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Letter from Schenker to Otto Erich Deutsch, May 15, 1930 (OJ 5/9, [3])
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Page of Schenker's diary, late January and early February 1907
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Page of Schenker's lessonbook for 1923/24
Heinrich Schenker
Viennese musician and teacher Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935), the twentieth century's leading theorist of tonal music, produced a series of innovative studies and editions between 1903 and 1935, while exerting a powerful and sustained influence, directly and through his pupils, on the teaching of music from the 1930s onward in the USA, and since the 1970s in Europe and elsewhere.
Schenker maintained a vigorous correspondence over nearly half a century, kept a meticulously detailed diary over 40 years, and recorded precise notes on lessons that he gave over a period of twenty years. It is these three collections of personal documents that constitute the core of Schenker Documents Online.
Schenker Documents and this Edition
Schenker left behind approximately 130,000 manuscript and typescript leaves comprising unpublished works, preparatory materials, and personal documents, preserved in two dedicated archives, numerous libraries, and private possession. (See "Major Collections.") The archived papers of several other scholars, among them Guido Adler, Oswald Jonas, Moriz Violin, and Arnold Schoenberg, also preserve correspondence and other documents relating to Schenker and his circle.
Schenker Documents Online offers a scholarly edition of this material based not on facsimiles but on near-diplomatic transcriptions of the original texts, together with English translations, explanatory footnotes, summaries, and contextual material relating the texts to Schenker's personal development and that of his correspondents.
Latest 2024
2024 features Schenker and his Family
- Heinrich Schenker had a large extended family, and this is featured in the newly available material. It comprised his two brothers; his sister’s family (the Guttmanns); his wife Jeanette, who was one of ten children (the Schiffs); and the family of Jeanette’s first husband (the Kornfelds). All of these had children and grandchildren. – Many of them perished in the Holocaust.
- CORRESPONDENCE: Little has been known of these branches of Heinrich’s family, and yet his diary witnesses how closely he and Jeanette kept to many of its members through letters, greetings cards, and mutual visits, and how Heinrich took a close interest in their fortunes. In the belief that his personality must in part have been conditioned by his family background, SDO has devoted 2024 to placing all his correspondence with his extended family on the site. — New to the site also is the correspondence with John Petrie Dunn, follower of Heinrich’s theory in Edinburgh, and also the first of two batches of the correspondence with Breitkopf & Härtel, publisher of several of Heinrich’s compositions.
- DIARY: Our edition of Heinrich’s diary was completed in 2022. This year we present Jeanette’s fascinating travel diary of her five-month voyage from Europe to South America in 1936, and her stay in Santiago to spread the word about her deceased husband’s theory.
- PROFILES: The newly supplied profiles include all of Schenker’s large family, all the people that Jeanette encountered on her South American voyage and sojourn, and the many new places and institutions that she visited.
