While translation always involves a balancing act between faithful rendition and an idiomatic use of language, historical documents such as letters raise particular issues. The implicit aim of published translations is generally to create and maintain the fiction that the text in question was actually written in the target language; in a correspondence, however, with countless references to external life and the respective proper names, this fiction is particularly unconvincing. Rather than attempt to translate all names of institutions, classifications of musical works or other references of this kind, I have sought to retain the German where I felt the original could be regarded as a proper name, as opposed to a straightforward categorial classification; one thus finds Frankfurter Kammermusikgemeinde in German, but ‘Berlin State Opera’ in English. With names of works, this principle has also been extended to the parameter of italics; standard terms such as ‘Piano Sonata’ or ‘String Quartet’ are thus not italicized, while more idiosyncratic classifications such as Six Short Orchestral Pieces are. German titles have been retained where I felt that their idiosyncratic nature exceeded this, as with Drei Bruchstücke aus der Oper ‘Wozzeck’.
Besides this, I have also sought to retain any unevenness, clumsiness or stilted language found in the original letters, as well as erroneous or, as in the case of Schönberg rather than Schoenberg, historically authentic spellings of names. While this cannot excuse any shortcomings of the translation, it was considered the primary stylistic aim to reproduce as faithfully as possible the individual tone of each letter, rather than exerting any editorial influence upon the formulations used in the originals.
Wieland Hoban
April 2005