Edition for Kurt Weill’s letters to Busoni has started, Jarnach correspondence to follow

As part of our current seminar at Humboldt University (Schönberg, Jarnach, Weill – Ferruccio Busoni im Netzwerk der musikalischen Moderne), the letters of Kurt Weill to Busoni have now been added to our digital edition. Stemming from the years 1921–1924, they show the early Weill as a Busoni pupil and „famulus“. These ten letters have been published already (Theurich 1990, Theurich 1998) and are now being transferred into a digital form according to the modes of presentation of our edition. The facsimiles of the Weill letters (part of the Busoni archives in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin · Preußischer Kulturbesitz) are to be seen here for the first time. The whereabouts of Busonis letters to Weill remain unknown.

Next, our seminar will turn to the much more voluminous Busoni correspondence with Philipp Jarnach. Of those 141 pieces, most have not been published yet (for 19 Busoni letters to Jarnach, slightly abridged versions are available as part of Antony Beaumont’s edition in English). Our edition of the Jarnach correspondence will be continued in the winter term 2021/22 with another seminar. Our great thanks for their support go to the composer’s daughter Ulrike Jarnach as well as to Philipp Jarnach’s granddaughter, the pianist and filmmaker Lucy Jarnach!

Christian Schaper, Thursday, June 17, 2021