Score, to be edited by Schenker according to the composer's autograph manuscript, and intended to accompany Schenker's monograph Beethoven's Neunte Sinfonie, the plan for which was eventually abandoned.

History of the Proposal

Sometime early in 1911, Emil Hertzka evidently suggested that Schenker's monograph Beethovens Neunte Sinfonie (Vienna: UE, 1912) might incorporate a score of the symphony, thereby giving the resultant work the status of an "elucidatory edition" (Erläuterungsausgabe) along the lines of Schenker's Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue (1910) and the later Die letzten fünf Sonaten von Beethoven (1913, 1914, 1915, 1920). First mention of this in the UE correspondence appeared on June 21, 1911 in an allusion to "the conducting score planned by you [i.e. Hertzka]" (WSLB 77). On March 7, 1912, Hertzka announced that he had negotiated with Eulenburg to use the plates of their pocket score (OC 52/432).

The original plan was apparently to bind the score in with the monograph study, but on March 13, 1912, Schenker proposed an alternative marketing scheme: Perhaps it would be a good idea to separate the book from the score for ease of study; and let the price indicate only that the two can be had more cheaply if the items are purchased together than if they are purchased individually. (WSLB 100)

Hertzka indicated willingness to adopt this plan on May 7, 1912 (OC 52/433). Schenker's monograph, without score, was subsequently released on or around July 2, 1912.

Then, on November 12, 1913, Schenker, after advocating having the Berlin autograph manuscript of the Ninth Symphony photographed, introduced an additional element into the proposal: You had in any case the idea of publishing the score of the Ninth Symphony on the occasion of my book. How would it be, then, if the authentic score (edited by me) were to be provided? (WSLB 192)

Hertzka inferred from this that the Eulenburg plates would not then simply be reprinted, but would have to be modified according to Schenker's reading of the autograph, and that this would be "technically much more complicated" and might entail completely re-engraving the score (OC 52/440, December 12, 1913; OC 52/138, January 5, 1914). On January 7, 1914, Schenker went further, proposing that the contents of the four formal diagrams in his monograph (pp. 2, 136, 194, 244) be incorporated into the score in square brackets (WSLB 199, though there is a hint of such a plan in an interlinear insertion as early as May 11, 1912: WSLB 112). The plan seems never to have got further than this stage.

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