Satellite Collections in the Arnold Schoenberg Institute

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Since its inception, the Institute attempted to locate and collect materials relating to Arnold Schoenberg from every possible source. Hundreds of individuals and institutions cooperated in this endeavor by contributing material directly, offering material for sale, making facsimiles available, and bequething materials to the Institute. Many materials acquired in such a manner are known as satellite collections in that they relate to the principal archival collection, namely Schoenberg's legacy.

What distinguishes a satellite collection from other non-legacy material in the Archive?

Several factors in combination or, in some cases, individually determine when material is acquired as part of the satellite collections.

In order to provide access to materials in the Institute’s satellite collections, general descriptions and lists have been made of each distinct collection. A list, descriptions, and an index thereof has been published in the Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute (15/1). A more up-to-date and dynamic version of that list was available in printed form in the Reading Room of the Institute. A variant form of the latter is available here.

  1. Each description consists of most of the following elements:
  2. Name of the collection. Personal names include birth and death dates where available.
  3. The years during which the material in the collection was created.
  4. The physical quantity of the material in the collection. E.g., “1 box (4 folders (32 leaves, 8 periodical issues), 2 books), 1 poster” means the collection consists of 1 box of material plus one poster; the box contains 4 folders plus 2 books; the 4 folders contain 32 leaves plus 8 periodical issues.
  5. A brief description of the donor, lender, or seller of the collection as well as his connection to Schoenberg. Most of these are based on descriptions in standard music reference sources or material found in the the collections themselves. The reader should be wary of drawing conclusions based upon these descriptions particularly in regard to early Schoenberg students, as many accounts have not yet been verified.
  6. The general contents of the collection with enumeration of specific items of Schoenberg interest, plus an alphabetical list of persons to whom correspondence was addressed unless listed in section 6 below. N.B. discrepancies between number counts cited under this section as opposed to section 3 are due to the fact that section 3 counts all physical items whereas this section counts unique intellectual items. For instance, four copies of one letter will appear as one (intellectual) item in section 5, but as four (physical) items in section 3.
  7. An alphabetical list of the correspondents (writers, not necessarily recipients) including an item count and the years covered. Individuals writing on behalf of a corporate entity (corporate in the sense of consisting of more than one person) are listed alphabetically (within parentheses) immediately following the corporate entry.
  8. A list of any Schoenberg music referred to in any context (clippings, programs, recordings, manuscript, printed score, etc.) within the collection.

An index to the collections can be found only in the printed form of this finding aid at the Institute. The index reference numbers (in square brackets) are collection designations for this finding aid only, and have no other meaning.

As the provenance of any primary source material is critical, correspondence (and associated material) relating to the acquisition of a collection is kept and described with the individual collection.

Proper names are listed in the form in which they are found in the material (with and without first names and initials, etc.). Personal names lacking given or surnames are listed as found in the collections, with [s.n.], i.e. sine nomine, in the place of missing name parts. N.B. More complete forms of names (when available) can be found in the index.

All references to Arnold Schoenberg the individual are spelled without the umlaut (Schoenberg dropped the umlaut in 1933 when he emigrated to the United States). All other references, whether to Schoenberg in a corporate name or to his relatives, are spelled as established in that context. The Arnold Schoenberg Institute is abbreviated to ASI in the lists of correspondents throughout the article. For the purposes of alphabeticization, ä = ae, ö = oe, ü = ue. Bracketed dates are those provided by the compiler. “No date” is specified as [n.d.].

Access to all of these collections is open, although users should remember that restrictions, including those pertaining to copyright, usually apply as regards the production of photocopies or other facsimilies of materials in these collections.

List of satellite collections

(A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z)