Preface to Volume 1/2, 1 B

The present volume, in two parts, contains the entire corpus of Schoenberg’s compositions in the category of song with piano accompaniment. In view of the considerable degree of overlap among the works included in volumes 1 and 2 of Series A, it has seemed advisable to bring them into a single framework here. On the other hand, the quantity of music involved, as well as other practical considerations, indicated that the volumes were best divided into two separate parts, dealing with the texts and the music respectively.

In addition to the editorial notes to the songs that were included in the two volumes of Series A, the present volume incorporates all known sketches and versions, and it makes available all further fragments and drafts that can be regarded, with a reasonable degree of plausibility, as coming under the heading of songs with piano accompaniment. (For further details, see p. 1.)

Volume 1 of Series A, edited by Josef Rufer and published in 1966, was the first volume of the Schoenberg Complete Works to be produced, and it did not contain a critical apparatus. Rectifying this omission after a lapse of more than twenty years has inevitably meant subjecting the musical text of that volume to a thorough-going review.

In the first place, recent findings in research into Schoenberg’s music have had to be incorporated. Secondly, and of special importance, account has had to be taken of developments in musical textual criticism in general and of the resulting shift in the philological principles underpinning the Schoenberg Complete Works in particular. The results of the editorial revision are given in the list of emendations on pp. 387 ff.; the editorial notes relate essentially to the newly revised text.

The editor has received considerable assistance in preparing this volume. He wishes to thank, first, Dr. Ivan Vojtĕch of Prague, who began the edition of the early songs at the start of the 1970s, and Frau Dr. Regina Busch of Vienna, to whom he is greatly indebted for her work in identifying texts. Thanks are also due to Professor Malena Kuss of North Texas State University, Denton, to Dr. Hans Braun of the Bibliotheca Bodmeriana in Cologny-Genève, to Iaacov Ghelman of the Jewish National & University Library in Jerusalem, to Dr. Ernst Hilmar of the Musiksammlung der Wiener Stadtbibliothek, to O. W. Neighbour of the British Library in London and to J. Rigbie Turner of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. Special mention should be made of the generous support that is always provided by the staff of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute in Los Angeles; Jerry McBride, former archivist of the Institute, is responsible for drawing the editor’s attention to the Mailied (after Goethe), not previously identified in Schoenberg studies.

Berlin, August 1987
Christian Martin Schmidt