Arnold Schoenberg: Commentated Catalogue of Works

Since 1998, the Viennese Arnold Schönberg Center (ASC) has housed the inheritance of the composer, music theorist and painter Arnold Schönberg, which contains music and text manuscripts, photographs, personal documents, diaries, concert programmes as well as his library (music, books and sound carriers). In addition, the ASC has copies of most other documents, some even in digital archives. - The following projects are currently working on the publication of the extensive corpus: the complete edition of compositions (Berlin), the restauration and cataloguing of Schönberg`s works of art (ASC) and the preparation of the critical complete edition of Schönberg`s writings. (This latter project is running from April 1st, 2003 to March 31st, 2006 at the "Wissenschaftszentrum Arnold Schönberg" at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and is supported by the FWF.) In the course of these research works, the lack of a catalogue with comments containing all compositional and literary works and also the works of arts has become painfully obvious. The catalogue published by Josef Rufer in 1959 comprises for most parts only a selection, it is uncomplete and full of mistakes, as numerous late discoveries have shown. Besides, this catalogue mostly analyzes sources which refer directly to Schönberg`s work, while important information on his other works have not been taken into consideration. In addition, the inheritance of the composer, his extensive correspondence as well as inheritances of other people around him, which give us informations about the three fields of activity of the "Father of the Viennese School", not have been sufficiently evaluated. The projected "commentated catalogue of Arnold Schönberg`s works" should show all his finished and unfinished works in the exact chronology of the occasion, the emergence, the publishing and the reception in the context of his life and his complete oeuvre and in relation to the contemporary historical and political events. Because of the enormous extent of the sources which go far beyond the examination of the oeuvre, the scientific research project has been scheduled for 24 months and employes a PostDoc (musicologist) on full time basis and two more assistent research workers. For this project, the experience of present research project team (supported by the FWF) working on the preparation of the critical complete edition of Arnold Schönberg`s writings would be of highest value, because of their year long experience concerning the dating of Schönberg`s manuscripts. New scholars on the other hand would have to make themselves familiar with the special complexity of the subject and the difficult legibility of many handwritten sources, which could last many months.

The Arnold Schönberg Centre in Vienna has been managing the composer`s estate since 1998. He was also a music theorist and painter; thus the collection comprises music and text manuscripts, paintings, photographs, personal documents, diaries, concert programmes and Schönberg`s library (consisting of printed music, books and sound media). The archive also preserves duplicates or scans of documents unavailable in their original form; processing and publication of this considerable body of material is currently in the hands of the Complete Edition of his compositions (Berlin), while the Schönberg Centre is restoring and cataloguing his visual artwork; the Complete Edition of his writings is in preparation for publishing in two or three volumes in 2011. At the same time, the Complete Edition of Schönberg`s compositions in Berlin is working together with the Schönberg Centre to produce a catalogue of all the artist`s writings; it already comprises some 1,500 entries (many with sub-entries), each one of them including incipit, list and description of sources (with details of different versions), dating and first publication where applicable. Among its valuable features is a discussion of issues concerning their origin, along with contextual links with other writings and musical/visual works. The enormous quantity of data on the writings and compositions is also compared with other Schönbergiana - not least the letters and diary entries, sources which often supply important additional clues for dating the works. The catalogue of writings is now complete and included in digitized form with this report; it supplements the catalogue raisonné of the composer`s visual artworks published in 2005 by Therese Muxeneder, director of the Schönberg Centre archive (and associate leader of this project) and Dr. Christian Meyer (the Schönberg Centre`s director) while adding much to its completeness. It also complements the catalogue of his musical oeuvre, the work in progress at the Berlin Complete Edition of his compositions. Of course, a complete works catalogue of all Schönberg`s creations will not be possible until the Berlin edition is finished; co-op work with our writings edition ande the Berlin publication is already underway.