Footnotes

¹ Receipt of this postcard is recorded in Schenker's diary at p. 2532, July 10: "Von Frimmel (K.): ruft mich zum Zeugen für das Wort Chloralhydrat, das kürzlich Korngold in einem Aufsatz gebraucht hat!" ("From Frimmel (postcard): calls on me as a witness for the term chloral hydrate, which Korngold recently used in an article!"). — Schenker's reply (which is not known to survive) is recorded the next day: "An Frimmel (K.): bestätige die Autorschaft, hebe gleichzeitig Korngolds Verdienste hervor!" ("To Frimmel (postcard): confirm the authorship and simultaneously emphasize Korngold's merits!").

² Choralhydrat: Julius Korngold (see the sentence following) in a feuilleton for the Neue freie Presse July 6, 1923, pp. 1‒4, entitled "Neue Musik (Die Frankfurter Kammermusikwoche)," reviewed music by Krenek, Hindemith and others. His discussion of Busoni's Fantasia contrapuntistica (p. 4, col. 1) concludes with: "Der Hörer wäre weniger schlaff geworden, wenn nicht so manche weniger achtungsgebietende Musik zermürbend vorangegangen wäre. Ein einschläferndes Zuviel an kontrapunktischen Choralwesen, Choralhydrat sozusagen. . . ." ("The listener might have become less languid had not so much less concentration-demanding music wearisomely preceded it. A soporific excess of contrapuntal choral entities, so to speak choral hydrate. . . ."). Evidently, Frimmel's word-play ‒ not explained in the available correspondence, but confirmed by the deleted "l" in Schenker's diary and by Korngold's remarks ‒ involved Chloralhydrat (chloral hydrate), a soporific for use by insomniacs.

³ Siegenfeld is a village northwest of Baden bei Wien, 20km (12 miles) southwest of Vienna. Schenker spent the summer of 1902 in Alexanderhof, near Baden bei Wien, and a letter of July 15, 1902 from Universal Edition is addressed to him at "Alexanderhof nr. Siegenfeld." Schenker's letter to Frimmel of March 13, 1905 (BNba Frimmel Nachl., [1]) reminisces about his and Frimmel's occasion "at the keyboard in Alexanderhof" as the first of the "pleasant weeks back then."

Commentary

Format

printed postcard: holograph sender and recipient addresses, readdressing in unknown hand, recto; holograph salutation, message, valediction, and signature, verso

Provenance

Schenker, Heinrich (document date-1935)--Schenker, Jeanette (1935-c.1942)--Ratz, Erwin (c.1942-c.1945)--Jonas, Oswald (c.1945-1978)--University of California, Riverside (1978--)

Rights Holder

Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, reproduced here by kind permission

License

Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, permission kindly granted on July 4, 2019. Any claim to intellectual rights on this document should be addressed to the Schenker Correspondence Project, Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge, at schenkercorrespondence[at]mus(dot)cam(dot)ac(dot)uk.

Digital version created: 2020-07-27
Last updated: 2013-08-29