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OJ 5/25, [1] : October/December 1924

Draft letter from Schenker to Josef Marx, in Jeanette’s hand, heavily edited by HS, undated, probably October/December 1924

VERSION 1 (first draft: JS’s original text, unedited)

[For reasons on illegibility, it is not possible to establish a reliable text for HS’s edited text of this letter.]

Hochgeehrter Herr Hofrat (Prof. Dr. Marx)1

Rechtsanwalt Dr. Ernst Lamberg2 verständigte mich am ?, daß das Stipendium meiner verstorbenen Schülerin Frau Sophie Deutsch3 nun in den Händen der Akademie4 ist u. daß Sie beschlossen haben, mir für Lebensdauer einen Terna-Vorschlag5 zu übermitteln. Indem ich mich nun an Sie wende,6 mache ich den Versuch, Sie für die anders geartete Absicht der Erblasserin zu gewinnen, für eine Lösung der Frage, die <bigx ohne irgendwie die neu erworbenen Rechte der Akademie zu schädigen – zumindest vorübergehend für die restlichen Jahre meines Lebens zugleich dem Testament entspräche.

Ich möchte nicht zu weit ausholen u. Ihnen überflüssig Zeit rauben, nur das Not- {2} wendige will ich Ihnen bekannt geben. Nicht allein aus den vielen Gesprächen mit meiner Schülerin, sondern auch aus dem Testament weiß ich es[,] daß sie durchaus nur an Künstler dachte, die gleichviel wo zuhause gleichviel auch, ob irgend einer Schule längst entrückt, vielleicht sogar bedeutenden Namen tragend, das ziemlich bedeutende Geld durch meine Vermittlung empfangen sollten, zur Linderung einer vorübergehenden Not, als Hilfeleistung z.B. für die Herausgabe eines Werkes usw. So sehr war das allein ihr Wunsch, daß sie im Testament für den Fall meines Ablebens den Rückfall des Stipendiumgeldes an den Verein zur Ausspeisung armer Schulkinder7 angeordnet hat. {3} Um nicht die in Frage kommenden Künstler zu verletzen, wünschte meine Schülerin mich ganz im Stillen diskret wirken zu lassen, so daß von der Zuwendung außer mir u. dem Empfänger niemand etwas zu erfahren brauchte. In dem selben[sic] Sinne luden mich der Bruder der Erblasserin,8 der Anwalt9 u. schließlich der Hofrat bei Gericht10 ein, die Verteilung zu übernehmen. Sogar habe ich in den ersten drei Jahren nach dem Tode der Erblasserin, noch ehe die Angelegenheit geklärt war, das Stipendium an drei Künstler von Namen11 verschickt, ohne daß der Bruder, der Anwalt oder das Gericht etwas über die Personen erfuhren, u. ich führe das als Beweis dafür an, wie ich die Angelegenheit bis jetzt ge- {4} handhabt habe.

Nun brauche ich Ihnen, sehr geehrter Herr Hofrat, nicht noch ausdrücklich zu erklären, worin heute der Widerspruch gegen den Wunsch der Erblasserin gelegen ist. ? Dr. Lamberg hat mir nicht mitgeteilt, weshalb der Verein bei seiner letzten Beschlußfassung nicht auch mich befragt hat; ich weiß also nicht, von welcher Seite die Pietät gegen die Verstorbene verletzt worden ist. Doch habe ich sehr bald Dr. Lamberg gegenüber schriftlich meine Bedenken geäußert, u. er eben wies mich, ohne mir Aufklärung zu geben, über das Vorgefallene zu geben, auf den Weg einer unmittelbaren Aussprache mit Ihnen. So frage ich Sie denn also, ob Sie willens wären, den Wunsch der Verstorbenen mit mir zu ehren u. für die Zeit meines Lebens {5} mir vertrauensvoll die Verfügung über die Zinsen zu überlassen, damit ich in die Lage komme, ungekontrollirt für mein[en] Teil wie für den Teil des Empfängers des Ehrenamtes zu walten. Für den Fall, daß Sie, sehr geehrter Herr Hofrat, keine Veranlassung fänden in diesen Gedanken der Pietät einzustimmen müßte ich auf jede Mitwirkung verzichten, nicht etwa aus Unfreundlichkeit gegen die Akademie, sondern im Bewußtsein, daß ich dem Wunsch meiner verstorbenen Schülerin so eher widerspräche. Hoffentlich aber finde ich Sie meinem Ansuchen geneigt u. verbleibe in

ausgezeichneter Hochachtung Ihr
sehr ergebener
[in JS’s hand:] Heinrich Schenker

© In the public domain.
© Translation Ian Bent & Lee Rothfarb, 2006.

