Correspondence 1925

35 ALBAN AND HELENE BERG TO
WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
TRAHüTTEN, 14.7.1926

ALBAN BERG C/O NAHOWSKI
TRAHÜTTEN IN STEIERMARK	14.7.
POST OFFICE: DEUTSCH-LANDSBERG
A./D. GRAZ-KÖFLACH RAILWAY

Only very briefly my dear Wiesengrund. Thanks for telegram & letter of 28.6. The latter very interesting. Am very keen to read Nachtmusik. Is it to appear in Anbruch? Is the quartet finished in the meantime? I shall hopefully finish mine in the autumn, though the interruption (in Vienna from I.VIII) is unlikely to do it any good, but I have done some work in advance precisely with this in mind, which I never do otherwise. On I.VIII, Schneevoigt is doing the ‘Bruchstücke’ in Scheveningen with that very talented van Geuns lady.¹ In February Kleiber in Petersburg. But perhaps the whole opera can be done there after all, with Coates² cond. at the academ. theatre. I am not hearing anything about German opera houses. We Viennese have been spared Krauss, thank God. But what else is there? Schneiderhahn,³ of Fackel fame, is the head of the men’s choral society. (On the trip to America: ‘where’s my flannel?’) So he’s a clown beyond compare. But he wants to bring Turnau⁴ to Vienna as director, which would be not undesirable. –

What did you hear about Zurich? I heard: that the ‘New Classicism’⁵ triumphed over Schönberg once and for all there. An utterly short-lived partita by Casella⁶ that had the greatest success. Once again, everyone succeeds at Schönberg’s expense! For how long? I would reckon 1–1¹⁄2 years! Incidentally, Webern had a colossal success (especially in the French part of the I.S.f.k.m.a).⁷ A success that I had prophesied: for no one can resist the delights issuing from his orchestra. It is the most un-heard-of sound in New Music! You have no idea! –

Schönberg has been in Vienna since July, in August he will retire to the country. Is well, but still not entirely at ease. Still working on the ‘Jakobsleiter’⁸ (discretion!) –

Fare thee well & write soon to your

Alban Berg

Dear Teddy, If you had beseeched me in the name of Kaiser F.J., we could more readily discuss a song-theft – but the Matriser: ‘Precisely not!’ I hope we shall meet soon!

Fond regards to you & your two d. mothers!

Yours,

Helene Berg

Original: manuscript with sender stamp and an additional note by Helene Berg.

1 The Finnish conductor and cellist Georg Schnéevoigt (1872–1947), who conducted in Düsseldorf between 1924 and 1926, and Co van Geuns also gave the Viennese performance on 14 October 1926.

2 The St Petersburg-born conductor and composer Albert Coates (1882–1953) worked at the St Petersburg opera from 1911 to 1918; the Russian premiere of Wozzeck took place on 13 June 1927 in Leningrad, as St Petersburg was still called at the time.

3 Franz Schneiderhahn (1863–1938) was president of the state theatres; see also Die Fackel, issues 735–742, October 1926, p. 41.

4 The director Josef Turnau (1888–1954) was opera manager in Breslau at the time, then later occupied the same position in Frankfurt.

5 Allusion to the third of Schönberg’s Three Satires for Mixed Choir op. 28, entitled ‘The New Classicism’.

6 The Partita for Piano and Orchestra by Alfredo Casella (1883–1947) had been premiered on 22 June 1926 in Zurich.

7 Berg often referred to the ISCM as the ‘I.G.f.l.m.i.A’, standing for ‘Internationale Gesellschaft für leck mich im Arsch’ (International Society for kiss my arse).

8 The composition of the oratorio for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra Die Jakobsleiter, whose text already existed in print in 1917, remained a fragment. Winfried Zillig (1905–1963), a student of Schönberg, reconstructed a full score of the fragment from the short score and sketches in 1955.

37 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO ALBAN
AND HELENE BERG
FRANKFURT, 3.8.1926

Frankfurt, a. M., 3 August.

Dear master and teacher,

just this moment I concluded the 1st movement of my quartet, a – by my standards – quite fully grown piece of 190 bars. You are familiar with the start, which you liked, and as I do not believe that the piece has grown any worse, I hope that it will satisfy you to some degree. You will receive the score as soon as I have copied it out; it will be another 14 days before I can do that in peace, however. I am otherwise also composing very eagerly; the 3rd movement,¹ a sort of rondo with many musical shapes, piano pieces in the strictest twelve-tone technique,² but short (the 1st is finished), and songs, one of which I have likewise finished,³ while the others have already progressed very far. As you can see, the other work, of which there is certainly no shortage, is not – as you sometimes fear – keeping me from what is most important.

The play by Hofmannsthal is entitled ‘Der Turm’. Turm.⁴ The essay ‘Nachtmusik’ has still not been printed; perhaps ‘Musik’ will publish it. Today, in its stead, please accept 10 musical aphorisms that will perhaps entertain you.

On August 15th I am taking a holiday; namely going to Egern-Rottach by Lake Tegern for 14 days; after that perhaps to Aussee. It is possible, albeit by no means certain, that I shall come to Vienna for a few days at the end of September, to report on the sociologists’ congress⁵ for the Frankfurter Zeitung. Will you still be in Vienna then?

My private life is not particularly well; for many reasons. I long to see you, and would like to speak to you about all these matters. – My commitment to the Habilitation is also weighing on my shoulders as a constant pressure. And I am truly utterly overworked.

How are you both? How do you feel in a Vienna finally cleansed of old Budapest?⁶ Do you sometimes dine at the Weide?⁷ Do you think of me? I am so very, very much in need of it!

Soma sent me an essay for the F.Z. that my friend Kracauer found very gifted;⁸ I hope the story shall be published, at least fragmentarily. Sadly, it is a little too broad.

One further request: on my last stay in Vienna, I left my two George songs⁹ behind, and I strongly suspect that it was at Kolisch’s. Would you mind calling him about this? I would not like to write to him especially for this reason –it would seem so self-important. Perhaps you could also tell him again that he can reckon with my quartet for the autumn.

Has the Chamber Concerto come out? And Schönberg’s Suite? Is the Jakobsleiter finished?

Dear Frau Helene, if the Matriser is no good, then Ferenz-Joseph will just have to do, though I would have preferred to spare him, as he is really not spared anything. But please, obtain the early songs for me.

Send a few lines soon	to your devoted
	Teddie W.

Original: manuscript.

1 Neither a third movement nor sketches for one have been found among Adorno’s belongings.

2 There are no finished piano pieces among Adorno’s belongings.

3 The song ‘Steh ich in finstrer Mitternacht (aus dem Krieg 1914–18)’, composed in 1926, which Adorno later included in his Six Bagatelles for Voice and Piano op. 6 (see Compositions 1, p. 68f.).

4 Adorno repeats the word in Latin letters.

5 Adorno did not travel to Vienna for this occasion.

6 Allusion to Imre Békessy.

7 The name of the restaurant to which Berg, as Adorno later recalls, had taken him: ‘I was able to learn from him [Berg] what Austrian sensual culture could mean; I shall never forget his sense for good food and wine, the likes of which one normally finds in Paris. It is to him that I owe my acquaintance with the then excellent, literally and metaphorically utterly black and yellow restaurant Weide in Speising, with the famous crab pasties [. . .]’ (GS 13, p. 343f.).

8 Adorno had undertaken, with the help of Kracauer, to have Morgenstern’s short story ‘Personenwaage’ (Scales) published in the Frankfurter Zeitung, where it indeed appeared on 13 February 1927.

9 These are the third and fourth songs of Adorno’s op. 1: ‘Wir werden noch einmal zum lande fliegen’ – whose manuscript bears the note: ‘Vienna, 25 April 1925’ – and ‘Es lacht in dem steigenden jahr’, with the note: ‘Vienna, 4 May 1925’.

38 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, c. 13.8.1926

Dear Wiesengrund, in Vienna since the 2nd & at work (quartet) which however I hope to complete in September in Trahütten again. My thanks for the letter of 3.8. with the nice aphorisms.¹ Stravinsky superb!² Reger³ is arguable. I do not understand ‘Fremdwörter in der Operette’.⁴ – I daresay it would be a fine thing if you came to Vienna, we shall presumably be here until mid-Sept., then 2, 3 weeks in Trahütten & from early Oct. in Vienna once more, where on Oct. 13th Schneevoigt is doing the Bruchstücke, which he performed 14 days ago in Scheveningen. Prague premiere⁵ probably before Christmas. Petersburg one⁶ January, February. Melos published a brilliant and accurate article on Wozzeck by Schäfke⁷ (?) (accurate both on my treatment of the text and on the music). A very nice one also in Signale f.d. musikal Welt by Herbert Connor (?). – Otherwise nothing new from me. Mood: ‘serious, but hopeful’! – Schönberg in Ragusa, composing variat. for full orchestra.⁸ – Kolisch is coming to Vienna soon, shall ask him about your songs. – I saw Soma Morgenstern for a few hours. He is – and rightly so – cross that you have not written to him, not even about the article. Warmest regards yours Berg

In July Alma Mahler & Franz Werfel visited us for 1 day in Trahütten, as you can see here.⁹

Original: photograph postcard: Alban and Helene Berg with Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel in the latter’s car. Manuscript.

On the dating: Written fourteen days after the premiere of Drei Bruchstücke aus der Oper ‘Wozzeck’ on 1 August in Scheveningen.

1 These are ‘Motive’; see letter no. 33, note 5.

2 Adorno’s aphorism is as follows: ‘One need not fear any revolution from Stravinsky. He takes care of the dynamite attack and the life insurance himself, in the same breath and with the same policy; he visits today’s bomb craters tomorrow with sightseers in the state carriage of the ancien régime, and the blue bird soon builds its peaceful nest in them’ (GS 16, p. 259).

3 See letter 39, note 1.

4 See GS 16, p. 260.

5 The Prague performance of Wozzeck took place that year on 11 November.

6 The Leningrad premiere took place only on 13 June 1927.

7 See Rudolf Schäfke, ‘Alban Bergs “Wozzeck”’, Melos, 5 (1926), p. 1131ff.

8 Schönberg worked on his Variations for Orchestra op. 31 until 1928.

9 Written on the picture side.

39 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
STAUDACH-ROTTACH, 19.8.1926

19 August 26.	Staudach-Rottach 109
	Haus Schwab
	(Upper Bavaria)

Dear master and teacher,

by the same token that I was happy to receive the picture and the greetings on your card – which was forwarded to me here yesterday –, I was also inflamed by the apparently injured tone of your message. What do you hold against me? The Soma matter is quite different than you think; I pursued it immediately and energetically, and only abstained from writing to him because I wanted to wait until I could tell him the news with certainty – and also in the hope of arranging a stay with him – a hope that I still cling to now. In any case, I shall write to him today; the letter to him will be sent with this same delivery to your address, as I do not know his.

