Schenker Correspondence Project

Handwritten letter from Schenker to Hertzka, dated July 23, 1911

Sulden (Tirol)
23. Juli 1911

Sehr geehrter Herr Direktor!

Verzeihen Sie die Störung der Sommerruhe, aber ich bin gerne courtoisievoll . . H. Gottfried Galston, ein Pianist,¹ den Sie wahrscheinlich vom Hören, Sagen (oder “Referieren”) kennen, ließ mir durch seinen Verleger Cassirer[?] in Berlin sein neues “Studienbuch” (1910) überreichen. Die Höflichkeit muß, glaube ich, erwidert werden u. so bitte ich Sie an seine Adresse, die die “Musik” angiebt; ”Planegg bei München, _Ville Maison Krailling_” meine Ausgabe der ”Chromatischen Fantasie” schicken zu wollen. Er kommt zwar, wie ich es weiß u. übrigens selbst in Berlin u. Wien bei unseren Zusammenkunften gesehen habe, geistig von Busoni|² her, doch vielleicht überzeugt ihn, trotz letzteren, meine Schrift. Nützen wird die Sendung für alle Fälle, denn Galston meint es ja ernst u. wird hier u. dort immerhin davon sprechen. Besten Dank für die Mühe! Vergessen Sie, bitte, nicht, den Auftrag zu geben.

Vielleicht interessiert ^es Sie zu erfahren, daß ich eine kleine Schrift : ”die Kunst des Vortrages” fertiggestellt habe, die ich {2} früher oder später einmal selbstständig herauszugeben gedenke.³ (“Kunst u. Kritik” liegt fast ebenso fertig vor.⁴)

Es hat mich gefreut, zu hören, daß immerhin noch einige Hoffnung auf Herausgabe des Bach u. Beethoven besteht.⁵ Schade, daß Sie nicht zu Gesicht bekamen, was ein Rodin, sicher der Modernsten Modernster, über dieselbe Sujet, nur auf die Architectur transponiert⁶ kürzlich gesagt hat ( war auch in den “Münchner N. Nachrichten” vom 21. Juli 1911 zu lesen!): Sie würden meine Tendez auch durch ihn voll, über alle Erwartung voll bestätigt finden u. sie besser verstehen lernen. Er sagt u.A.: ”das angebliche “”Altar”” der altertümlichen Gebäude ist wieder so ein falscher Vorwand (!) zu ihrer Niederreißung. Sie sind fester, als die meisten neuen Bauwerke (!). Man sollte sie auch nur mit äußerster Vorsicht ausbessern. Die meisten “Restaurierungen” sind Verbrechen (!!). Wenn die Modernen nämlich nicht niederreißen dürfen, so restaurieren sie wenigstens.” ( so sagt Rodin!) u.s.w. Zum Schluß heißt es: “Dies sind Übeltaten, die man immer wieder anklagen muß. Vielleicht gelingt es so, ihnen Einheit[?] zu tun.” Auch er plädiert also für das Original, das freilich so schwer verkannt u. eben deshalb in die Ausgaben u. im Vortrag auf dem Podium so papageienhaft {3} entstellt wird.

Manchmal denke ich bei mir: Sie u. ich taten ja (Ihr Brief an Dir. Bopp|⁷ hat mich davon aufs Beste überzeugt), was nur in unseren Kräften lag, um eine so wichtige, mit jeder Stunde noch wichtiger werdende Frage auch in Österreich zur Lösung zu bringen. Meinen Sie nicht, daß es gut wäre, wenn ich Bopp u. Wiener|⁸ für ihre echt österreichische Flegelei u. Interesselosigkeit (auch in solchen grandiösen Fragen!) damit bestrafe, daß ich die Ausgabe in Deutschland escheinen lasse? Sie selbst sind durch Ihr Entgegenkommen aufs Schönste gedeckt, u. als die obscön|⁹ Schuldigen bleiben nur die beiden genannten Herren übrig, welchen Sachverhalt ich freilich schon um der Ehre der “U.E.” ^willen, die sie in diesem Falle vollauf verdient, selbstverständlich zur öffentlichen Mitteilung bringen würde. Ich könnte dann noch in September nach Deutschland (, auf der Rückreise¹⁰) u. die Sache dort ohneweiters ordnen. Was meinen Sie?

Augenblicklich feile ich am 2. Halbband des “Kontrapunktes” für Cotta,¹¹ u. genieße den Sommer erst nach Abzug der vielen Arbeiten.

Mit besten Wünschen für Ihren Sommer zeichne

Ir ergebener
[ sign’d: ] H Schenker

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

Handwritten letter from Schenker to Hertzka, dated July 23, 1911

Sulden (Tyrol)
July 23, 1911

Dear Director,

Forgive me for disturbing your Summer peace, but I prefer to be show all due courtesy . . . Mr. Gottfried Galston,¹ a pianist, whom you probably know by having heard him, by hearsay (or by “report”), got his publisher, Cassirer[?] in Berlin, to send me his new Study Book (1910). His courtesy must, I think, be returned, and so I ask you to send my edition of the Chromatic Fantasy [and Fugue] to his address, which Die Musik gives as Planegg, nr. Munich, Ville Maison Krailling. True, he stems intellectually from Busoni, I know, and what is more I have seen it for myself in Berlin and Vienna at our meetings, but perhaps my piece of work will convince him despite Busoni.² Sending him it will serve all purposes, for Galston is really in earnest, and will at least talk about it here and there. Many thanks for taking the trouble! Please do not forget to do this task.