Draft letter from Schenker to Josef Marx, in Jeanette’s hand, heavily edited by HS, undated, probably October/December 1924

VERSION 1 (first draft: JS’s original text, unedited)

[For reasons on illegibility, it is not possible to establish a reliable text for HS’s edited text of this letter.]

Dear Hofrat (Professor Dr. Marx)1

Attorney Dr. Ernst Lamberg2 notified me on ? that the stipend of my deceased student, Mrs. Sophie[sic] Deutsch,3 is now in the hands of the Academy,4 and that you have resolved to furnish me with a slate of three candidates5 for the duration of my life. In turning to you,6 I am attempting to persuade you of the different intention of the deceased for a resolution of the issue that, without impairing in any way the newly acquired rights of the Academy—would at least provisionally, for the remaining years of my life, correspond to her will.

I do not wish to go too far afield and rob you of time unnecessarily. I will acquaint you only with the {2} necessary matters. Not just from many conversations with my student but also from her will I know that she thought solely of artists who, wherever they reside, also however long absorbed into a school, perhaps even bearing a prominent name, should receive the rather significant sum of money through my mediation in order to relieve a temporary need, as an assistance, for example, for the publication of a work, and so forth. It was so much her sole wish that, in the event of my death, she arranged in her will for the reversion of the stipend funds to the Association for Distributing Food to Poor Schoolchildren.7 {3} In order not to embarrass the artists in question, my student wished to allow me to operate discretely, in complete silence, so that no one need find out anything except for me and the recipient. In that same sense, the brother of the deceased,8 the attorney,9 and finally the Hofrat10 invited me in court to undertake the distribution. In the first three years after the death, before the matter had yet been clarified, I even sent a stipend to three artists of renown,11 without the brother, the attorney, or the court finding out anything about the recipients, and I submit that as evidence of how I have {4} handled the matter up until now.

Now I do not need also to explain to you explicitly wherein the contradiction against the wish of the deceased lay. Dr. Lamberg did not notify me why the Association did not even consult me on its recent resolution. Therefore I do not know from which side the reverence for the deceased was violated. But I did very soon express my concern in writing to Dr. Lamberg, and without explanation about the event he referred me to you for an immediate discussion. I therefore ask you whether you are willing with me to honor the wish of the deceased and {5} trustfully to hand over to me the disposition of the interest for my lifetime so that I may be in the position to act unmonitored in this honorary post for my part, and for that of the recipient. For the case that you, dear Hofrat, would find no cause in these thoughts to agree to the reverence, I would have to decline all participation, not perchance because of unfriendliness to the Academy but rather in awareness that I would then be contradicting the wish of my deceased student. However, hopefully I will find you disposed toward my request and remain

With kind regards,
Yours truly,
[in JS’s hand:] Heinrich Schenker

© Translation Lee Rothfarb 2006.

COMMENTARY:
Format: 5p draft letter, in JS's hand, heavily edited by HS, undated
Sender address: --
Recipient address: --

FOOTNOTES:

1 The time-frame of this draft is mid-October (the time around which S in DLA 69.930/13, October 6, 1924, indicated that he might write this letter to Marx) to December 3, the date of the letter that Marx acknowledges in his letter OJ 12/51, December 13. There is no certainty that this is the draft for the December 3 letter (since there may have been an intervening exchange), but the probability is that the draft was written within a day or so of December 3.

