More than 20,000 pieces of correspondence to and from Schönberg have been identified from a large variety of sources. Though copies of most of these letters existed in the collections of the Arnold Schönberg Center, the majority of the original letters are located in other collections.
The Library of Congress has the largest collection of Schönberg letters. Schönberg himself donated all of the letters in his possession in 1951 to the Library of Congress. These consist principally of carbon copies of letters by Schönberg and original letters to him. Also, there is a large collection of Berg letters – Schönberg letters to Alban Berg – in the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) in Vienna.
The term “letter” should be interpreted as any form of correspondence including: letters, postcards, telegrams, notes, etc. Dates are given in the form “year.month.day”.
A published version of the lists at the present web site is available in the Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute (XVIII/1&2-XIX/1&2 (June & November 1996 – June & November 1997)).
For permission to publish of letters from Schönberg contact Belmont Music Publishers [mailto: office(at)schoenbergmusic(dot)com].
