Georg Dohrn (1867–1942) was a conductor working in Flensburg, then Munich (1898–1901), then with the Breslau Orchestral and Choral Societies (1901–36). He was an admirer of Schenker’s writings, and in 1926 sought the latter’s advice, raising points of interpretation on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony that Schenker answered in close detail.

Some time after this correspondence took place, Hellmut Federhofer, while browsing in a bookstore, happened on a used copy of Schenker’s Beethovens neunte Sinfonie, which he purchased. When he later opened the volume, Schenker’s holograph letter to Dohrn fell out of its pages. Federhofer had no way of identifying the addressee, but he nevertheless wrote about the letter, and kindly sent me a copy.

I recognized the text, for Schenker had retained a copy of his own letter, in Jeanette’s hand, and I had many years earlier seen this document in the Oster Collection,1 together with the original letter of inquiry from Dohrn. Through correspondence between Federhofer and myself, we were able to solve certain puzzles: the identity of the recipient was established, and a word in Schenker’s letter that had been obscured by an ink-blot in the holograph was revealed by the aforementioned copy to be not molto, as in Federhofer’s published transcription, but rather marcato.

Schenker’s reply to Dohrn is, typically, full of the finest artistic touches. A good example is his observation that “at the arpeggiation through kettle drums and horns after the ‘ritmo di Quattro battute’ [i.e. mm. 248–51 (and 256–69)] the effect approaches that of a legato of the head-tones.” Perhaps most important of all, however, is Schenker’s insistence on the importance of the manuscript as an indispensable source for an accurate text: comparison of the manuscript of this very movement against the scores available in Schenker’s time (and most of those still in use) will amply illustrate.

John Rothgeb

Dohrn to Schenker (letter), April 2, 1926

OC 82/27–28

Breslau Orchestra Society

Breslau, Steinstrasse 4/6

Dear Dr. Schenker,

Permit me, please, as one who knows and highly values several of your publications—especially your “Presentation of the Musical Content” of Beethoven’s “Ninth”—to pose a question to you to which your answer would be of really special interest to me.