But you must hold something else against me? Perhaps you found the Reger irreverent?¹ But you would have told me that; I certainly did not write it lightly! Or did the tone of my last few letters offend you? Well, it may not have been a fitting one, but this is purely the fault of my condition, which, as I told you in the last letter, is very poor, and affected by severe depressions. The combined effects of the increasingly far-reaching conflict with my friend² and erotic entanglements without hope or escape have brought me to this point. I can only keep my head above water at all by forcing myself to work (I have lately been practising the piano like a madman once again, along with everything else!), and in all private utterances I am no doubt a shadow of my true self. Be patient with me! And above all: write to me openly what charges are being made against me! The thought of losing you, even the mere thought of our estrangement, is completely unbearable to me!

I am here together with a lady friend³ under very difficult circumstances; in fact, it is really through you that I know her; met her at the house of my friends the Oppenheims,⁴ where Grab took me. She is an actress; her husband, from whom she is divorced, a friend of mine. Our relationship is most peculiar, a mixture of intimacy and foreignness as incomprehensible to me as it is to her. And offers me once more a terrible demonstration of the impracticability of human relationships that have grand intentions. In mute nature, which is also native to people, even women, lies something unassailable which we are hopelessly repelled by, even if it seemed broken in a thousand places! If only one did not always have to be repelled!

Otherwise I am living here in, as one says, a state of recovery. I lie in a boat on the lake all day, and needless to say I have been heavily sunburnt as a result. I am sleeping a great deal, doing philosophical work. – There is a Herr Slezak⁵ here, with a villa that stands behind coloured-glass balls. I met his son today. He is someone whom you could have invented in a nightmare.

I have one great request of you. Anbruch had asked me for three ‘conductors’ portraits’. I wrote to them, mentioning Furtwängler, Scherchen (who is incidentally very interested in my works!) and Webern. The manuscript was supposed to be in Vienna a week ago! Would you take a look at it when you next go to see Hertzka? Especially concerning Webern, I am most urgently in need of your opinion! For there are a few things in it which, if he misunderstands them, could perhaps offend him, which would be terrible for me. And his silence on my essay, which (despite having been horribly disfigured) was fit to please you, has made me quite unsure of myself! So please look at it with a view to this! And a further request: use your authority (the gentlemen care little what I write!) to ensure that I am sent the proofs for correction! I must make a few changes. There are, for example, a few sentences in the part on Webern, where I describe his conducting style, that all begin with a journalistically capitalized ‘And’. That is unacceptable; each sentence should begin with ‘He’.

Forgive me for burdening you with such stuff.

A few more words on the twelve-tone technique (my essay will most likely appear in the F.Z.; I shall also analyse the quintet with Holl).⁶ I have now done a good deal of work with it myself, and from the inside the matter does in fact look quite different. In particular because it is only thus that one can understand the relief offered by the technique: namely that the possibility of continuation is always guaranteed by the content of the row. It would be impossible to recognize this solely through analysis, which can never adequately grasp the act of composition, but only the ‘composed’. Admittedly, I have meanwhile come to view this relief as the danger in dodecaphony. The process of originary listening is broken off too soon; there is no guarantee that the relation to the material that represents a ‘definite multiplicity’ genuinely involves that same possibility of continuation demanded by the ear at this point in its own particular form! I refuse to accept that it should be forbidden, bad or ‘wilful’ to write something like the end of the 5th orchestral piece.⁷ As a regulative for keeping away tonally cadential residues, the twelve-tone technique is necessary in its lucid rationality, and appeared at its own rightful time. But it cannot and should not dictate a positive compositional canon. This is what I currently believe: that there is only a ‘negative’ dodecaphony, being the utmost rational borderline case of the dissolution of tonality (even when tonal elements appear within dodecaphony; for then they, as a construction, are coincidental in their tonality, being simply dictated by the row!). Positive dodecaphony as a guarantee of music’s capacity for continuation as objectivity does not exist.

All this is but a suggestion and a question for you; not for the public at large, which must first discover the purifying force of dodecaphony; and certainly not for Schönberg. In my quartet I admittedly resort, in order to avoid leading-note cadences, to using rows, which I deploy using such devices as rhythmic variation, inversion, retrograde and ret. inv.; but I permit myself the acoustic liberty of choice – interruption of the row; freely following the harmonic tendency – and reserve this right at all times, and tie the movement’s large-scale dimensions purely to the formal architecture, which is certainly related to the row’s manifestations, but not identical. In the piano pieces,⁸ I invented something new for myself: vertical rows, i.e. ones which are not, as with Schönberg, the result of folding a melodic row – one with a clear, single character (or rather four) – on top of itself, but which appear chordally in the sense of Wozzeck’s death scene, are only used chordally, and, rather than being combined to form sounds, are dissected melodically; here one has the possibility of any given permutation and ordering, not only the 4 Schönbergian modifications. Of course, the precondition for this is that the row, in order to take on a binding function, should contain only a limited number of the 12 possible pitches – probably not more than precisely your 6.⁹ I hope to demonstrate this to you at much greater length soon. I am writing the songs¹⁰ very freely, and am quite content to do so.

What is the state of your quartet? How much is finished? And what of your other plans? – The divorced wife of the painter Ottomar Starke¹¹ spoke to me about opera texts that he (Starke) writes; a grotesque one has just become available, and is very modern. I am extremely distrustful of the wife, who is false and a salon communist. But maybe the husband, who is supposedly gifted as a painter, could be some good after all. Should I inquire further in the matter?

Has Schönberg really finished the chamber suite?¹² And how far has he got with the Jakobsleiter? And how about the variations? Does he want to switch to the symphony? How strange, how incomprehensible this manner of production is once again! Have the choral pieces come out, the suite in printing?

I hope finally to hold the ‘Nachtmusik’ essay in my hands in the next few days. As soon as I do, you shall receive it.

It has now become very uncertain whether I shall come to Vienna in September. You shall soon receive word from me.

Did you see my Scherchen music festival review¹³ in Musik?

The authors of the two new commentaries on Wozzeck are unknown to me. Could they send the essays to me here? I shall stay until the end of next week.

Forgive the long epistle!

Please accept my very fondest regards to you and your wife

from your devoted

Wiesengrund.

Original: manuscript.

1 ‘Reger’s sequences are comparable to contemporary interior design. Unable to divide the broad façade clearly, and equally unable to obtain a reality for its grandiose appearance, one has carefully withdrawn into the interior, and there imitates the edifice’s lost order on the smaller scale: not without first drawing the blinds. One finds it rather homely by the light of privacy, in front of the artificial fireplace of the soul; the rooms complement one another, their sequence is secure from door to door. But it is just a little too spacious for the few inhabitants: when the light fails, they lose their way in the dark’ (GS 18, p. 13).

2 Siegfried Kracauer.

3 Presumably Ellen Dreyfuss-Herz; see also letter no. 54.

4 Paul Oppenheim (1885–1977), who held a managerial position in the chemical industry until 1933, and his wife Gabrielle. Paul Oppenheim later worked in the USA as a scientific theorist.

5 The tenor Leo Slezak (1873–1946), who lived in Rottach Egern, had worked at the Vienna Court and State Operas from 1901 to 1926.

6 According to Adorno’s own words, the detailed analysis of the Wind Quintet op. 26 by Schönberg disappeared within his preface to the essay collection Moments musicaux (see GS 17, p. 11); nothing is known of any contribution to the analysis by Holl.

7 From Schönberg’s op. 16.

8 Probably those mentioned in letter no. 37, which were there still conceived as being ‘in the strictest twelve-tone technique’.

9 See Wozzeck’s death scene (act III, scene 4), in which the hexachord B flat–C sharp–E–G sharp–E flat–F fulfils the central function; see also letters 13 and 15.

10 Adorno’s Vier Gedichte von Stefan George für eine Singstimme und Klavier op. 1.

11 The set-designer and writer Ottomar Starke (1886–?); at Adorno’s request, he sent Berg a manuscript entitled Der Geizhals (The Miser) on 24 August 1926.

12 Schönberg had finished op. 29 on 1 May.

13 See GS 19, pp. 79–81.

40 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 21.8.1926

ALBAN BERG VIENNA XIII/I

TRAUTTMANSDORFFGASSE 27

TELEPHONE: 84831.

21.8.26

My dear Wiesengrund, these few words just to deliver you from uncertainty or error: Aside from that little, entirely objective irritation about the Soma business*, I have neither held nor do I hold anything at all against you & I cannot imagine what gave you such an idea. The brevity of my letters (and likewise this card) has been caused by nothing other than having too little time: composing, proofreading, business, [x]¹ etc. etc. Every day is too short for me!!!! Your depression & its causes weigh very heavily on my mind, and it would be a great joy to me if I could help you. But nature will be better equipped to do so than your friend! – Next week I hope to be successful in sorting out the matter of your article with U. E. As far as the 12–tone technique is concerned: The most conspicuous thing about it, I would say, is the fact that it does not exclude tonality (intentional tonality – not simply chance tonality, which would be very fishy) at all. This makes me consider much of what you put so elegantly rather questionable. All the more as I am currently on the final (6th) quartet movement, which shall once again be very strict. [N.B. 4 movements are completely finished, the 3rd (the Allegro) half-finished.] I received Starke’s libretto, and found it quite excellent! But sadly not for me! I recommended him most warmly to Zemlinsky. – Do you know a Frankfurt painter Benno Elkan. I received a Chinese ‘Tristan’ from him (through U. E.).² This, on the other hand, would greatly appeal to me, but the libretto contains (in addition to a low standard of language) many mistakes. I can answer all your questions relating to Schönberg with a yes. That means: choral pieces about to appear. I know nothing of symphonic plans!

Fare thee well & recover your health!

Warmest regards Yours B

Fond regards! Yours Helene Berg

Original: postcard; stamp: Vienna, 21.VIII.26. Manuscript with sender stamp and an additional note by Helene Berg.

1 Here a word could not be deciphered.

2 The sculptor, painter and writer Benno Elkan (1877–1960), whose libretto draft was entitled Samurai.

* Soma shall receive his letter tomorrow. He is in Vienna.

42 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 7.9.1926

Frankfurt, 7 September 26.

Dear master and teacher, my thanks for your card, which reassured me completely. I have still had no news from Soma,¹ and therefore, after extending my stay in Rottach to 4 weeks, returned here and set to work: quartet finale,² which I am finding difficult to compose and is progressing only slowly at present, but which I definitely expect to finish before the winter. The difficulties are of a particular nature; for the rondo has tendencies towards dance that demand to be carried through, and yet it should at all costs avoid becoming some artfully stylized foxtrot or Stravinskian romp. It should thus be rhythmically conceived at the vertical level, and at the same time genuinely polyphonic, which demands the utmost control. A shame you are not here. I am checking through the first movement, and suppose that I can make the fair copy now; I hope it satisfies you. The second is a piece consisting of variations that I worked on while I was with you.

