In receipt of your letter of January 12, may I remind you to read the
first sentence of the third paragraph of Mr. Schoenberg’s letter to me dated
July 26, where Mr. Schoenberg appreciates it very much that I consider pay-
ing this royalty to him before the copies are even sold. Now, on Septem-
ber 7, I even went further and already made an advance payment before the
Fantasy is even printed. This will answer the second to last paragraph of
your abrupt letter of January 12.

With my letter of September 7, I sent Mr. Schoenberg a check in the
amount of $ 80.00 – – covering 10 % royalty on 400 copies at the retail price
of $ 2.00 each, and promised to pay him a royalty of 10 % on the remaining
600 copies of the First Printing as soon as these copies are delivered to
me by my printer.

Inasmuch as the photostat copy of the Fantasy which Mr. Schoenberg sent
to me was not clear enough for the engraver to read the notes correctly, it
had to be engraved a second time. After seeing now the second proofs of this
beautifully engraved masterpiece, I had to send the proofs first to various
proof readers so that additional questions can be answered by Mr. Schoenberg
when he will read proof. And so, my dear Mr. Hoffmann, I leave it up to you
to decide who is actually responsible for the delay of which you are complain-
ing, to say nothing of the additional expenses involved.

Enclosed I am sending Mr. Schoenberg the contract, which is based on the
E. B. Marks Music Corporation contract, as requested by Mr. Schoenberg. As
soon as Mr. Schoenberg has returned both copies of this contract to me signed,
I will return to him one copy signed by me, accompanied with a check for roy-
alty on copies 401 to 700; and, after Mr. Schoenberg has read final proof and
has returned these proofs, I intend to pay immediately the royalty on the re-
maining 300 copies of the First Printing.

The proofs of the engraved Fantasy with a questionnaire covering illeg-
ible notes for the engraver will be mailed to Mr. Schoenberg after I have re-
ceived from him the signed contract. As soon as the questions have been an-
swered by Mr. Schoenberg and the proofs returned, the corrections will be made
and the work will then go to my printers.

Re: New Instrumentation for Op. 16
First of all, may I refer to another statement made by Mr. Schoenberg
concerning an advance payment also on this “problem“. Please note the first
paragraph of his letter of July 12, where he acknowledges receipt of $ 200.00
from me with this comment: “As much as I remember, I had not yet to expect
this advance, and I appreciate it very much that you do this voluntarily, be-
fore it is due; thank you.“ Furthermore, let me call your attention also to
my letter of September 26 where, in the very first paragraph, I stated clearly
that, “I am confident to be able to send you proofs early in Spring.“, which,
in accordance with the accepted definition of the word, would be March or
April 1951.

When I was in England in December, I learned that the engraver did not
yet actually start with the engraving because he had so many previous commit-
ments which took considerably longer to complete than even he had anticipated.

Although I was greatly surprised, especially in view of the fact that last
September I was under the impression that the engraving of the score was under
way and might be ready in Spring 1951 – – on the other hand, as a result of com-
pletely reviewing our correspondence file in connection with your last letter
dated January 12, 1951, my attention fortunately has been called to my letter
dated January 12, 1950, exactly one year earlier. My file shows no reply to
these two vitally important last paragraphs, which I am repeating herewith:

✎ “Disregarding everything which is mentioned above, I should
like to obtain from you a brief handwritten or signed statement
by you to the effect that you consider the revised version of your
Op. 16 an outgrowth of your own development and, consequently, an
improvement over the original version. My wife and I heard the
original version as performed last season by the New York Philhar-
monic, under the direction of Mr. Mitropoulos, and it seemed to us
that the orchestration was ideally fitted to the musical effect you
intended to achieve. Since I have not heard this new version, I am
not in a position to say whether it is musically better or whether
it is simply a compromise worked out so that you might obtain further✎

Anmerkung am rechten Rand
(Empfänger:in)

Lose of
copyright
his fault.

protection on the composition. In the latter case, I feel that I
should point out that, as we both know, there is always the danger
that any compromise with artistic values is dangerous; that, in all
probability, no real advantage will be obtained in a commercial sense
since conductors and audiences will instinctively prefer the original
version and will continue to perform it. There is nothing that any-
one can do to stop them from doing so. The existence of a second
version less perfect than the original will thus only tend to reflect
against the artistic sincerity of both the publisher and the composer.“

“Naturally, if you can assure me that the revised version of
your Op. 16 is indeed an improvement over the original, the situ-
ation will not exist, and I shall be very happy to continue with
the arrangements made thus far in our correspondence. If you can-
not, however, give me this statement, it seems to me that we
should reconsider the whole matter before continuing further with
it.“

Travelling more than usual during the past twelve months, I was naturally
under the impression that the requested statement from Mr. Schoenberg was re-
ceived by my office during my absence before September 1950. If Mr. Schoen-
berg can send me such a statement, signed by himself, then I shall be glad
to continue with our plan to engrave the score as soon as the engraver is
able to add to his already overcrowded schedule a work of this great propor-
tion.