It may perhaps interest you to learn that I have completed a short text, The Art of Performance, while here, which {2} I intend to publish separately at some stage in the future³ (Art and Criticism is likewise almost finished⁴).

I was delighted to hear that some hope still remains for the edition of Bach and Beethoven.⁵ It is a pity that you never got to see what a Rodin, surely the most modern of the most moderns, on this same sujet, only transposed to architecture,⁶ said recently (it can be read also in the Münchner Neue Nachrichten of July 21, 1911!). You would find my views fully confirmed by him, beyond all expectations, and come to understand them better. He says, among other things: “The alleged ‘altar’ of the buildings of Antiquity is another such bogus excuse(!) for tearing them down. They are sturdier than most new buildings(!) Only with the utmost care should they be repaired. Most “restorations” are crimes(!!) If the moderns were, in fact, not permitted to tear down [the old buildings] then at least they should restore them [properly] (that’s what Rodin says!) etc. At the end, he says: These are evil deeds that we must forever lament. Perhaps it may be possible to do them unity. [Meaning unclear] Thus even he pleads for the original, which is admittedly so grievously undervalued and for that very reason is {3} distorted in such a parrot-like fashion in editions and in performances from the podium.

I sometimes think to myself: You and I really did do all that was in our power (your letter to Director Bopp⁷ has convinced me of that in the best possible way) to find an answer to a question that is so important, that is becoming ever more important with each day that goes by, even in Austria. Do you not think it would be good if I were to punish Bopp and Wiener⁸ for their typically Austrian boorishness and lack of interest (even on such imposing issues!) by having the edition published in Germany? With all your kindness, you yourself are wholly exonerated, leaving only the two said gentlemen as the obscenely⁹ guilty ones, a state of affairs that I would of course readily expose to public gaze, not least for ^{the sake of} the honor of UE, which in this case it thoroughly deserves. Then I could still go to Germany in September (on my journey back¹⁰) and set things in motion there without more ado. What do you think?

At the moment, I am polishing the second half-volume of Counterpoint for Cotta,¹¹ and shall not enjoy the Summer until I have reduced my many projects.

With best wishes for your Summer, I remain,
Yours truly,
[ sign’d: ] H. Schenker

© Translation Ian D. Bent 2006.

COMMENTARY:
Format: 3-p letter, oblong format, holograph message and signature
Sender address: Sulden (Tyrol)
Recipient address: --

FOOTNOTES

¹ Gottfried Galston (1879–1950), Austrian pianist, pupil of Leschetizky; he taught at the Stern Conservatory, Berlin 1903–07; toured widely, eventually settled in St. Louis. His Studienbuch was first published in 1909, 3rd edn Munich, 1920.

² Ferruccio Busoni [create biogfile and link].

³ This remark is crucial to the dating of Die Kunst des Vortrags, which remained unfinished and unpublished in Schenker’s lifetime and survives as OJ 18/10, 19/6, 21/7–21, and 33/4, and in compilation by Oswald Jonas as 57/2–5, comprising twelve chapters, taken down from dictation by Jeannette Kornfeld (later Schenker). The work has been released in an edition that draws on later sources and omits some of the 1911 material, as The Art of Performance, ed. Herribert Esser, Eng. trans. Irene Schreier Scott (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). See the review of this edition by David Gagné and Hedi Siegel, Music Theory Spectrum 24 (2002), 135–41.

⁴ Kunst u. Kritik: this project remained unfinished and survived as OC C/377–412, comprising eight draft chapters and chapter headings.

⁵ 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, WSLB 68, October 21 (when S had discussed it direct with Bopp), WSLB 69/71, November 1, OC 52/60, November 5, and in passing in other letters. Reference was made more recently in WSLB 75, May 17, 1911, and WSLB 77, June 21, 1911. The plan was, however, dependent on a subvention from the Austrian Ministry of Education that was never forthcoming.

⁶ Rodin: supply source. “sicher ... Modernster” double-underlined by S.

⁷ Wilhelm Bopp [create biogfile and link].

⁸ Hofrat Karl von Wiener [create biogfile and link].

⁹ obscön = obszön = obscenely.

¹⁰ Cf. WSLB 81, September 14, for plans to return to Vienna via Leipzig and Stuttgart.

¹¹ However, the second half-volume of Kontrapunkt was not published until 1922.

SUMMARY
Asks for a copy of CF&F to be sent to Gottfried Galston. —Has drafted Die Kunst des Vortrags and Kunst und Kritik. —Quotes Rodin on restoration of buildings of Antiquity in reference to the planned Bach/Beethoven editions, and wonders whether the latter should not be published in Germany. — Is polishing Kontrapunkt 2.

© Commentary, Footnotes, Summary Ian Bent 2006.

Bent, Ian
Schenker, Heinrich
DE
Cambridge University Faculty of Music-Ian Bent
Schenker, Heinrich; Hertzka, Emil; UE; Galston, Gottfried; Studienbuch; Chromatische Fantasie & Fuge; CF&F; Die Musik; Busoni, Ferruccio; Berlin; Vienna; Kunst des Vortrags; Art of Performance; Kunst und Kritik; Art and Criticism; Bach, J. S.; Well-tempered Clavier; Beethoven; sonatas; Münchner Neue Nachrichten; Rodin; restoration; Bopp, Wilhelm; Wiener, Karl von; Austria; Kontrapunkt 2
Handwritten letter from Schenker to Hertzka (UE), dated July 23, 1911
WSLB 78
1911-07-23
2006-08-31
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.
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 Bent.
Vienna
1911