Handwritten letter from Harden to Schenker, dated October 11, 1894 [printed letterhead with handwritten date:] [Handwritten:] ich muß Ihre unmotivirten Vorwurfe sehr entscheiden zurückwerfen.1 Ihre Verhandlungen mit Herrn Breitkopf2 interessiren mich gar nicht und es ist Ihre Sache, ob Sie einen noch nicht angenommenen Artikel als schon angenommen bezeichnen wollen.3 Ich bekomme täglich Stöße von Briefen und kann, namentlich da ich 3 Wochen krank war, nicht stets so prompt arbeiten, wie die herrische Laune eines Mitarbeiters es heischt. Sie werden solche Pünktlichkeit nicht leicht anderswo finden. Ihr Artikel über Humperdinck4 war nicht gut, war ganz unklar, nach m. subjektiven Ermessen, darum gab ich ihn zurück. Sie versprachen, für die Straußwoche über ihn u. seine neue Operette zu schreiben.5 Sie haben nicht Wort gehalten u. vermessen sich nun[,] mir die bittersten Vorwürfe zu machen. Drei Wochen, nachdem Jabuka|6 hier durchgefallen ist, scheint mir ein Artikel darüber nicht mehr am Platz. Ohne Ihr Versprechen hätte ich einen Anderen aufgefordert. In vorzügl. Hochachtung © In the public domain. |
Handwritten letter from Harden to Schenker, dated October 11, 1894 [printed letterhead with handwritten date:] [Handwritten:] I must unequivocally reject your unmotivated accusations.1 Your negotiations with Mr. Breitkopf2 are of no interest at all to me, and it is your affair if you want to pass off an article that has not yet been accepted as one that is already accepted.3 I receive piles of letter every day, and, especially since I was ill for three weeks, I cannot work as quickly as is demanded by the imperious caprice of a contributor. You will not easily find such promptness elsewhere. Your article on Humperdinck4 was not good, was completely unclear according my subjective estimate, and that is why I returned it. You promised that for the Strauß week you would write something about him and his new operetta.5 You have reneged, and now you presume to upbraid me in the most acrimonious terms. Three weeks after Jabuka|6 flopped here, it seems to me that an article about it is no longer acceptable. Without your promise, I would have engaged someone else. Most respectfully, © Translation William Pastille 2006. |
COMMENTARY: FOOTNOTES: 1 No letter from Schenker corresponding to this is known to survive. 2 Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, publishers. What the negotiations might be is unclear. (Schenker would later have several of his compositions published by Breitkopf in 1898-99.) 3 [identify] 4 There is no article by Schenker devoted to Huperdinck in Die Zukunft or any other journal at this time. Schenker does deal with Hänsel und Gretel in the article "Deutsch-Oesterreichischer Musikverkehr," Die Zukunft, vol. XI (1895), pp. 182-85, transcribed in Hellmut Federhofer, Heinrich Schenker als Essayist und Kritiker ... (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1990), pp. 129-34. 5 The Strauß Week, October 12-15, 1894, celebrated the "Artistic Jubilee" of Johann Strauß the Younger (1825-99), October 15, 1894 marking the exact 50th anniversary of his public début as conductor and composer at Dommayer's Casino in the Viennese suburb of Hietzing. The festival opened with the premiere of his new operetta Jabuka (Das Apfelfest) on October 12. In connection with this, the Vienna Court Opera staged a special production of Die Fledermaus on October 28, and the newspapers were full of articles and reminiscences of the composer around this time. (Information kindly privately supplied by Peter Kemp of the Johann Strauss Society of Great Britain.) (There is no article by Schenker in Die Zukunft on Johann Strauß.) See Peter Kemp, The Strauss Family (Southborough: Baton Press, 1985; rev. 2nd edn London: Omnibus Press, 1989). 6 Jabuka (Das Apfelfest), operetta by Johann Strauß the Younger, which premiered at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on the day after this letter was written, October 12, 1894. [Was there an "out of town" trial in Berlin three weeks earlier?] SUMMARY: © Commentary, Footnotes, Summary William Pastille, 2006
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