciousness, I left it to the latter to set the day and time, hoping in a verbal interview, by citing, e.g., a similar venture in Berlin where the formulation of the work was entrusted to Professor Beyschlag12 without any preliminaries, and finally citing the fact that I appeared surely incomparably the more proficient and qualified by virtue of so-and-so many publications than any other musician whatsoever in Austria, to be able to get it through without the necessity of first having to submit a further sample of work. However, nothing came of this interview, for the President never so much as summoned me.13

You will ask what sense there is in wanting to speak with me and yet not having it happen. You see, the solution to the rebuke {4} is simply that the President obviously expects me, as if I were some basoonist or clarinettist who had just walked in off the street, to play the musical “stooge[?]”14. Despite that fact that it is I who have to accomplish the work, he likes, because he is President, to be asked to bestow the “favor” upon me, etc.. I know full well that his presidency concerns only the intellectual unwordliness of the teachers at the Academy, who do not even convene a meeting[?] on their own; nevertheless, I am not inclined to play the “pawn,” for I have more far important things to do. Under no circumstances will I stoop to pleading with the President for a job of work which by rights he should be asking of me. As someone should have made clear to Bopp, likewise Godowsky15 [and] Gregor,16 to whom I am far superior, I am not the sort that sends aunts [and] cousins in “Austrian fashion” to the offices, in order to procure a useful, enticing job of work.17 Either the latter is wanted, or not—more precisely, [wanted] from me {5} or from someone else: if it is wanted from me, then the form appropriate to it must adhered to, must it not? I write you all this because I know full well that you are of one mind with me. It is even possible that Director Bopp, although he has himself notified me of the interview via his servant for the end of this (current) week, will nevertheless dodge the date, as if it were not he himself who put the suggestion to you and me in 1908. For the moment, I take these distractions to my work in my stride—but I reserve the right to draw attention at the appropriate moment to the workings of “darkest bureaucracy.” Also, it ought really to be public knowledge how, while a Cotta could print so many elucidations and editions by Bülow18 as long as 50 years ago, such a thing is still unthinkable in Austria even in the year 1912. We may laugh about the “stooge”, and we should do so . . .

In asking for an answer to my first question, {6} I promise to report the outcome of the sorry affair of the year 1908.19

I remain, with best wishes,
Yours truly,
[ sign'd: ] H. Schenker
June 21, 1911

P.S. It does not alter the above circumstances that the President has been awarded the Commander’s Cross, etc.. As everybody knows, no “pawn” has ever been decorated!

© Translation Ian D. Bent 2006.

COMMENTARY:
Format: 6-p letter, oblong format, holograph message and signature
Sender address: --
Recipient address: --

FOOTNOTES

1 Schenker seems to have departed on or about June 29 this year for his summer in the Tyrol.

2 These comprise the secondary literature that S quotes and discusses in Beethovens Neunte Sinfonie, about the proofs of which he is writing here.

3 S is making a play on the word “Druck”, denoting both “pressure” and “print.”

4 Schenker had been invited, at the suggestion of Robert Hirschfeld, by the Vereinigung der Musikreferenten in Wien (Association of Music Critics in Vienna) to deliver “a cycle of lectures” (Vortragscyclus) “on the construction of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony” (letter of invitation, OJ 14/44, dated September 30, 1910, which gives no indication of the proposed dates of the lectures). The Foreword to Beethovens Neunte Sinfonie (1912), which was the outcome of these planned lectures, reports thus; the lectures were never given, but: “the invitation by my publisher to transform this work into a monograph has provided the opportunity to make it accessible in a significantly expanded and enriched form to a larger public.”

5 H’s plan was to provide a full score of the Ninth Symphony with S’s monograph. H negotiated with Eulenburg to use their plates (OC 52/432, 7 March 1912); the original plan was evidently to bind the score with the study, but S proposed separating them for ease of consultation (WSLB 100, 13 March 1912, OC 52/82, 7 March 1912), confirmed by H (OC 52/433, 7 May 1912). When it became plain that Schenker intended to modify the printed score “on the basis of the original manuscript,” Hertzka realized there would be complications (OC 52/440, 12 December 1913, and OC 52/138, 5 January 1914). Schenker expressed his enthusiasm for using the Eulenburg pocket score (WSLB 199, 7 January 1914); however, the plan seems to have been dropped at that stage.

6 Wilhelm Bopp [create biogfile and link]. For a more candid reaction to this situation, see the diary entry OJ 1/10, pp. 131r–132[a], beginning June.