* which is once again so difficult that I cannot read it with a work-worn head.

Otherwise, I am studying ‘Wozzeck’ in its technical aspects, and do not cease to be amazed.

It is especially pleasing to me that you are making such good progress. Where have you got to now? How long are the movements? You should call the piece a quartet after all, not a suite. For the massively expansive spread of its disposition already exceeds its suite character. A dance piece simply has nothing in common with the absolute gravity of your music. What is more, one should keep one’s distance, externally too, from the new – fascist – classicism.

If you are answering all my questions concerning Schönberg in the affirmative – does this also mean that the Jakobsleiter is finished? This would of course be an event of incalculable importance!

You must on no account have anything to do with Benno Elkan! He is the biggest art fraud I know, an even worse type than Willi Grosz³ and incapable of producing anything worthwhile. From what you say, I can imagine his Tristan only too well.

I sent you ‘Nachtmusik’ 8 days ago from Rottach, and I hope you received it. I am naturally extremely desirous of your opinion. Please also show it to Soma and Steuermann, and extend my fond greetings to them. – As ‘Musik’ requested the manuscript (after ‘Anbruch’ rejected it), I would be most grateful to you if you could send it there once you have read it. Address: ‘Musik’ editorial office, Berlin W 9, Linkstrasse*⁴ 16.

The ‘Frankfurter Kammermusikgemeinde’,⁵ whose lady director is a former friend of mine, has placed songs of mine on its programme without my prior knowledge. I suppose the only suitable ones would be the two George songs that Kolisch has.

I am now well recovered, it was necessary and I am now in great need of my strength. My private life has improved, though it is still all rather complicated, not least because I must release myself from a relationship that has run its course, which is difficult for me. But I have enough work to live off. Fond regards to you and Frau Helene your faithful Teddie W.

* Linkstrasse

Original: manuscript.

1 Soma Morgenstern replied to Adorno’s critical remarks on the story Personenwaage on 9 September 1926.

2 See letter no 37, note 1.

3 The Viennese composer Wilhelm Grosz (1894–1939) published Baby in der Bar: ein Tanzspiel von Béla Balasz as his op. 23 in 1927.

4 Adorno repeated the street name in printed Roman letters at the bottom of the page.

5 See letter no. 12, note 3.

44 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 24.10.1926

Frankfurt-Oberrad.

24 October 26.

Dear master and teacher, here is at last some news from me. I have had a very peculiar time of late, one during which I was unable to come to my senses, and which was also a difficult time for me. Also externally difficult; because suddenly, from one day to the next, I found myself either having to force the issue of my Habilitation or abandon it. In this matter too you were right, as you always are with grim predictions; a hundred obstacles appeared that I had not reckoned with; rivals also appeared, among them – which complicated matters particularly – a friend of mine.¹ I had to address the matter very energetically; conclude my preparatory work, draw up a large abstract; and if the abstract is accepted, which will transpire within the next few days, I shall finish the thesis in 6–8 weeks. All this would not be so troublesome if the Habilitation were certain; but it is by no means certain, even if the thesis is accepted. And meanwhile, it is costing me all my powers. I had to lay aside the quartet finale, which had already progressed very far, for 4 weeks. But once my work on the Habilitation thesis² – which is not a fully fledged philosophical achievement, but purely a means to an end – is under way, I can finish the quartet. I will force the matter or abandon it. Either I shall fulfil my intention, and then have all my time for my work – or I shall let it be once and for all, and endeavour to find my place in musical life, if such a thing still exists, which, at least in our understanding of the notion, I am coming to doubt. And my dégout at the Habilitation had even driven me so far as to apply for Pisling’s³ former post at the 8 o’clock evening paper in Berlin – without being dignified with any response. I had given you as a reference – did anyone ask you about it?

And do you think there might be an opening for me in Vienna – for example with the International, or with a decent newspaper? I would still be happy to avoid the academic teaching profession, and I can think of nowhere I would rather be than with you. Forgive me for accosting you with requests in this letter, which is once again terribly late. But my silence and my requests have the same reason, namely an extremely muddled situation that does not allow me to speak, but only permits, now at last, a cry for help! I need hardly tell you that I cling to you with my entire person and all my artistic conviction. You will sense that these are weighty, dark matters that I have to deal with; matters whose human origin I do not suppose anyone but you could understand!

I had hoped to travel to Prague for Wozzeck.⁴ But at present, I cannot leave here. If the premiere were to be much further delayed, I would certainly do so, and perhaps subsequently go with you to Vienna for a few weeks. I can certainly not go for much longer without seeing you. So please write to me of your plans, in particular for the second half of December and January.

I truly hope Leningrad goes well.⁵ Should any introductions to Wozzeck be required, then I would passionately like to write them, and beg you to inform me in good time. And I give you my firm promise that I shall write truly simply and drastically; I can certainly manage that for proletarians, it is only with the middle classes that I do not succeed, as I am simply never allowed to tell them directly what I mean.

Are you and your dear wife in good health? Did Trahütten do you good? I presume that the bad weather has caused you to return to Vienna; if not, the letter will hopefully follow you!

Your quartet will be finished by now. I cannot tell you how eager I am for it. For there is otherwise truly no good music. Apart from the new piano pieces by Eisler,⁶ which I like a great deal (which would incidentally be inconceivable without Wozzeck!), I have lately seen only bad, appropriated and false stuff. Although I am sent reams of music. The new classicism has completely petrified the old composers, and made the young ones cowardly, lazy and irresponsible. – I now despair of reaching the heart of the external musical situation, that is, the chance of something serious, just as much as you do.

In fact, I am generally no longer lagging behind you in terms of defeatism.

I will write to you soon concerning the Melos essay. What I liked most about it was the wrapping paper; a fragment from your Chamber Concerto,⁷ which I have kept. Can you not wrap more journals, e.g. Anbruch? – The essay is solidly and even affectionately written, but with an ultimately subaltern philologists’ devotion, and has the dangerous intention of drawing a reactionary ideology out of Wozzeck (the harmonic and the linear being simultaneous; the primacy of the connection to the old formal tradition; obviously wicked lies). But at least the piece maintains a certain standard, and is better than all the hack jobs that have otherwise been done on Wozzeck. But he clearly comes from the Berlin music history class of Professor Abert.⁸

Did you read my essays (‘Conductors’ and ‘Metronome Markings’⁹)?

I shall write to Soma in the next few days.

Warm regards to you and to dear Frau Helene from your faithful Teddie,

who longs to
see you both.

Original: manuscript.

1 This is Leo Löwenthal (1900–1993), who, after studies in literature, history, philosophy and sociology, began as a teacher; he became a full-time employee of the Frankfurt Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research). Löwenthal did not pursue his plan for a Habilitation any further after November 1927.

2 Adorno was working on his first Habilitation thesis, ‘Der Begriff des Unbewußten in der transzendentalen Seelenlehre’ (see GS 1, pp. 79–322), at the time; see also letters 72 and 76 and the accompanying notes.

3 The music critic Siegmund Pisling (1869–1926) was correspondent for the Berliner National-Zeitung until his death.

4 The premiere of Wozzeck at the Prague National Theatre, under the musical direction of Otokar Ostrcil, took place on 11 November 1926.

5 The performance at the Leningrad State Opera followed only on 13 June 1927.

6 It is not known whether Adorno was familiar with Hanns Eisler’s Piano Pieces op. 8, probably composed in 1925. But he certainly reviewed Eisler’s op. 3 in July 1927 for Die Musik (see GS 18, p. 522f.).

7 ‘The fragment from the original score of the Chamber Concerto’ – as Adorno noted down on it – has survived among his belongings.

8 The musicologist Hermann Abert (1871–1927).

9 See letter no. 20, note 12.

45 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 29.10.1926

ALBAN BERG VIENNA XIII/I
TRAUTTMANSDORFFGASSE 27	Vienna 29.10
TELEPHONE: 84831.	261

Many thanks,

dear Wiesengrund, for your kind letter. Let me quickly reply to the most important points.

I am deeply affected by the matter of your Habilitation, as likewise by your various plans. I would like to discuss this at length with you. This would be very difficult in writing. – I have not yet heard anything about the 8 o’clock evening paper. But I can imagine how many hundreds of people want to take Pisling’ s old position. I heard that e.g. from Bittner,¹ who wants to move to Berlin à tout prix. To be honest, he is right; I should do so too. For there is nothing more to be had here; it is now even worse than last year. That is why it is so difficult to give you advice.

Perhaps you can come to Prague after all, where the premiere is on Nov. 11th. If not there, then around the turn of the year, at which time I definitely hope to see you in Vienna. – Leningrad will only be at the start of next year. Should any articles be necessary, I shall of course give your name. – For my part, I was in Trahütten until October 5th, where I feverishly completed the quartet; feverishly in every sense, mentally and physically. For I became very ill towards the end, and am only now recovering slowly. – What you say about my music and subsequently about the new classicism is most pleasing to me. You must get hold of Schönberg’s new choral pieces!² (U. E.) They say it all! – Forgive me for not writing to you myself, but I am in a great hurry, as I must still complete the fair copy of the quartet and in c. 8 days also expect to travel to Prague with my wife.

We both send you our warmest greetings, and I hope still to hear from you before my departure.

Affectionately yours,

Alban Berg

Postscript: Soma has been in Berlin since 14 days ago; addr. W 50 Augsburgerstr. 44^III

Original: manuscript written by a third party from dictation, with Berg’s own signature.

1 The Viennese composer and jurist Julius Bittner (1874–1939), who had been made an external member of the Akademie der Künste (Academy of the Arts) in Berlin in 1925, did not succeed in moving to Berlin.

2 Berg is thinking of the piece ‘The New Classicism’, to Schönberg’s own text, from the Three Satires for Mixed Choir op. 28.

47 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 12.11.1926

JOINT CARD

Frankfurt. 12 Nov. 26.

Dear Herr Berg, although Casella, Milhaud and d’Albert¹ have thrown us together here, we feel unified under a radically different sign, and send you our heartfelt greetings. Your faithful Wiesengrund.

We would love to know some details about Wozzeck in Prague! Our travels² have so far been most successful. Yours Rudolf Kolisch

I am in Vienna on Sunday. Very excited about everything.

With devotion

Steinberg³

Emmy Ferand⁴ Valeria Kratina⁵

Original: postcard; stamp: Frankfurt (am Main), 13.11.26. Manuscript with additional notes by Rudolf Kolisch, Emmy Ferand, Hans Wilhelm Steinberg and Valeria Kratina.

