Archive – History of the collection

Arnold Schönberg’s legacy remained in the possession of his heirs after his death in 1951 and was administered by his widow Gertrud Schönberg until 1967. In the 70s, Schönberg’s heirs decided to make the collection available to the Arnold Schönberg Institute of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles where a modern archive was established along with a concert hall and an exhibition hall. That archive was open to the public until 1997. Leonard Stein, who had studied with Schönberg, was the director of the Institute. During its 25-year history, the Institute was consulted by thousands of researchers, artists, students and music-lovers; on the average, 90 scholars visited the Institute each year and more than 500 enquiries were answered. Between 1975 and 1993 the "Friends of the Arnold Schönberg Institute" organized numerous activities at the Institute.

Towards the end of this period, the University of Southern California felt it could no longer fulfill the condition of Schönberg’s heirs that the Institute and archive be limited exclusively to research and studies about Arnold Schönberg, triggering off a legal battle between them and the University in 1996. Many cities, universities and private people were interested in giving the orphaned collection a new home: New York, Vienna, Berlin, Den Haag, Basel, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Arizona and even in Los Angeles, the Getty Center and the University of California at Los Angeles.

Vienna, as the city that Schönberg was born in and the birthplace and namesake of the (Second) Viennese School, was chosen: on March 24, 1997 the Arnold Schönberg Center Privatstiftung was founded by the City of Vienna together with the Internationale Schönberg Gesellschaft. After the collection was moved from Los Angeles and the Schönberg Center was opened in March 1998, the archive was made available to researchers, composers, musicians and the general public.

The collection contains approximately 9.000 pages of musical manuscripts, 6.000 pages of text manuscripts, 3.500 historical photos as well as personal documents, diaries, concert programmes and Schönberg’s entire library (music, books and recordings). Almost all of the original manuscripts and other Schönbergiana that are not a part of the collection are nevertheless available in copies or on microfilm at the Center. The Center’s reference library also offers visitors one of the most complete collections of literature concerning the (Second) Viennese School in the world.