2 Ernst Lamberg: attorney, presumably to the estate of Sofie Deutsch.

3 Sofie Deutsch, a pupil of Schenker’s from early days who died in a Vienna sanatorium in January 1917, a widow and childless. Federhofer, Nach Tagebüchern ..., p.38, reports: “Mrs. Deutsch left Schenker a yearly legacy of 3,000 Marks, which was to make possible the publishing of the second half-volume of Counterpoint (diary January 28, 1916), and in addition a foundation for needy artists, whom Schenker had the exclusive authority to name (diary January 13 and April 12, 1917).” See OJ 10/4, January 26, 1916 (Deutsch to S); OJ 12/52, January 12, 1917 (Fritz Mendl to S); OJ 12/31, [1], [2], and [3], December 7, 1923, July 1, 1924, July 11, 1924 (Lamberg to S); OJ 5/24, July 8, 1924 (S to Lamberg: draft). For discussions of this situation in letters from S to August Halm, see DLA 69.930/4, December 9, 1918, and DLA 69.930/13, October 6, 1924.

4 Akademie: i.e. the Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst, formerly the Konservatorium der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, i.e. the Vienna Conservatory.

5 Terna-Vorschlag: presumably a then-common-practice term in selection of candidates for professional positions, which does not appear in current dictionaries. The first known use of the term in the Schenker correspondence is that by Josef Marx in a letter on behalf of the Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst to Ernst Lamberg quoted in Lamberg’s letter to S of July 1, 1924 (OJ 12/31, [2]): “... die Verleihung der Stipendien auf Grund von der Musikakademie ihm übermittelter Ternavorschläge für jedes Stipendium zu überlassen.“ („... [to leave] the awarding of the stipends to him on the basis of slates of three candidates per stipend supplied to him by the Music Academy.“). It is used by Schenker also in a letter to Halm, DLA 69.630/13, October 6, 1924.

6 S does this at the urging of Lamberg in the latter's letter OJ 12/31, [3], July 11, 1924; and S, in his letter to Halm DLA 69.930/13, October 6, 1924, states that he will wait until the initial rush of the new term is over and will write at “the middle or end of the month [October].”

7 S misremembers the name of the orgainzation: click on Verein zur Speisung und Bekleidung hungernder Schulkinder in Wien, the charity to which S’s erstwhile pupil and benefactress Sofie Deutsch had left a sum of money of which a portion of the interest was to be sent annually to S for distribution as stipendia to „impecunious skilled composers and composition pupils”, the recipients to be selected exclusively by S; see OJ 12/52, Fritz Mendel to S, January 12, 1917; OJ 12/31, [1], Ernst Lamberg to S, December 7, 1923.

8 i.e. Fritz Mendel, one of Austria’s leading industrialists (apparently including arms manufacture).

9 i.e. Ernst Lamberg.

10 Presumably the judge presiding at the court in which the decision was made that the Verein be dissolved. It cannot refer to Josef Marx himself.

11 August Halm, Hermann Wunsch; the third name is unknown.

SUMMARY:
S seeks to persuade Marx that the present arrangement for administering the stipends for musicians contravenes Sofie Deutsch's will and expressed wishes since it breaches the requirement for complete confidentiality as to the identity of recipients. He asks that the interest on the capital be paid direct to him leaving him unfettered discretion in the distribution of the stipends, and indicates that in the event of Marx's non-agreement to this he would have to withdraw from participation.

© Commentary, Footnotes, Summary Ian Bent 2006

Bent, Ian
Schenker, Heinrich
DE
Cambridge University Faculty of Music-Ian Bent
Schenker, Heinrich; Marx, Josef; Deutsch, Sofie; Sophie; stipends; Lamberg, Ernst; Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst; Academy for Music and Representational Art; Conservatory; intentions; Verein zur Speisung und Kleidung hungernder Schulkinder in Wien; Association for Feeding and Clothing Schoolchildren in Vienna; Mendl, Fritz; interest
Draft letter from Schenker to Josef Marx, in JS's hand, undated, probably October/December, 1924
OJ 5/25, [1]
1924-12-01
2006-09-12
Marx, Josef
Conservatory
This document is in the public domain. Any claim to intellectual rights on this document should be addressed to the Schenker Correspondence Project, Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge, at schenkercorrespondence@mus.cam.ac.uk.
Schenker, Heinrich (1924-1935)--Schenker, Jeanette (1935-c.1942)--Ratz, Erwin (c.1942-c.1955)--Jonas, Oswald (c.1955-1978)--University of California, Riverside (1978--)
IPR: In the public domain; Image: University of California, Riverside; Transcription, Translation, Commentary, Footnotes, and Summary: Ian Bent.
Vienna
1924

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