Preface to Volume 24, 1 B

This volume contains only the Editorial Notes for Pierrot lunaire. The Notes for the other works published in Volume 24 A are contained in Volume 24 B, 2. The editing of Pierrot lunaire had largely been completed when my work on Volume 24 as a whole was unavoidably interrupted for a number of years owing to problems of access to material for the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte. As a result, the different sets of Editorial Notes are not consistent in format. In the case of Pierrot lunaire the editorial guidelines for the Schönberg Complete Edition laid down in 1983 have been followed in part only: for example, by contrast with other volumes of the Complete Edition, the discussions of the origins and early history of the work form an extensive and closely documented study. I am grateful to the director and the editors of the Complete Edition for allowing this exception to be made in the present case. The delay in publication has had the incidental advantage that the source description of the first complete manuscript of Pierrot lunaire now takes account of the (excellent) restoration of this manuscript that was completed at the Library of Congress in 1993. In particular, the editing of the sketches has benefited: the first versions of some passages had been impossible to make out because of material pasted over, but with the overpasting removed the origins of these passages can now be described exactly.

I am grateful to a large number of people for their support. My foremost thanks are due to Clara Steuermann, whose authority, energy and friendship will not be forgotten. I also wish to thank Leonard Stein, for his readiness to exchange ideas, and the archivists Jerry McBride and R. Wayne Shoaf (of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, Los Angeles) for their kindness and help. The list of those who have given information and advice and have helped provide materials is a long one: Wayne D. Shirley (The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.), J. Rigbie Turner (The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York), Elena Hift (Universal Edition, Vienna), Ernst Hilmar (Wiener Stadt-und Landesbibliothek), Margaret V. Cranmer (Rowe Music Library, King’s College, Cambridge, England), Holly Mackovak and Millard Irion (Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.), Ilse Hotzinger (G. Minter und J. Eichner Stiftunc, Munich), Regina Busch (Vienna), Helmut Kirchmeyer (Neuss), Timothy J. McGee (Toronto), Felix Meyer (Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel), Paul Op de Coul (Utrecht), Lawrence Schoenberg and Elizabeth Soladay (Belmont Publishers), Rudolf Stephan (Berlin), Rachel Steuermann (New York), Horst Weber (Essen) and Sigrid Wiesmann (Vienna). Amy Wissinger Penrice (Cambridge, Mass.) prepared a sizeable portion of the manuscript on what was then the Music Department’s new computer. I owe special thanks to the scholars at the Forschungsstelle Berlin for the Schönberg Complete Edition: careful as usual, Tadeusz Okuljar prepared the Stichvorlage for the score in conformance with the style of the Complete Edition and read the proofs; with much patience, Dorothee Schubel checked the entire manuscript, including all the letters, against the original sources (Ms. Schubel also edited the wording of the table with the comparative list of readings, pp. 47 below, following the practice of the Complete Edition); Martina Sichardt was an engaged and meticulously precise copy editor. Contrary to the explicit wishes of the editor the Forschungsstelle introduced the logogram “Nz.” (with numbers: 1.Nz., 2.Nz., and so forth) into several chapters of the text as a means to identify a position within the measure. The critical notes have benefited from discussions with my colleague David Lewin. Certain aspects of my work on Pierrot, and also on the Ode to Napoleon, have been the subject of lectures (e. g., at Harvard University, spring 1987, fall 1991 and fall 1992). My studies have been supported by research fellowships from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in Bonn and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C.

Brookline (Massachusetts) and Berlin, May 1993
Reinhold Brinkmann
(Translated by Richard Deveson)