Gurre-Lieder von Jens Peter Jacobsen / Deutsch von Robert Franz Arnold / für Soli, Chor und Orchester... – SIGNED

Wien - Leipzig: Universal Edition, [August 31, 1920].. First Edition in this form. Used; Like New/Used; Like New. Oversize full score of the Austrian composer's most monumental work, and signed by him. Large folio. Original publisher's brown boards with embossed lettering in gold. [1] (title), [2] (list of instruments), 3-189, [i] (blank) pp. With the autograph signature of the composer in black ink to foot of title and "No. 62," (in the sequence of signed copies) also in Schoenberg's hand. In very good condition, with joints loose, partial losses to spine, and some dampstaining to corners of boards. Originally from the collection of conductor Charles Gerhardt (1927-1999), with his ownership inscription to first free end page.

First Edition in this form, limited to 100 copies. Rufer (Engl.) pp. 78-79. Ringer p. 311. Tetsuo Satoh pp. 37-38. Hilmar: Arnold Schoenberg Gedenkausstellung 1974, no. 229. "One hundred copies of the edition—probably the issue of August 31, 1920—are a special issue numbered and signed by the composer to page [1]. It was printed to stronger paper and bound in hard boards of cardboard coated with brown marbled paper. The upper board of this special edition bears gilt title words... the lettering to the spine, also gilt, is 'Schönberg Gurre-Lieder.' " (Website ofthe Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna)  In the present edition, which includes a number of corrections from the published autograph, the engraver tried to minimize the number of staves. Schoenberg was not satisfied with the result, as numerous autograph corrections and annotations to his three personal copies demonstrate. Still, it remained the final edition of the work in Schoenberg's lifetime, and the composer used it, with the aforementioned corrections, for his performances. A facsimile of Schoenberg's manuscript fair copy of the full score was published by Universal-Edition in 1912. The piano-vocal score, prepared by Alban Berg, was published in 1913 (U.E. 3696). 
Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder were first performed in Vienna at the Großer Musikvereins-Saal, in February of 1913.  The work draws on Robert Franz Arnold's German translation of the Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen's Gurresange, and was originally composed for voice and piano in 1900.  "When he finished the orchestration in 1910/1911, he considered the piece a document of a style of composition and an intellectual attitude which already seemed alien to him–although that did not detract from the work's importance: 'It is the key to my entire development.  It shows sides of me which I do not reveal later on, or, from a different approach.  It explains how everything had to happen as it did later on, and that is enormously important for my work–that one can follow the man and his development from that point on.'" (Agnes Grond, Arnold Schönberg Center).