1 Alfredo Casella played the solo part in the German premiere of his Partita for Piano and Orchestra under Clemens Krauss (for Adorno’s review, see GS 19, p. 87). The programme for that concert also included Casella’s La Giara; in addition, Adorno reviewed the performance of Darius Milhaud’s Le bœuf sur le toit (see GS 19, p. 86) for Die Musik. The premiere of Eugen d’Albert’s opera Der Golem, in a production by Lothar Wallenstein and under the musical direction of Clemens Krauss, took place on 14 November in Frankfurt (for Adorno’s review, see GS 19, p. 85f.).

2 A concert tour with the Kolisch Quartet.

3 The conductor Hans Wilhelm (later William) Steinberg (1899–1978), who became Alexander Zemlinsky’s successor at the Deutsches Landestheater in Prague, was musical director at the Frankfurt opera from 1929 to 1933. Steinberg emigrated first to Palestine, then to the USA.

4 This is presumably the wife of the musicologist Ernst (Thomas) Ferand, who was director of the Helleraus-Laxenburg Schule near Vienna from 1925 to 1938.

5 The dancer Valeria Kratina (1892–1983) had been director since 1925 of the Laxenburger Tanzgruppe Kratina, who performed the piece by Milhaud in Frankfurt.

48 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 19.11.1926

Frankfurt, 19 November 26.

Dear master and teacher,

I have just read in the Frankfurter Zeitung¹ that Strindberg has been proved right once again, that you were once again spared nothing, and I see you before me now, declaring with defeatist pride that you had expected as much all along. This time, in the face of the truly astrological coincidence, I find myself unable to disagree with you. I can do nothing other than assure you, as ever, that I consider the life of ‘Wozzeck’ absolutely unassailable, that the work cannot be crushed by the merely existent, whose raw mythical force is its enemy; that it will perhaps only become truly manifest after the downfall of that fiendish society which snubs it today. Wozzeck, like no other aesthetic construction of our times, has a part in the truth, and everything that exists will sooner crumble before the truth than wield any power to eradicate it. A dead deputy mayor² can do as little to change this as a living critic can.

What seems more important to me than all this, which after all does not even touch Wozzeck, is what happened to you, who are not as resistant as your work. You have experienced enough horrors finally to learn to despise the persistent malice of the human race. But you have experienced too many horrors not to be filled ever more deeply with bitterness, to draw ever sharper boundaries to all things extensive. I certainly know how hard it is to reach you in your aloneness, and do not presume to do so. But perhaps it is of some value to you to know that there are a few people who cling to you with all their heart, with all their gratitude and all their faith. I can count myself among these, and although it need hardly be said I wish to tell you once again today that I feel bound to you throughout all that fate brings, that my existence is inseparable from yours, and that, to me, your existence is in fact the measure of my own.

I could hope for nothing more than to be allowed the privilege of your company, and then to walk with you among the hills in Schönbrunn. This will, I hope, occur soon. Until then, I tenderly wish you all the best, and wish ‘Wozzeck’ triumph.

Extend many greetings from me to Frau Helene, Herr and Frau von Fuchs and Hermann Grab, who shall no doubt pay you a visit. Send me word: of how you are, how the performance was, how the situation lies.

Yours with faithful love,

Teddie W.

Original: manuscript.

On the dating: Adorno seems to have written November 11th; as, however, the scandal around Wozzeck began only with the performance on November 16th, which had to be broken off after Act II, and Adorno refers to the article in the Frankfurter Zeitung of November 19th, the letter can be traced to that date.

1 The Frankfurter Zeitung of 19 November 1926 (second morning issue, p. 3) stated: ‘The state administrative committee has decided to forbid any further performances of Alban Berg’s opera “Wozzeck” on the stage of the Czech National Theatre. The ban was issued following the scandalous scenes that took place during the work’s repeat performance at the National Theatre on Tuesday.’

2 The mayor’s deputy had died of a stroke during the performance on 16 November.

49 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 22.11.1926

ALBAN BERG VIENNA XIII/I
TRAUTTMANSDORFFGASSE 27	²²/₁₁26
TELEPHONE: 84831.

Thank you, my dear Wiesengrund, for the telegr. & the kind express letter. You have probably heard about the exciting days in Prague through the newspapers. But there was also much, very much in the way of fine things there: rehearsing with those so deeply musical Czechs (I was there 5 days before the premiere) The magnificent voices across the board: for the opera is for singing, like any other. Only now would you have had the chance to know the music completely. Ostrcil¹ perhaps not exceptional, but colossally diligent, correct, willing, enthusiastic; – orchestra superb (learned it outstandingly in 30 rehearsals) So that the premiere truly became a feast (for my ears too). Tremendous success: much greater than in Berlin. Already after Act I (where the love scene, finally sung with dazzling voices, went off like a bomb) In all I was called out some 30–40 times. All opposition to it disappeared; no one knew anything about the stroke-struck mayor (apart from those in his immediate vicinity) & people only found out through the newspapers the following day. For people abroad (including Austr.), this concurrence: (Wozzeck, mayor †) was of course a real treat!

The 2nd perf. was also a great success f. t. singers & went without incident before a full house. This was too much for the Czech Nationalist and clerical lobbies & they staged the scandal at the 3rd perf. (at which Alma Mahler & Werfel were present & sat with us in the box). So it was purely political! (To them I am the Berlin Jew Alban (Aaron?) Berg. Ostrcil bribed by the Russian Bolsheviks, the whole thing arranged by the ‘Elders of Zion’ etc.)

But it is certainly not the end of the matter. None of the other Czech parties, which all Czech composers belong to, will tolerate the cancellation of Wozzeck striven for, but not yet achieved,² by the Czech Nationalists (virtually Nazis); so there is still a chance that everything will turn out favourably.

Prague was also quite enjoyable in other respects. And I was together with Grab, whom I rather like.

I was very, very pleased by your truly friendly words & hope very much that you shall come to Vienna!

Otherwise nothing new. Or at least nothing so interesting that I would mention it in this hasty letter.

Write again soon to your

old Alban Berg

Fond regards from my wife!

Original: manuscript.

1 The Czech composer and conductor Otakar Ostrcil (1879–1935).

2 The Bohemian State Committee had, in fact, ruled after 16 November that further performances of the opera would be forbidden. Numerous Czech musicians, writers and artists protested against this intention, albeit without success.

50 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 22.11.1926

Frankfurt a. M. 22 Nov. 1926.

Dear master and teacher, having received no reply to either my telegram, letter or card, I am only indirectly informed through Heinz Ziegler,¹ whose parents saw you in Prague. I can imagine that you are not in the mood for writing letters, and wish only to request from you a card to tell me how you are. Soon we shall see each other. Much to my surprise, Kolisch, whom I met here, has put my quartet variations² on the I.S.C.M. programme, and intends to perform them together with the 1st movement, which has long been finished. The scores went off yesterday to Vienna for copying; there was no time to send them to you first, as the fair copy of the score was only completed in the last few days. Greissle³ (!) is to copy the parts. Perhaps you can take a look at the 1st piece before Kolisch receives the material and – hopefully – give your approval. If you do not, I shall withdraw the piece!

I arrive in Vienna at the start of December to work with the Kolischs. There will be much work to do, but I look forward to learning, regardless of whether or not the piece is performed.

Kolisch intimated to me that there was a possibility of Bach⁴ vetoing the performance of my things in order to clear the way for a diligent Salmhofer.⁵ If there should genuinely be difficulties, I would ask you to intervene.

With Heinsheimer, whom I met here at the indescribable Golem premiere, and who brought my folk songs⁶ to Vienna, I have arranged for a substantial essay on your Chamber Concerto.⁷ This time it shall truly be easy to read; despite all my reservations, I can no longer ignore the realization that the state of that music which matters, i.e. yours and Schönberg’s, is so critical in our society that an apologist must above all act at the art-political level, and that means: comprehensibly.

Please see to it that U. E. undertake what they had promised me anyway: that I would receive the score and the piano reduction of the Chamber Concerto.

In a certain sense, I am relieved that the Prague scandal was fascistic, not musical. It is then less likely to harm Wozzeck in Germany and Austria than to aid it. Yet it is not as symptomatic of the musical situation as I was led to fear.

I enclose the essay on twelve-tone technique,⁸ which, together with the one about you and ‘Nachtmusik’, represents my present theoretical stance. The F.Z. turned it down as too musically specialized, but now it looks to appear in Anbruch after all. I am very curious what you will think of it.

My Habilitation business is so far looking favourable; that is, the professor in question⁹ has accepted the detailed abstract of my thesis. – The eight o’clock evening paper plagiarized me! –

My very fondest regards to you and Frau Helene. Write a card soon to your faithful

Teddie W.

Original: manuscript.

1 The Prague writer Heinz Ziegler (1903–1944) was a friend from Hermann Grab’s youth.

2 This is the second of the Two Pieces for String Quartet op. 2.

3 Felix Greissle (1894–1982), a student of Schönberg, whose daughter he was married to, worked as lector for Universal Edition; he emigrated to the USA in 1938.

4 The music writer David Josef Bach (1874–1947), a friend from Schönberg’s youth, had started the Workers’ Symphony Concerts, and was director of the social democrat art office at that time; he emigrated to England in 1938.

5 The Austrian conductor and composer Franz Salmhofer (1900–1975).

6 Adorno’s Sept chansons populaires françaises arrangées pour une voix et piano (see Compositions 1, pp. 92–100) were premiered at Southwest German Radio in Frankfurt on 20 June 1929 by Margot Hinnenberg-Lefèbre and the composer; they were not published by Universal Edition.

7 The plan seems not to have been carried out. For his Berg monograph, Adorno wrote his ‘Epilegomena zum Kammerkonzert’ on the Chamber Concerto (see GS 13, pp. 434–51), and there is a radio lecture on the work from 1954 (see GS 18, pp. 630–40). There is a longer passage in Adorno’s essay ‘Die stabilisierte Musik’ from summer 1927 that deals with the concerto (see GS 19, pp. 100–12).

8 See letter no. 30, note 4.

9 This is Hans Cornelius.

51 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 24.11.1926

Frankfurt, 24 Nov. 1926.

Dear master and teacher, our letters appear to have crossed once again. Mine, with the twelve-tone essay, went out yesterday evening, and this morning I received yours, which has entirely reassured me. I am happy to have been delivered post festum from my Strindberg position, which I had taken up – this time mistakenly – for your sake, and to be allowed to congratulate you on the Prague Wozzeck in spite of the mayor. I shall also see to it immediately that the F.Z. amends the announcement of Wozzeck’s cancellation¹ that it had printed. I am only sad not to have heard Wozzeck sung;I have always thought it.

My coming to Vienna shall now be a fait accompli in 10 days, assuming there are no further surprises. I cannot tell you how I long to see you. And the chance to study my quartet pieces² and hear them performed properly is of course quite something for me. Fond regards to you and your wife

from your old Teddie W.

