With the most physically tangible vision – to form an estate during his lifetime – Arnold Schönberg established a foundation for an exhibition of his artistic legacy and intellectual activity for posterity. In 1998, his estate came to Vienna.
In preparation for a special publication to be published on the occasion of Arnold Schönberg’s 150th birthday (September 2024), the fair copy of Schönberg’s Piano Concerto op. 42 underwent conservation treatment for preservation purposes. Verena Graf reports.
“The Viennese are already inclined to judge subjectively.” In October 1913, the Wiener Volksbildungs-Verein (Vienna Association of Public Education) asked Arnold Schönberg, who at the time lived in Berlin-Südende, to give a lecture as part of the cycle “From my workshop.” We recently acquired Schönberg’s autograph reply.
With the donation of an extensive collection of photographs, letters, and memorabilia from the estates of Arnold Schönberg's sister-in-law Maria (Mitzi) Kolisch and nephew Mischa Seligmann, an important collection of family documents has arrived from California to Vienna.
The LPs released by DIAL Records in the 1950s present some of the earliest commercial recordings of Schönberg’s music, and thus serve as important documents for the performance history of works of the Second Viennese School during that time.
Autograph manuscripts and other sources that are significant for establishing the genesis of a work, but are still considered missing, are frequent even in Schönberg’s well-connected universe.
The Arnold Schönberg Center digitizes public domain records, including covers and accompanying material, and makes them freely available.
On October 9, 1912 Arnold Schönberg performed his new opus in Berlin’s Choralionsaal for guests who received tickets by invitation only. The work was Pierrot lunaire op. 21 for chamber ensemble and Sprechstimme, with three sections of seven melodramas each. That evening, the audience was propelled into a wholly new dimension of hearing.
Our archive recently received the donation of a previously unknown autograph letter by Arnold Schönberg. Written around 1909, the recipient was presumably the violinist Arnold Rosé, who premiered Schönberg’s works for string quartet and sextet, and was also first concertmaster at the Vienna Court Opera.
In 1914 Schönberg spent his summer vacation in Upper Bavaria. The painter Gabriele Münter, friend and muse of Wassily Kandinsky, had purchased a house in Murnau in 1909.
Recently we were able to purchase a letter written by Arnold Schönberg to David Josef Bach, who became friends with Schönberg when they were young men. The document refers to the composer’s forthcoming relocation to Berlin at the end of 1901.
Schönberg's library is one of the most comprehensive records of a composer's reception in the 20th century. An annotated catalog of the books and periodicals in Schönberg's estate library has now been published in our publication series.
Following the conversion of all compact discs, a similarly large number of records from the sound recording collection of the Arnold Schönberg Center are due to be digitized.
At a recent autograph auction, a letter from Arnold Schönberg to the Schubertbund dated June 15, 1920 was purchased for the Archive.
Like many of his artist contemporaries, Arnold Schönberg spent his summer vacations far away from urban distractions, giving free rein to his creativity during extended visits to the countryside.
Arnold Schönberg’s String Quartet No. 2, op. 10, has recently been published in a series of critical editions by G. Henle Verlag, Munich. Peter Jost discusses this “Milestone in Music History” in the Henle Blog.
Two photographs recently published in the Online Archive of Berkeley Library, California, show Arnold Schönberg in March 1935 conducting rehearsals for the performance of his own works in San Francisco.
As of May 2022, the Arnold Schoenberg Center's holdings of recordings will be accessible through an audio database, which, in addition to providing research resources, will make excerpts of the included recordings audible.
Numerous printed scores found their way into the archive at the Arnold Schönberg Center via the pianist Leonard Stein, with individual copies originally owned by Arnold Schönberg himself. One of these scores is a version for piano of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6, which has previously received little attention and has now proven a significant source for performance practice in the Viennese School.
Arnold Schönberg’s piano works op. 11, 19 and 25 have recently been published in a series of individual critical editions by G. Henle Verlag, Munich.
