More than 20.000 pieces of correspondence to and from Schönberg have been identified from a large variety of sources. Though copies of most of these letters existed in the collections of the Arnold Schönberg Center, the majority of the original letters are located in other collections.
The Library of Congress has the largest collection of Schönberg letters. Schönberg himself donated all of the letters in his possession in 1951 to the Library of Congress. These consist principally of carbon copies of letters by Schönberg and original letters to him. Also, there is a large collection of Berg letters – Schönberg letters to Alban Berg – in the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) in Vienna.
A published version of the lists at the present web site is available in the Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute (XVIII/1&2-XIX/1&2 (June & November 1996 – June & November 1997)).
The published version is supplemented with information not found in this on-line version including:
- The actual owner, where known, of each letter
- A published source for those letters which have appeared in print
- The Schönberg addresses at which he wrote and received each item
- The city of the non-Schönberg writer or recipient
- Physical description of each item Another version of these lists which includes additional information (including transcriptions, in the case of letters written by Schönberg) was maintained electronically at the Arnold Schönberg Center.
Additional information regarding the items in these lists may be obtained directly from the Arnold Schönberg Center. In order to acquire a copy of anything listed here, the Center required, in general, written permission from the writer (or heir/estate) of the letter. The term “letter” should be interpreted as any form of correspondence including: letters, postcards, telegrams, notes, etc. Dates are given in the form “year.month.day”. Brackets surround information not actually given on the letter.
For permission concerning copies of letters from Schönberg contact Belmont Music Publishers [mailto: office(at)schoenbergmusic(dot)com].