I have just spoken to Holl on the telephone, and he told me that he received a telegram from Steinhard³ yesterday that ‘Wozzeck’ has been approved, but only for private performances,⁴ which strikes me as a little improbable. The F.Z. will print an article of its own on the matter,⁵ but is of course prepared to include an authentic account of the current situation in Prague. Perhaps U. E. could send them one.

Original: manuscript.

1 Adorno is presumably referring to the announcement in the Frankfurter Zeitung of 19 November 1926 (see letter no. 48, note 1).

2 Berg wrote to Morgenstern on 3 January 1927 ‘that his [Adorno’s] quartet, a truly splendid piece of work, was a great success here & that he can be sure of its being taken up by Universal Edition very soon’ (Morgenstern, Berg und seine Idole, p. 171).

3 Erich Steinhard (1896–1944), from Prague, had been editor-in-chief of the journal Auftakt since 1921.

4 The rumour that ‘the performance of “Wozzeck” has meanwhile been approved for private workers’ and society concerts’ (according to the editorial remarks in the Frankfurter Zeitung following the report cited in the next note) was not confirmed.

5 This article appeared on 27 November on p. 2 of the first morning issue:

A new ‘Wozzeck’ case. Prague, November 20th.

Alban Berg’s opera ‘Wozzeck’, as is well known, was the object of loud protests and malicious attacks in the press on the occasion of its premiere in Berlin just one year ago. Now that same work, which is reckoned – also here – to be very significant, has been subjected, after a truly dazzling first performance at the Czech National Theatre, to similarly spiteful and embarrassing treatment. The Bohemian State Administrative Committee ruled after the third performance that it should definitively be removed from the season’s programme on account of the disturbances (or as it is rather differently put: ‘owing to the leading lady’s illness’).

It should first of all be emphasized that the premiere and the follow-up performance surpassed all expectations in their success, as the Prague audience did justice to their reputation as one of those in Europe most attuned to the times. If a certain resistance could be sensed during the first two performances of ‘Wozzeck’, it applied – so it seems to me – more to the certainly well-meant applause of those equipped with a little too much endurance, as well as dynamically extraordinary powers. It was a tragic coincidence that the deputy mayor of Prague, a well-known man also in literary circles, suffered a stroke on account of the surges of applause and the stirrings of resistance in his box, and died. But the theatre management should not be blamed for placing the third performance – which came to a premature end – on the burial day of this victim, a performance which, in the presence of Alma Maria Mahler, the work’s dedicatee, became a debacle of a kind that has surely taken place only rarely in the history of theatre. ‘Wozzeck’ was broken off after the second act, the theatre had to be cleared by the police, and the heated debates continued in front of the building. The resistance was organized; the mere news that the mayor of Prague was protesting against the opera with six box-subscribers was sufficient to animate the sirens and whistles of various youths that evening during the work’s gentle interludes, and thus to cause the curtain to fall.

The majority of serious Czech newspapers condemned the tumultuous events, and also did justice to the qualities of ‘Wozzeck’ in an objective, even enthusiastic manner. Admittedly the conservative newspapers, primarily for ‘anti-communist’ reasons (Berg has little to do with such tendencies!), saw in the performance a triumph of Bolshevism: ‘a new aspect of the efforts to bolshevize behind the innocent mask of art’. The conductor was even turned into ‘a Bolshevist exponent of Leningrad’. For art-historical reasons (one could recall Wagner’s dictionary of invective) we shall cite one of these ‘judgements’:

‘It was Berg’s intention to cast a bomb of depravity on stage and to spread anarchy in order to mask his own creative impotence; if you were to hear the orchestra, you would suppose yourself in a menagerie at the beasts’ feeding time; unbearable intervals, such that the listener has the impression of sitting before alcoholics who, in their delirium, are emitting screams of desperation, in fact everything in this opera reeks powerfully of liquor . . .; Alban Berg, the “Berlin Jew” . . . (it is well known that Berg is Viennese and stems from a line of upper-class Bavarian Catholics).’

54 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 15.1.1927

Frankfurt M.-Oberrad.

15 January 1927.

Dear master and teacher, please accept my most heartfelt congratulations upon the success of the quartet,¹ which, so I hear, was by all accounts quite unheard of, and many thanks for your message.² The work’s inner success was beyond doubt after a perusal of the score; but it is particularly gratifying and affirmative that it has now been followed so self-evidently by external success, that people are engaging with your lonely music. I need hardly tell you how much it pains me that I had to miss the premiere of the quartet – this of all quartets –; it is but a small comfort that I heard 4 movements and studied 2 with you. But it was not possible with the best will in the world to leave Frankfurt at present. I must stick at it here for the sake of my thesis: in the hope of buying myself, through a few months of subaltern concentration, sufficient freedom finally to be able to apply myself entirely to what matters. I am all the more constrained to keep up this concentration for having still been affected, after my return from Vienna, with the influenza I had managed to suppress (and not sublimate!) there, which made itself rather painfully felt in swellings of the glands and considerable chest pains. Meanwhile I have taken the time to recover in peace, and I am now physically quite well and fit for work.

Please tell me more about the performance. Did you work much with Kolisch? How did Stutshevsky³ fit in? What did the sustained chords in the Presto sound like, in fact the Presto in general? And the Allegro misterioso, which I have not yet heard? And how did you have them play the end of the Largo? I am certain that the greatest surprise of all was the completely new quartet sound, which retrieves those experiences which had initially been transferred from chamber music effects to the orchestra, this dark, crackling Wozzeck orchestra, and thus orchestrally enriched, for the chamber style! Please write to me at length of these matters, if you can find the time! Every detail of it is of the greatest importance to me!

Now I hope you are immersed in the Baudelaire,⁴ and am curious in the extreme.

Today, if I am correctly informed, Wozzeck is on once more in Berlin for the first time; in the Kroll-Oper.⁵ My friend Carl Dreyfuss,⁶ who travelled to Berlin yesterday, hopes to be able to hear it. As he is presumably coming to Vienna around the middle or end of next week (on account of his lady friend, the dancer Ilona Karolevna,⁷ who is currently appearing with Ronacher), he will thus, assuming you wish to see him, be able to tell you at length about it. It would incidentally mean a great deal to me if you could make his acquaintance and tell me your opinion about him. He is, to give you some information, the former husband of my lady friend Ellen Dreyfuss-Herz, namely the same one who left me. I should add that he is a philosopher by training, a major industrialist by profession and out of necessity, and a man of letters by inclination.

I had arranged with Heinsheimer for a substantial essay on the Chamber Concerto, and he wanted to send me the piano reduction, but has so far failed to do so. Would you see to it? This time the essay will truly be easy to follow, i.e. it will restrict itself to an explication of intra-musical aspects and of the formal idea, without taking my interpretation any further than the most immediate material evidence allows. I shall also write without the least terminological encumbrance.

– My external situation has rather changed, to the extent that my foremost rival⁸ for the Habilitation has been disqualified through the resistance of the professor in charge, which has greatly increased my chances. The question is now only whether the influence of a different professor⁹ not directly involved in the Habilitation, who hates me for private reasons, extends far enough to block the Habilitation indirectly. Aside from this, there should not be any other substantial obstacles.

I intend to prevent the performance of my songs in the ‘Frankfurter Kammermusikgemeinde’, where they had been placed on the programme without my involvement or even consent, as my conditions (a set of at least 7 songs and an accompanist of my recommendation, preferably Steuermann) were not fully accepted. It is less due to the conditions than because the entire setting does not appeal to me.

The state of my private life is unchanged; i.e. bad. It is very difficult for me to be unable to come to Vienna all the time; your company and the music-making in our circle were the only things that could balance me. Here everything is more of a muddle than ever.

How is Frau Helene? From the programme, I see with joy (namely from her signature!) that she celebrated with you, and is hence no longer entirely lost to the world!¹⁰ Perhaps she will also join the celebrations after my next quartet, in so far as there is anything to celebrate!

Has your toe recovered completely?

– I am composing songs, as far as my dull work allows, and working on the quartet finale. It is of course progressing slowly

Fond, warmest regards to you both

from your ever devoted

Teddie W.

Original: manuscript.

1 The premiere of the Lyric Suite by the Kolisch Quartet had taken place on 8 January 1927 in the Kleiner Musikvereinssaal (small music society hall) in Vienna.

2 This message, which appears to have been written on the programme booklet from the premiere of the Lyric Suite with the Bergs’ signatures (see further down in the letter), has not survived among Adorno’s belongings.

3 The cellist Joachim Stutshevsky (1891–1982) had been a member of the Wiener Streichquartett since its formation; he left the quartet in February 1927. Adorno may have confused him with Felix Khuner (1906–1991), who had joined the quartet as second violinist in mid-1926.

4 The meaning of Adorno’s question is unclear; Adorno is still inquiring about ‘Baudelaire songs’ as late as May 1928 (see letter no. 76), citing Soma Morgenstern as his source. Possibly Berg had told Morgenstern that the final movement of the Lyric Suite was based on Baudelaire’s poem ‘De profundis clamavi’ from Les Fleurs du mal, and that, according to one of the first plans, this movement was even intended as a song. Berg did not, however, compose any ‘Baudelaire songs’ at this time (see, however, letter no. 56), and the concert aria Der Wein came into being only during the first half of 1929.

5 The new production of Wozzeck with the cast of the 1925 premiere took place on 15 January 1927 in the Krolloper (Kroll Opera House), as the Staatsoper’s own building was closed for renovations.

6 Carl Dreyfuss (1898–1969), who wrote his name ‘Dreyfus’ after the Second World War, had occasionally worked for the Institut für Sozialforschung before 1933; in 1933 he published the work Beruf und Ideologie des Angestellten (Profession and Ideology of the White-Collar Worker), in which he was able to draw on his experience as a leading industrial manager; Dreyfus emigrated to Argentina in 1938. Adorno collaborated with him on the ‘Lesestücke’ that appeared in the journal Akzente in 1963 under the pseudonym Castor Zwieback (see GS 20.2, pp. 587–97).

7 Unknown.

8 This is Leo Löwenthal.

9 Unknown.

10 An allusion (in the original German) to Mahler’s setting of Friedrich Rückert’s poem Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I have become lost to the world).

56 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 25.1.1927

ALBAN BERG VIENNA XIII/I
TRAUTTMANSDORFFGASSE 27	25./_1.27
TELEPHONE: 84831.

Thank you, dear Wiesengrund, for your lengthy letter. Unfortunately, however, I am not in the middle of Baudelaire, but was rather stuck in Berlin until a day ago (not without its own poetry!) Awaiting me upon my return was an overwhelming abundance of work (correspondence, U. E. etc. etc.). For this reason only short & in telegram style!

