ed. Ian Bent, David Bretherton, and Willliam Drabkin. Woodbridge, Suffolk (UK): Boydell Press, 2014.
We are pleased to announce the imminent publication of a volume of Heinrich Schenker’s correspondence: a selection of letters written by or to him, together with related extracts from his diaries. Schenker’s correspondents include publishers, performers, pupils, friends, scholars and educators, and cover a period of over thirty years. They reveal the multi-faceted career of a man who is known to us almost exclusively for his method of analysing music: they have much to tell us about Schenker as writer, composer, editor and teacher. They paint a broad picture of his place in the Viennese musical world, and give some idea of the influence he exerted in his lifetime in Austria, Germany and further afield.
The 450 letters offered here, an extension of the scholarship that has gone into the development of the website “Schenker Documents Online”, are published in English; they have been translated and annotated by a team of twelve scholars based in the UK, the USA, Austria, and Germany. They are presented by topic and theme, in a broadly chronological arrangement, with a substantial historical preface and introduction. The volume is thoroughly indexed by name and subject. The 544 pages of text are supplemented by 16 pages of plates, which give sample images of handwriting, drawings and photographs of correspondents, cartoons, and a title-page from one of Schenker¹s published compositions.
It is expected that the book will be published later this month or early next month, and that it will be on display, and for sale, at the joint annual meeting of the SMT and AMS in Milwaukee, 69 November.