Holdings

Each recording of a work by Arnold Schönberg is assigned its own entry. This in turn leads to one or more, mostly commercial, CDs on which the recordings can be heard. A combination of full text and keyword search makes it possible to search for performers, works by Arnold Schönberg, other included composers as well as record labels.

More than 20,000 pieces of correspondence to and from Schönberg have been identified from a large variety of sources. Though copies of most of these letters existed in the collections of the Arnold Schönberg Center, the majority of the original letters are located in other collections.

The Library of Congress has the largest collection of Schönberg letters. Schönberg himself donated all of the letters in his possession in 1951 to the Library of Congress. These consist principally of carbon copies of letters by Schönberg and original letters to him. Also, there is a large collection of Berg letters – Schönberg letters to Alban Berg – in the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) in Vienna.

• Photographs
• Paintings and Drawings by Schönberg
• Teaching Materials
• Address Files
• Concert Programs
• Diaries
• Personal documents
• Materials about the Society for private musical performances
• Objects

The Library Catalogue of the Arnold Schönberg Center contains bibliographic entries about the Viennese School, Arnold Schönberg and his works. The catalogue mainly covers titles that are available at the Schönberg Center. The secondary literature is part of a reference library; there is no interlibrary loan.

The collection of Schönberg’s autograph music manuscripts from his legacy constitutes the most important part of the Arnold Schönberg Center’s archive in terms of content. Handwritten and printed sources important for the compositional process have come down to us for almost all of Schönberg’s works, from the initial musical sketches and drafts to fair copies and engraver’s copies, as well as corrected early editions.

The Catalogue of Works and Sources is based on the structure of the Schönberg Complete Edition (Kritische Gesamtausgabe der musikalischen Werke Arnold Schönbergs).

Since its inception, the former Arnold Schoenberg Institute (University of Southern California, Los Angeles) attempted to locate and collect materials relating to Arnold Schönberg from every possible source. Hundreds of individuals and institutions cooperated in this endeavor by contributing material directly, offering material for sale, making facsimiles available, and bequething materials to the Institute. Many materials acquired in such a manner are known as satellite collections in that they relate to the principal archival collection, namely Schönberg's legacy.

In order to provide access to materials in the Institute’s satellite collections, general descriptions and lists have been made of each distinct collection.

Arnold Schönberg’s writings, apart from his compositions, are valuable documents for the musical, intellectual and cultural history of the first half of the 20th century, also for exile studies, and thus for contemporary history. They are evidence of the multifarious interests of an eminent artistic personality and address questions of music, aesthetics, politics and religion.

The database contains pedagogical writings, literary and compositional models, commentaries, writings about music criticism, analysis, and theory, about philosophy, religion, Judaism, politics and contemporary history; lectures, interviews, open letters, memoranda, notes, testimonials and diaries.

Julia Bungardt / Nikolaus Urbanek, Topographie des Gedankens. Ein systematisches Verzeichnis der Schriften Arnold Schönbergs (unter Mitarbeit von Eike Feß, Hartmut Krones, Therese Muxeneder und Manuel Strauß), in: Hartmut Krones (Hrsg.), Arnold Schönberg in seinen Schriften. Verzeichnis – Fragen – Editorisches, Böhlau: Wien 2011 (= Schriften des Wissenschaftszentrums Arnold Schönberg 3), S. 331-614.