Chronologically: in daily rehearsals, which were truly pleasing in collaboration with all 4, the quartet prospered ever more under Kolisch, receiving a quite surprisingly consummate performance on the 8th. Equally surprising was the enthusiastic response from the musicians, the audience and the press (which even makes me start to have serious doubts about myself) A shame that you were not there. What you heard of it was as good as nothing in its incompleteness. I was shocked to death by my own work. But later it grew ever more beautiful & then all the more in context! The 3rd movement even surprised me in the novelty of its sound. It is a veritable da capo piece. And the realization of the sustained chords was very close to how I imagined them. –

Responding to a telegr invitation from Berlin, we went to the (only!) orchestral rehearsal and the new production of Wozzeck in Berlin. A repeat performance 3 days later, then a lecture by Schönberg on problems of harmony in the Akademie der Künste, & Schönberg’s Pelleas under Kleiber extended our stay to 8 days, which were by all accounts very agreeable, albeit a little tiring. Unfortunately, we did not see as much of Soma (who lived in our immediate vicinity)¹ (& Inge) as we had hoped, as we were together with the Schönbergs (and Schrekers) a great deal, & Soma also suffered a bout of influenza. But he should come to Vienna for a while very soon. Incidentally: he is no longer the Soma we knew; the struggle for existence has left its mark. But Berlin is glorious! A metropolis! Impossible even to compare it in any respect to Vienna. –

Perspectives for the near future: premiere of my concerto² in New York Stokovsky with Gieseking and Szigeti. Freiburg Lindemann with Miss C. Kraus &? Zurich & Winterthur – Scherchen with Walter Frei and Steffy Geier – finally ^3./_7.in Frankfurt with Scherchen Steuermann & Kolisch. I expect I shall certainly travel to Zurich.

Petersburg is just around the corner.³ Will I go?? I’d certainly like to! –

My quartet is to be printed any day now.

But when am I to compose?

You at least must do so, so that you can inform me of your fine quartet’s completion as soon as possible.

And do tell me at length about everything else concerning you yours with fondest regards

Alban Berg

And the Lästerschule????⁴

Original: manuscript.

1 Soma Morgenstern stayed in the guesthouse Duncan in the Augsburgerstrasse (see Morgenstern, Berg und seine Idole, p. 175, n. 2).

2 The first American performance of the Kammerkonzert für Klavier und Geige mit dreizehn Bläsern was, according to a report in the Frankfurter Zeitung of 18 May 1927, conducted not by Leopold Stokovsky, but rather by Artur Rudinsky; the soloists were Oscar Ziegler and Joseph Achron (1886–1943). The Berlin premiere followed on 19 May under Scherchen, with Walter Frey (b. 1898) and Stefi Geyer (1888–1956); the Zurich performance with the same artists, which Berg attended, took place on 25 March. In Winterthur, on the invitation of the patron Werner Reinhart (1884–1951), rehearsals for the world premiere and the Swiss premiere were held (see Peter Sulzer, Zehn Komponisten um Werner Reinhart: ein Ausschnitt aus dem Wirkungskreis des Musikkollegiums Winterthur 1920–1950, Winterthur, 1979 [309th New Year’s bulletin of the Winterthur city library], p. 148). A Freiburg performance has not been traced; C. Kraus is presumably the pianist Else C. Kraus (b. 1899), a pupil of Artur Schnabel, who was particularly dedicated to performing the piano works of Schönberg (see also her recording, for which Adorno wrote the sleeve notes, GS 18, pp. 422–6).

3 Berg travelled to the Leningrad premiere of Wozzeck on 13 June (cf. letter no. 63).

4 Berg is asking about Adorno’s review of the premiere of Klenau’s opera Die Lästerschule in Frankfurt; it was printed in the April issue of the journal Die Musik (see GS 19, p. 90f.).

57 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 12.2.1927

ALBAN BERG VIENNA XIII/I TRAUTTMANSDORFFGASSE 27

TELEPHONE: 84831.

My dear doctor, I am really very pleased that you remembered my birthday & sent me such a lovely present for it.¹ Your telephone greeting yesterday (via Gall)² also gave me a most pleasant surprise & made me exclaim: ‘I too have a telephone!’ Which may have been caused above all by the fact that I have heard nothing from you for so long (not even in ‘Musik’!). I daresay you received my letter of the 25./I. So please write at length about how you are. I am almost beginning to worry about you! Mid-March we are travelling to Switzerland (on the invitation of Reinhart), where Scherchen is doing my ‘Concerto’ on the ^25./_IIIOn the ^29./_IIIWebern is doing it here³ with Steuermann & Kolisch, after which follow Freiburg & New York. The ‘Quartet’ will be premiered, so to speak, in Donaueschingen.⁴ Kleiber had great success with the ‘Bruchstücke’ in Leningrad.⁵ The complete opera will follow there soon. I am not finding any time to compose! Fondest regards from us both

Your Berg

LÄSTERSCHULE????

Original: postcard; stamp: Vienna, 12.II.27. Manuscript.

1 Adorno’s present on the occasion of Berg’s forty-second birthday on 9 February has not been traced.

2 On this telephone conversation and on Erna Gál, see letter no. 59 and note 2 there.

3 The Vienna premiere of the Chamber Concerto took place on 31 March.

4 The Lyric Suite was originally to be played by the Amar Quartet during the Donaueschinger Musiktage, which had been taking place in Baden-Baden under the name Deutsche Kammermusik Baden-Baden since 1927; in fact, however, it was performed by the Kolisch Quartet, to whom Berg had granted exclusivity rights.

5 The performance of the Bruchstücke from Wozzeck on 5 February had finally paved the way for the opera, whose premiere – planned for early May – took place on 13 June; see Ernst Hilmar, Wozzeck von Alban Berg: Entstehung – erste Erfolge – Repressionen (1914–1935), Vienna, 1975, p. 56.

59 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 16.3.1927

Frankfurt, 16 March 1927.

Dear master and teacher, I would long since have written to you if I had only been able. But I have been in bed for many weeks – have had a decidedly painful operation;¹ and now, during my convalescence, a feverish influenza has also taken hold of me, and so I must lie in the dark at all times – getting up is out of the question. I am at least up to writing a few lines today, whose purpose is to tell you that I am not disloyal, but simply dead. Above all, I want to clarify a misunderstanding that was especially painful to me. That telephone conversation with Erna Gál did not arise through a call from me, but rather from her – and which took me so much by surprise that my only response to the announcement ‘Vienna here’ and the sound of a female voice was to shout into the receiver ‘Frau Helene, Frau Helene’. I only discovered much later why Miss Gál had called me; you will no doubt have heard what has happened to the poor woman since then.²

Now a request. You may know from Stein that I have agreed to deliver the essays on op 16, 24, 26, 27, 28 for the Schönberg issue of Pult und Taktstock³ – which will now be somewhat delayed, as I am not yet allowed to work. Stein wrote to me that you are dealing with Pelleas and the Chamber Symphony,⁴ and I would be very happy if my analyses of the late works could follow on directly from yours – firstly, because this is fitting if I am allowed to write with you about A. S.; secondly, because then the continuity of Schönberg’s work would also come to the fore in its representation. But for this I would need to know your essays. Could I have them – for a very short time only, they would be returned immediately – ? Or are there perhaps duplicates? I would be very, very grateful, and as my essays cannot be in Vienna by the 20th in any case, U. E. could no doubt also do without the manuscripts for 3 days.

In hospital, I have been examining the choral pieces and the satires in great detail, and have beaten time through most of them – and I am disappointed by both, especially the satires. Only the Chinese songs⁵ are truly fine, above all the first, the second being rather too lacking in accompanimental characters; I am certainly aware that this is intentional, and I should think it would excite Schönberg, of all people, to fashion an extended piece for once without the tonal resource of contrast – but the structure of his music seems not to tolerate this – especially if, as here, it cannot even parry with harmonic contrasts. The first two choral pieces fail on account of the hairraising, truly inartistic texts (has Soma seen them?); and the entire first song is, in its composition, of a blankness that is radically denatured, but to such a degree as to have consumed the very last of its substance. And the satires! Would the preface,⁶ extended and printed in Anbruch, not truly have sufficed? Does all this have to be chewed over compositionally, must the 19th century be prolonged into all eternity, and must art be made out of art – After the Teutonic Palestrina, is there really any need for a Yiddish one? And what sort of humour is this, who laughs about this, for whom has all this been written anyway? If Schönberg (rightly!) recognizes that today’s objectivism is worthless and reactionary, then he should make better music than the other, and restrict his polemic to the literary kind, if at all, but not confuse achievement with opinion and produce a childish aberration! If he’s doing it out of resentment – well, then he should find another way to deal with it! The entire business is shameful.

The fact that Schönberg’s current crisis stems not from the twelve-note technique, but rather from himself, is shown by your quartet. It is utterly impossible to compare your and Schönberg’s recent works: yours are alive, while his have themselves become historical. Unless his demon still breaks free once more, unless the Suite⁷ offers something truly new, he will become historical even to us. I do not say this lightly, you know better than anyone how much his music means to me, but I cannot ignore this insight.

What seems tragic to me is that his last works have all been absolutely right in their conception – but neither has he overcome their challenges at the aural level, nor do they overcome the listener! If nothing were to remain but this music, one would have to despair!

– I had hoped to surprise you with the little Klenau review in ‘Musik’. Unfortunately this is no longer possible, but perhaps the pale manuscript can give you some notion of it too.

I have so infinitely much to tell you, and had intended to accost you in Zurich; but now I must still remain lying down. But I hope nonetheless to see you again very soon!

And thank you for the love and the faith that moved you to write that sweet card despite my silence.

Devotedly yours Teddie W.

Forgive the handwriting; I am lying down, so I can do no better. Extend my greetings to Soma! And please also to Kolisch, and tell him of my illness, for I owe him a letter.

Original: manuscript.

1 No further details are known.

2 Rudolf Kolisch had told Adorno on 16 February 1927 that the pianist Erna Gál, sister of the composer and music writer Hans Gál, had attempted suicide on 13 February.

3 The special issue ‘Arnold Schönberg und seine Orchesterwerke’ contained only one essay by Adorno, on the Five Orchestral Pieces op. 16; see GS 18, pp. 335–44.

4 Berg did not contribute to that issue; Erwin Felber wrote on Pelleas und Melisande, and Ernst Kunwald on the First Chamber Symphony.

5 See Arnold Schönberg, Four Pieces for Mixed Choir op. 27; Schönberg took the texts to songs 3 and 4 – ‘Mond und Menschen’ and ‘Der Wunsch des Liebhabers’ – from Hans Bethge’s translation Die chinesische Flöte, and the first two songs are based on texts of his own. Adorno wrote on both sets of choral pieces for Anbruch in 1928; see GS 18, pp. 354–7.

6 In the preface to his Three Satires for Mixed Choir op. 28, Schönberg explains to whom the individual pieces refer.

7 Schönberg had already finished composing the Suite for Piano, E flat clarinet, clarinet, bass clarinet, violin, viola and cello op. 29 in May 1926.

