Downloads temporarily removed for testing purposes

Radio Verkehrs Aktiengesellschaft (RAVAG)

Radio Communications Co., Ltd (RAVAG)

Documents associated with this entity:

Public radio company established in February 1924. It was a joint venture of the Austrian federal government, the City of Vienna, and several banks. Its radio transmissions began on October 1, 1924, and featured classical music, literature, and lectures. From 1925 it began live broadcasts from opera houses and concert halls; live sports broadcasts began in 1928. The company was dissolved soon after the Anschluß in March 1938.

RAVAG and Schenker

Schenker approached RAVAG through Dr. Richtera, Director of Programs, to have Hoboken's Appeal for support for the Photogramm Archive to be read out by Otto Erich Deutsch. The result of this negotiation was the publication in RAVAG's magazine, Radio-Wien, January 27, 1928, of an article about the Archive by Robert Haas, a copy of which is preserved as OC2/p. 74.

Heinrich and Jeanette Schenker acquired their first radio set in October 1924, and from that point on documented what they listened to in detail in his diaries. The radio gave them an entrée into genres of music, from popular music and jazz to contemporary opera, that they would not have chosen to attend live. They also listened to plays, readings, talks, and lectures.

Sources

  • Hewlett, Kirstie, "Heinrich Schenker and the Radio," Music Analysis, Special Issue on Schenker Documents, 34/2 (July 2015), 244‒64
  • Hewlett, Kirstie, Heinrich Schenker and the Radio (PhD diss., University of Southampton, 2015)

Downloads temporarily removed for testing purposes

Correspondence

  • OJ 10/3, [74] Typewritten postcard from Deutsch to Schenker, dated November 22, 1927

    Deutsch suspects that with the typesetters' "messing up" of Schenker’s revised copy of Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony the material has been made illegible. — He has been in contact with people regarding a possible radio talk by Schenker, and one by himself on the redesigning of the Mozarteum. — He reports that the pianist Heinz Jolles would like Schenker to prepare an edition of one of Beethoven’s variation sets (WoO 80 or the “Diabelli”), and that Josef Braunstein is gratified to hear of Schenker’s interest in his recent book on the "Leonore" overtures.

  • OJ 10/3, [75] Typewritten letter from Deutsch to Schenker, dated December 2, 1927

    Deutsch encloses Schenker’s score of the “Unfinished” Symphony that was used used for the new edition and Alfred Kalmus’s apologetic letter. He mentions the pianist Heinz Jolles’ interest in Schenker’s editorial work, in the hope that Schenker might at some point tackle Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations.

  • WSLB-Hds 191.561 Handwritten picture postcard from Schenker to Deutsch, postmarked February 6, 1928

    Schenker congratulates Deutsch on his two most recent radio broadcasts, and on his impending appointment as editor of a monthly music journal.

  • OJ 10/3, [83] Typewritten picture postcard from Deutsch to Schenker, dated April 16, 1928

    Deutsch has had sharp words with Max Ast at Austrian Radio. He wants to give a talk on Schubert’s lost “Gastein” (or “Gmunden”) Symphony and hopes that publicity from the broadcasting company will eventually lead to the rediscovery of the manuscript. Eusebius Mandyczewski is preparing a new edition of the “Unfinished” Symphony for Breitkopf & Härtel; the Philharmonia pocket score, with Schenker’s and Deutsch’s revisions, is now in print. Deutsch has discovered that the first edition of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 90 exists in two versions.

  • OJ 10/3, [85] Typewritten picture postcard from Deutsch to Schenker, dated May 15, 1928

    Deutsch thanks Schenker for his kind words (about his recent radio broadcast) and describes the difficulties in preparing things for publication in Radio Wien. He informs Schenker that Brahms’s arrangement of a Schubert song has already been published. He has discovered that the Guitar Quartet believed to be by Schubert is an arrangement, and that an early cantata, Die Advokaten, is also based on the work of another composer.

  • WSLB-Hds 191.562 Handwritten letter from Schenker to Deutsch, dated May 17, 1928

    Responding to Deutsch’s previous message, Schenker confirms that the Deutsche Trauermesse must, on musical grounds, be a work by Franz Schubert. He also agrees with Deutsch that the Quartet for guitar, flute, violin, and cello must be an arrangement of a work by a fashionable composer of the time.

  • OJ 10/3, [104] Typewritten letter from Deutsch to Schenker, dated July 28, 1929

    In a long letter, Deutsch thanks Schenker for encouraging him to apply for the post of Head Archivist at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde following the death of the previous postholder, Eusebius Mandyczewski, on July 13. He comments on the present state of play at the Archive, above all on its insecure position. — He also expresses his regret that Austrian Radio is no longer interested in his “Chamber Ensemble” broadcasts with professors from the Vienna Academy, and that some of the players are no longer enthusiastic about them; he hopes to start a new initiative of that sort in the autumn. — He is in good standing with Hoboken, but the work on his private library is not bringing him rewards. — He enjoyed his recent trip to Italy, and thinks that he might have become an art historian had he gotten to know the country earlier.

  • OJ 5/30, [1a] Handwritten draft letter from Schenker to Preetorius, undated [February 12–13, 1931]

    Schenker draws Preetorius's attention to part of Meisterwerk III, and invites him to consider his (Schenker's) theory of coherence in music as a basis for that in other arts, hence unity among the arts. -- He envisions a "club" of artists to discuss these matters.

  • OJ 12/6, [20] Handwritten letter from Jonas to Schenker, dated March 20, 1933

    Van Hoboken is willing to advance 600 Mk for the Einführung; Jonas inquires, in that regard, after the plan to reprint Schenker's Harmonielehre, indicating that he had previously prepared a reformulation of that work for teaching purposes; — he alludes to introductory lectures to Furtwängler concerts, and the Handel-Brahms Saul project.

  • OJ 15/22, [8] Handwritten letter from Willfort to Schenker, dated July 30, 1934

    Willfort reports progress in his conducting career; he will be in Vienna next academic year; has the prospect of a radio concert with RAVAG in September.

Diaries