Schoenberg: Three Unpublished Letters

Abstract

In June 1952, the Music Library of Yale University received three autograph letters and one autograph postcard of Schoenberg's, along with three sets of proofs, two of which were corrected by Schoenberg.1 These were given to the Library by Stanleigh P. Friedman; Friedman's source is unknown.2 The letters, which span a three-month period (February 25, 1915; March 2, 1915; March 29, 1915; and the postcard April 17, 1915), are addressed to a Dr. F. M. Huebner in Munich, who apparently was connected with the periodical Zeit-Echo in an editorial or advisory capacity, although his name is not mentioned in the magazine. The Zeit-Echo, ein Kriegs-Tagebuch der Kiinstler,3 as its title suggests, was devoted exclusively to European literary and artistic life during and as influenced by the First World War. Published in Munich and Berlin, later in Bern and Leipzig, it appeared bimonthly from 1914 through 1917. Many distinguished and well-known writers and artists contributed to its pages: Hermann Bahr, Max Brod, Martin Buber, Hermann Hesse, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Klabund, Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Kubin, Thomas Mann, Alfred Mombert, Picasso, Rilke, Leo Tolstoy, Georg Trakl, Franz Werfel, and Wilhelm Worringer, among others. The only composer represented, besides Schoenberg, had been a certain R. Bocquet from Dresden.4 As is evident from the first letter, Huebner must have asked Schoenberg in February 1915, for a musical contribution for the Zeit-Echo, and for suggestions concerning its presentation. Within five days of his first letter, as the next letter indicates, Schoenberg had already decided to give Huebner a voice and piano reduced score of his orchestral song, Alle, welche dich suchen (text from Rilke's Das Stunden-Buch), Op. 22, No. 2. This appeared in the Zeit-Echo in 1915 (Vol. 14, pp. 206-209).