61 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 16.4.1927

Frankfurt, 16 April 1927.

Dear master and teacher, today in haste a request: you will probably receive a telephone call within the next few days from a lady by the name of Liselotte Reifenberg, who will probably also call on you at some point. She is the sister of the well-known art critic Benno Reifenberg, who, as you may know, is in charge of the review section of the Frankfurter Zeitung. She and her brother are close friends of Heinrich Simon,¹ and naturally also know the Klenaus. Liselotte Reifenberg² studies singing, wants to join the opera; and as she does not fit into the required mould for singers, she has asked me to recommend her to you and Steuermann so that she can receive your advice. Please take a look at the girl, and, if you have a favourable impression of her, advise her and perhaps recommend some suitable teachers or répétiteurs. I have only met her very briefly; she is no joyful sight, but seems serious, very astute and is reportedly musical. I do not know, of course, if you and your dear wife will develop any close contact with her, though I would certainly be very happy for the girl if you did, as she seems to be rather isolated in Vienna.

Many thanks for the card from Zurich – I heard accounts of Berlin from ear-witnesses who had a very strong impression of it. I was naturally particularly sorry to have to miss the Vienna performance, which was no doubt magnificent. But travelling was still out of the question; even now I am confined to Frankfurt, as I have still not fully recovered; but my condition has improved sufficiently that I can hope to go to the country after the holidays and finish my thesis.³ As soon as I have done so, I shall come to Vienna.

Are you and Frau Helene coming to Frankfurt for the I.S.C.M. festival?⁴ Sutter⁵ told me that you are naturally invited, but did not yet know if you would come. It would of course be splendid and I would see to your accommodation – assuming you are not tied to Milton Seligmann.⁶

How is your health? And how is your wife? What is the state of Baudelaire, and of the symphony?⁷ What became of your Schönberg essays? Did you see my long article on the orchestral pieces?

The address of Liselotte Reifenberg: III, Ungerstrasse 13, c/o Jungmann.

My sincere thanks in advance. I hope to see you soon at last; there is so much to tell that I would not know where to begin with it all in a letter.

Fond regards to you and Frau Helene

from your faithful

Teddie W.

Original: manuscript.

1 Heinrich Simon (1880–1941) was editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung until 1934. Paul von Klenau was married to Simon’s daughter Annemarie until 1926.

2 Elise Charlotte (Liselotte) Reifenberg (1906–1973) studied singing; in 1939 she emigrated via Cuba to the USA, and for a time worked at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, then later – until 1969 – at the New York City Center for Fine Arts. Her stage name was Maria van Delden. (Source: letter from Dr. Jan G. Reifenberg.) No more could be ascertained about her stay in Vienna.

3 Adorno withdrew to Kronberg im Taunus to finish his first Habilitation thesis, ‘Der Begriff des Unbewußten in der transzendentalen Seelenlehre’.

4 The programme of this music festival included Berg’s Chamber Concerto; see Adorno, ‘Die stabilisierte Musik: zum fünften Fest der I.G.N.M. in Frankfurt am Main’ (GS 19, pp. 100–12).

5 Otto Ernst Sutter was director of the Frankfurt Trade Fair at the time (see Paul Hindemith, Briefe, ed. Dieter Rexroth, Frankfurt am Main, 1982, pp. 130–2).

6 Berg had already stayed at the house of this affluent Frankfurt jurist as early as 1921.

7 See letter no. 8, note 2.

62 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 2.5.1927

ALBAN BERG VIENNA XIII/I
TRAUTTMANSDORFFGASSE 27	^2./_5.27
TELEPHONE: 84831.

Do not think, dear Wiesengrund, that I am unaffected by the various matters related in your last letters – in particular your illness. Not a day passes on which I do not frequently think most intensely of you. But it is for this very reason that I have not written for so long: a brief ‘note’, such as my extensive correspondence involves daily, is too short for me, too trivial for you & I do not have time – though I would dearly love to – for a big one, one in which I could truly get everything off my chest once and for all.

But now tell me at last what was wrong with your health?! What operation did you have? It must have been a serious matter if it has taken so long & caused so much pain. We are still concerned about it. Will it be possible for you to come to Vienna? But when? I fear I will be unable to see much of you; for in the 2nd half of May I expect to be in Petersburg & after my return (presumably early June) I am straight off to Trahütten to work, and will remain there until July 30th. In August presumably recovering in Vienna, or Karlsbad or wherever & in the autumn perhaps another few weeks in Trahütten working some more. (I shall hardly be offered a professorial post, really, all the more so because I recently (on the occasion of the elections) contributed my signature to a social democrat manifesto¹ (of the 40 intellectuals (Freud, Webern, Werfel etc. are also on it)) & the state is Christian-Germanic.) So that I can hopefully continue to work during the autumn, in so far as I have any, or in so far as I can still compose, which I am inclined to doubt.

From this monthly agenda you can also see, however, that I shall not come to Frankfurt. I am really not needed there at the performance of my ‘Concerto’. Steuerm. & Kolisch know everything. As Scherchen will have more rehearsals than in Berlin & Zurich, he shall do his best with more success, so that I am truly superfluous. And after the incredible performance by Webern² (13 rehearsals with the V^na Philharmonic), I am anything but eager to hear it differently. On this count I went through enough in Berlin & Zurich. At any rate, I thank you and your loved ones most fondly for the invitation; it certainly would have given me great pleasure to follow you and celebrate the ‘succès d’estime’ in your parents’ house over a few glasses of Rhine wine from your father’s cellar.

Should your graphological talent attribute nervousness to this writing of mine, then this is doubly true: in part I am writing while riding on the tram, in part I am truly very nervous: twice per day I am visiting a sanatorium in Döbling where my wife has had an operation.³ It is frightful to go through that; there are hours which consist of 60 eternities . . .

I only have the peace of mind to write to you, my dear Wiesengrund, because there is a truly well-founded prospect of recovery.

I greatly enjoyed your Schönberg article for Pult & T. & I very much hope that Schönberg will look kindly upon it – and thus upon its author.

I have so much to tell you that I do not [know]⁴ where to begin. Nor do I know what things I have actually written to you about already, and what things I have related to you only in my thoughts. For example, Soma was in Vienna, we spent much time together, but he, who had been utterly worn down in Berlin by these existential worries that suddenly came down upon him, was back to his old self in his beloved Hietzing. And: Mrs Mahler happened to make his acquaintance at our house & they got on uncommonly well. Each could sense the great quality of the other. When Werfel joined us – by chance – the following day [it was in the apartment of Mrs Mahler], a pointed literary discussion ensued; also one about ‘Paulus’⁵ in which Werfel was really rather cornered. But Soma was ‘on form’ like never before! – For the time being, however, this contact has not been continued. –

I have now heard nothing from Soma in months & I am worried. –

In Berlin I was together with Schönberg, who was most agreeable this time.

Today (after a long, inexplicable pause) Wozzeck is on there again: today the 4th time this season.

Switzerland is absolutely provincial. The population: Christians & Swiss to boot, that really is too much! But the gallery of that one Reinhart fellow⁶ in Winterthur really is something fabulous. The Wave by Courbet, the Grand Inquisitor by Greco & another 100 or so of only the very finest works of art & all this in such a setting –

Enough for today. I am really too nervous to relate such matters coherently. Therefore only these fragments in old friendship fr. your Berg.

Original: manuscript with sender stamp.

1 The call for votes – ‘A declaration by intellectual Vienna. A testimony to the great social and cultural achievement of the Viennese community’ (cited from a photocopy of the printed announcement in the Sigmund-Freud-Institut, Frankfurt am Main, which Herbert Bareuther made available to the editor) – for the Viennese municipal elections of April 1927 bears thirty-nine signatures, including those named in the letter; it is not known why Berg’s name is missing from this manifesto.

2 The performance had taken place on 31 March.

3 According to a message from Berg to Morgenstern, Helene Berg had an operation on a cyst on her neck (see Morgenstern, Berg und seine Idole, p. 180).

4 Editor’s conjecture.

5 Franz Werfel’s play Paulus unter den Juden from 1926, which was playing in Vienna at the time.

6 The art collector and patron Oskar Reinhart (1885–1965), brother of Werner Reinhart.

66 RUDOLF KOLISCH AND
WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
KÖNIGSTEIN, 23.7.1927

Königstein i. T.

23.7.27.

Esteemed friend,

the explanation for my long silence: since being called to Frankfurt unexpectedly soon by telegram, I have had no time to gather myself for a letter.

I immediately had to jump into the turmoil of rehearsals, concerts, receptions, luncheons, dinners, visits, discussions, excursions etc., from which – completely exhausted – I escaped here, where we are able once more to work in peace under ideal conditions, freed from all concerns by the exceptional hospitality of the Seligman family.

Owing to the delay in my report, I shall probably not be the first to tell you of the incredible success of your quartet in B-Baden. (I suppose my telegram did not arrive?)

Whatever you may have heard is insufficient to give you a notion of the intensity of this success, which means all the more in the context of the American-mechanical orientation of the whole festival, geared towards a triumph by Hindemith, which was certainly unlikely to aid the reception of your music. (Now Teddy is coming, and will once more thwart the resolution I had made with such incredible energy to write this letter!)

Dear master and teacher, my guilty conscience grows in proportion to the days we are apart, and now the letter that Rudi has half-way managed to write is finally driving me completely to despair. And now – even that has come to a halt. Within the next few days you shall receive my long essay about Frankfurt, id est the Chamber Concerto¹ – as an advance payment, so to speak. Tomorrow I shall hopefully hear your quartet twice more.²

Do not entirely condemn your Teddie.

Dear Frau Helene, how are you? I have grown quite fat and heavy, and you would not scold me on account of my spirituality.

Original: manuscript.

1 In Adorno’s essay ‘Die stabilisierte Musik: zum fünften Fest der I.G.N.M.’, Berg’s Chamber Concerto forms the central focus; on the history of the essay’s publication, see letter no. 68 and note 4 there.

2 Kolisch reported to Berg from Kronberg on 24 July that the quartet had played the Lyric Suite to ‘various pilgrims from Frankfurt, among them Jemnitz’ that day.

68 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 6.9.1927

Frankfurt, 6 September 27.

Dear master and teacher, your letter – my greatest source of joy in a long time – has taken a great burden off my shoulders. For, things being as they are, the guilt I felt on account of my silence weighed so heavily upon me that it in fact prevented me from writing, and it is only now that I know you are not cross with me that I dare do so once more. And yet, I am less to blame for my silence than you may think. I spent the entire summer – already since May – in Cronberg im Taunus, working on my (hopefully) Habilitation thesis; I was only in Frankfurt for the festival, and otherwise not even a human being, only a moderately well functioning thought-machine, and incapable of even the slightest communicative utterance. Though I should explain that I did not withdraw to my isolation purely on account of the work, but in fact rather fled – from a quite unbearable mess that my existence here had become entangled in, and which has actually cleared somewhat in the months since.

