Recently we were able to purchase a letter for our Archive that was sent to the director of a printing works by Arnold Schönberg in 1922. The document refers to the upcoming publication of the 3rd edition of his “Harmonielehre” by Universal-Edition in Vienna.
Schönberg apologizes to the typesetters for any inconvenience caused by his substantial corrections for the extended new edition of his textbook, which was originally published in 1911. The correction process had taken him two years. He emphasizes that the changes were solely “to achieve an ideal.” He asks them to use correct page breaks; to include new and altered music examples; to insert continuous line numbering on each page; to observe the correct font sizes; to replace flawed and “squashed” characters; and finally, to create a name and subject index. He also requested three copies of this index. Presumably, these copies would have provided an opportunity for the people who were working on the index (including his pupil Alban Berg) to enter the page numbers in the index. The letter was written in Mödling on April 11, 1922. The 3rd expanded and improved edition of “Harmonielehre”, with the publication date 1922 printed on its cover, was not distributed until late March 1923. Universal-Edition announced the publication of this “Fundamental work of modern music theory” in three different forms: soft-bound, with half-linen binding, and also fully linen-bound.
The letter is included in the edition of correspondence between Arnold Schönberg and his publishers Universal-Edition and Dreililien: Link