7 Reference is to the plan, first mooted by H at a meeting with S on October 14, 1910, to publish the last five Beethoven sonatas and Part II of the Well-tempered Clavier (the latter a residue of an earlier plan dating from December 1908, which Schenker had declined) in alternate years; mentioned in OC 52/325 of the same day, and WSLB 68, October 21, 1910 (when S had discussed it direct with Bopp). The plan was, however, dependent on a subvention from the Austrian Ministry of Education that was never forthcoming.

8 in OC 52/399–401, December 18, 1908, to which S replied in WSLB 31, December 21, 1908, declining the proposal. By “Director,” Schenker means Wilhelm Bopp.

9 “echt österreichische“: double-underlined.

10 Carl von Wiener [create biogfile and link].

11 see diary entry, OJ 131[ r ]–131[a], beginning of June, 1911: the letter came in April, and the interview was around June 1–3.

12 Presumably reference is to Adolf Beyschlag (1845–1914), the author of Die Ornamentik der Musik (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1908). In WSLB 21, September 30, 1908, Schenker called this the “big Berlin work” (Berliner Riesenwerk) and the “Berlin work”; it is not clear why this would be Berlin, but most likely because it evidently emanated from the Berlin Academy of Arts, thus perhaps the present letter explains something of how that Academy provided a grant.

13 No paragraph break at this point.

14 “Gessler”: S uses the same word, “Geßler,” in his diary entry of June 23, 1911, OJ 1/10, p. 132, applied to Wiener himself as a “dishonorable title.”

15 Click on Leopold Godowsky.

16 Gregor [identify].

17 S seems to be saying that he is not going to have people begging on his behalf at the offices of the Akademie.

18 Hans von Bülow [create biogfile and link]. Von Bülow was one of the collaborating editors of Cotta’s Instruktive Ausgabe klassischer Klavierwerke; in particular, vols 4 and 5 of Beethoven’s Sonaten und andere Werke in that series were edited by von Bülow. His editions were a frequent target of S's polemical attacks.

19 The syntax and meaning of this sentence is not entirely clear.

SUMMARY
[ Beethovens Neunte Sinfonie:] S asks whether he can expect to receive proofs in time for the summer. — [Bach, J. S.: Well-tempered Clavier, Bk II / Die letzten fünf Sonaten von Beethoven:] S expects nothing to come of his dealings with Bopp and Wiener over this; he will not stoop to plead for work from them.

© Commentary, Footnotes, Summary Ian D. Bent 2006

Bent, Ian
Schenker, Heinrich
[ Beethovens Neunte Sinfonie:] S asks whether he can expect to receive proofs in time for the summer. — [Bach, J. S.: Well-tempered Clavier, Bk II / Die letzten fünf Sonaten von Beethoven:] S expects nothing to come of his dealings with Bopp and Wiener over this; he will not stoop to plead for work from them.
DE
Cambridge University Faculty of Music-Ian Bent
IPR: Universal Edition A.G., reproduced here by kind permission; Transcription, Translation, Commentary, Footnotes, and Summary: Ian D. Bent 2006.
Hertzka, Emil; UE; Schenker, Heinrich; Beethoven; Ninth Symphony; Beethovens Neunte Sinfonie; Wagner; Riemann, Hugo; Kretzschmar, Hermann; Grove, George; Weingartner, Felix; summer; proof-correcting; printers; Bopp, Wilhelm; Wiener, Carl von; Bach, J. S. ; Well-tempered Clavier; Book II; Beethoven; Die letzten fünf Sonaten Beethovens; edition; Austria; Beyschlag, Adolf; Berlin; Vienna Conservatory; Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst; Godowsky, Leopold; Gregor; Bülow, Hans von; Cotta, J. G.; Komitur Kreuz; Commander's Cross
Typed letter from Hertzka (UE) to Schenker, dated June 21, 1911
letter
academic; musicology; music theory
WSLB 77
1911-06-21
2006-05-28
UE
Hertzka
This document is deemed to be in the public domain as of January 1, 2006. Any claim to intellectual rights should be addressed to the Schenker Correspondence Project, Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge, at schenkercorrespondence@mus.cam.ac.uk.
letter; holograph message and signature
Universal Edition Archive (1911-1976)—on permanent loan to the Stadt- und Landesbibliothek Wien (1976-)
IPR: In the public domain; Image: Universal Edition, A.G.; Transcription, Translation, Commentary, Footnotes, and Summary: Ian D. Bent.
Vienna
1911

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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on June 21, 1911 1:00 AM.

The previous post in this blog was OJ 1/10, pp.131[r]–131[a] : 6-1?-11.

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