Since a few days ago I have now finished my thesis, which has become a bulky volume, once and for all, and sent it to the responsible professor.¹ I can now breathe once more; but I am completely overworked, and my health and nerves are in very poor shape, the more so for not even having recovered from my operation; so that I intend to take 8 weeks of holidays, now, during the university holidays, when I can do nothing for my cause in any case. I shall thus travel to Italy via Switzerland on the day after tomorrow, stay in Fiesole, near Florence, for 14 days, then in Sicily for 14 days, and intend, if I obtain the visa, to spend October in North Africa, in Tunis and Algiers.² I shall return in November; my Habilitation duties will, if at all, only arise in December; I shall finally be able to compose at length and without pressure once more, though I suppose I shall remain confined to Frankfurt until my business has been decided. Meanwhile, I think I shall be able to conclude my new songs,³ and hope for a performance in the cycle by Steuermann and Kolisch, will most definitely come to Vienna in the course of the season.

It is really too obvious to require any mention that when you travel to Amsterdam, you must stop off in Frankfurt (which is on the way) for a few days, and, with all due respect to the Seligmanns, as our guest. But I shall still write it here now, in order to leave you no possibility of doing otherwise.

It is a source of profound joy to me that my essay and the words concerning you in it meet with your approval – all the more for my having had to abridge the essay for ‘Musik’,⁴ allegedly because of its length, but in truth for political and art-political reasons, to such an extent that barely the skeleton remained; you would otherwise, I should add, have received the manuscript from me long ago. I also had to disfigure the section on the Chamber Concerto quite terribly. I am therefore especially pleased that you found it readable nonetheless.

The Kolischs – as I wrote to you – played me your quartet three more times, so that I have now heard it five times. Of all your works it is the dearest to me, perhaps even objectively the greatest. I cannot hide from you that the 3rd Quartet by Schönberg, which I also heard a few times, is in all seriousness no match for it, for all its technical comfort and all the greatness of its distanced objectivity. Its humanity has become mute, while your quartet, which is God knows no less constructed and not ‘romantic’, preserves its personal relation in blind confidence. This is the deciding fact. After listening frequently to the Schönberg quartet and studying the Suite op. 29 very closely,⁵ I can no longer ignore the realization that, for Schönberg, the twelve-tone technique did become a recipe after all, and functions mechanically (above all in the rhythm, which grows monotonous through its incessant complementarities, but also in the arbitrary melodic formation; e.g. the crab-like continuation of the main theme⁶ in the 2nd movement of the chamber suite). Essentially we all know it, only no one yet dares say so. This is not to belittle the significance of the Suite, its grand formal intentions, but it has unlearned the freedom of constraint, that property I sought to classify in your concerto. I cannot imagine how the last of Schönberg’s pieces are to have a history: already now they are as transparent as glass, without secrets – there it is.

Quite independently of me, incidentally, and entirely spontaneously, Jemnitz⁷ voiced during a rehearsal the same sentiment regarding the relationship between Schönberg’s current music and yours. – I heard from Anita Seligmann (Walter Herbert’s sister)⁸ that Soma intends to come to Frankfurt for good with Inge Klenau in the autumn. I had wanted to ask him in the next few days whether he is still enough of an adventurer to accompany me to Africa in October – but I daresay Daddy⁹ will hardly allow this, on account of the foreign harems.

It is very sad that you did not have time to compose (not at all for the entire summer?!), let alone because of a stomach complaint, and I am sorry with all my heart. I hope you will soon be entirely back in shape. I hope your dear wife has completely recovered and is well.

Please accept my very warmest greetings to both of you, and do not, once again, repay evil with evil, silence with silence to your faithful

Teddie W.

Mail will be forwarded to me; my addresses are still unclear.

Original: manuscript.

1 This is Hans Cornelius.

2 In September, Adorno went to Florence, Fiesole and San Remo with Gretel Karplus (1902–1993), later his wife; the journey to Sicily, Tunis and Algiers never took place.

3 Adorno presumably means the Four Songs for Middle-Register Voice and Piano op. 3 (see Compositions 1, pp. 24–47), which he dedicated to Berg after completing the composition (the last song is dated 14.7.1928 in the autograph).

4 Adorno’s essay ‘Die stabilisierte Musik’, which only appeared in Musik in September 1927 with the aforementioned distortions, was first published in its complete form in 1984.

5 Adorno published an essay on both the Third Quartet and the Suite in Musik in May 1928 (see GS 18, pp. 358–62).

6 Translator’s note: the word Krebs connotes both the crab and, in the context of twelve-note technique, the retrograde of the series. Adorno’s use of krebsig, while not necessarily a pun, thus automatically implies both meanings.

7 The composer and conductor Alexander Jemnitz (1890–1963). See also Adorno’s letters to Jemnitz, which have been edited – together with Berg’s and Schönberg’s letters to Jemnitz – by Vera Lampert, in Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 15 (1973), pp. 355–73 (Adorno’s letters here pp. 364–73).

8 Anita Seligmann, who studied philosophy and had discussed a PhD on Robert Walser with Adorno before the Nazis’ rise to power, and her brother, the conductor and student of Schönberg Walter Herbert Seligmann, who was known as Walter Herbert, were children of Milton Seligmann. Walter Herbert, who had studied violin and viola with Rebner, was married to Rudolf Kolisch’s sister Maria. Both emigrated to the USA.

9 Paul von Klenau.

Warm regards	Stina Sundell²
	Josie Rosanska³
	Felix Khuner⁴

35 ALBAN AND HELENE BERG TO
WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
TRAHüTTEN, 14.7.1926

36 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
TRAHÜTTEN, 23.7.1926

37 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO ALBAN
AND HELENE BERG
FRANKFURT, 3.8.1926

38 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, c. 13.8.1926

39 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
STAUDACH-ROTTACH, 19.8.1926

40 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 21.8.1926

41 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 6.9.1926

42 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 7.9.1926

43 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
TRAHÜTTEN, 17.9.1926

44 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 24.10.1926

45 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 29.10.1926

46 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 11.11.1926

47 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 12.11.1926

48 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 19.11.1926

49 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 22.11.1926

50 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 22.11.1926

51 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 24.11.1926

52 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 28.11.1926

53 MARIA WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 27.12.1926

54 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 15.1.1927

55 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
BERLIN, 18.1.1927

56 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 25.1.1927

57 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 12.2.1927

58 ALBAN BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, C. EARLY MARCH 1927
JOINT POSTCARD

59 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 16.3.1927

60 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
ZURICH, 26.3.1927

61 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 16.4.1927

62 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 2.5.1927

63 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
LENINGRAD, 15.6.1927

64 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO AND
EDUARD STEUERMANN TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 3.7.1927
JOINT CARD

65 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO AND
RUDOLF KOLISCH TO BERG
CRONBERG-KÖNIGSTEIN, 22.7.1927

66 RUDOLF KOLISCH AND
WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
KÖNIGSTEIN, 23.7.1927

67 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 4.9.1927

68 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 6.9.1927

ALBAN BERG VIENNA XIII/I
TRAUTTMANSDORFFGASSE 27	⁶/₉26
TELEPHONE: 84831.

ALBAN BERG C/O NAHOWSKI
TRAHÜTTEN IN STEIERMARK	^17./₉26
POST OFFICE: DEUTSCH-LANDSBERG
A./D. GRAZ-KÖFLACH RAILWAY

35 ALBAN AND HELENE BERG TOWIESENGRUND-ADORNOTRAHüTTEN, 14.7.1926

36 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOTRAHÜTTEN, 23.7.1926

37 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO ALBANAND HELENE BERGFRANKFURT, 3.8.1926

38 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOVIENNA, c. 13.8.1926

39 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGSTAUDACH-ROTTACH, 19.8.1926

40 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOVIENNA, 21.8.1926

41 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOVIENNA, 6.9.1926

42 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 7.9.1926

43 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOTRAHÜTTEN, 17.9.1926

44 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 24.10.1926

45 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOVIENNA, 29.10.1926

46 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 11.11.1926

47 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 12.11.1926

48 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 19.11.1926

49 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOVIENNA, 22.11.1926

50 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 22.11.1926

51 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 24.11.1926

52 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 28.11.1926

53 MARIA WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 27.12.1926

54 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 15.1.1927

55 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOBERLIN, 18.1.1927

56 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOVIENNA, 25.1.1927

57 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOVIENNA, 12.2.1927

58 ALBAN BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOVIENNA, C. EARLY MARCH 1927JOINT POSTCARD

59 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 16.3.1927

60 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOZURICH, 26.3.1927

61 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 16.4.1927

62 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOVIENNA, 2.5.1927

63 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOLENINGRAD, 15.6.1927

64 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO ANDEDUARD STEUERMANN TO BERGFRANKFURT, 3.7.1927JOINT CARD

65 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO ANDRUDOLF KOLISCH TO BERGCRONBERG-KÖNIGSTEIN, 22.7.1927

66 RUDOLF KOLISCH ANDWIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGKÖNIGSTEIN, 23.7.1927

67 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNOVIENNA, 4.9.1927

68 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERGFRANKFURT, 6.9.1927

35 ALBAN AND HELENE BERG TO
WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
TRAHüTTEN, 14.7.1926

36 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
TRAHÜTTEN, 23.7.1926

37 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO ALBAN
AND HELENE BERG
FRANKFURT, 3.8.1926

38 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, c. 13.8.1926

39 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
STAUDACH-ROTTACH, 19.8.1926

40 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 21.8.1926

41 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 6.9.1926

42 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 7.9.1926

43 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
TRAHÜTTEN, 17.9.1926

44 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 24.10.1926

45 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 29.10.1926

46 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 11.11.1926

47 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 12.11.1926

48 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 19.11.1926

49 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 22.11.1926

50 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 22.11.1926

51 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 24.11.1926

52 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 28.11.1926

53 MARIA WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 27.12.1926

54 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 15.1.1927

55 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
BERLIN, 18.1.1927

56 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 25.1.1927

57 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 12.2.1927

58 ALBAN BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, C. EARLY MARCH 1927
JOINT POSTCARD

59 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 16.3.1927

60 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
ZURICH, 26.3.1927

61 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 16.4.1927

62 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 2.5.1927

63 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
LENINGRAD, 15.6.1927

64 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO AND
EDUARD STEUERMANN TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 3.7.1927
JOINT CARD

65 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO AND
RUDOLF KOLISCH TO BERG
CRONBERG-KÖNIGSTEIN, 22.7.1927

66 RUDOLF KOLISCH AND
WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
KÖNIGSTEIN, 23.7.1927

67 BERG TO WIESENGRUND-ADORNO
VIENNA, 4.9.1927

68 WIESENGRUND-ADORNO TO BERG
FRANKFURT, 6.9.1927