Letters from Otto Erich Deutsch (OED)

to Maurice JE Brown

These letters form the major portion of the letters within the Maurice JE Brown (MJEB) collection at the SIRC. It is clear that MJEB carefully filed away everything which may be of any use or interest in the future, and although these letters only tell one side of the story (what a pity MJEB only occassionally kept copies of the letters he sent, but the SIUK is trying to find MJEB's letters through OED's family), they offer a fascinating insight into the relationship between the two eminent Schubert Scholars.

A full catalogue of the letters is still being produced, but it will number them at approximately 738. Of these, I estimate that around a quarter are postcards, and there are also several envelopes on which Deutsch scribbled some last minute thoughts after he had closed the contents.

The letters cover the period from May 1949 to 5th November 1965. They seem to start in mid flow so to speak, as if they had been corresponding for a little while before MJEB started to keep the letters. In May 1949 Deutsch (born 5th Sept 1883, he died aged 84 in 1968) was aged 65, and Brown (born in 1906) was 43. Deutsch was living in Cambridge, England, having escaped from Austria just before the war, and had joint British citizenship. Brown was living in Marlborough, Wilts, where he taught science at the grammar school. Deutsch returned to Vienna late in 1952, and the correspondence continued, initially with censor's stamps, though after a while censorship was obviously relaxed.

The first letter is in German (which I don't read very well), but the rest, other than quotes and the occasional accidental slip, are all in English. Deutsch's English was pretty good (i.e. much better that that of most children leaving school today), though he was very concerned about the correct use of English grammar, and thus frequently turned to Brown (whose German was excellent) to translate letters, poems, articles etc.

Up until the end of February 1952 the letters are all handwritten, after that time the majority are typed (and look very messy to those of us brought up with word processors where small mistakes can be readily changed), though there are occasional handwritten letters, and many, but by no means all, of the postcards are handwritten.

The two scholars clearly got on pretty well, and had great professional respect for each other. Deutsch appears to have treated Brown as his 'heir' as a Schubertian, frequently passing on tasks to him, and they often asked for advice from each other. They visited each other from time to time, and these visits are mentioned in the letters. Nevertheless, the letters are still rather formal and reserved. They start "Dear Mr. Brown", and it's not until April 1951 (literally the first letter after the publication of the Thematic Catalogue, in the preface of which he thanks Brown for his help of various kinds) that Deutsch gets friendly enough to drop the "Mr". From then until the end of the correspondence, it's "Dear Brown", with the occasional "My Dear Brown" towards the end. This distinction was clearly significant to Deutsch, as there is one letter in May 1951 with the greeting "Dear Mr Brown, or rather Dear Brown". They are nearly always signed "yours ever". There are a very small number of drafts of letters from MJEB to OED, in one in June 1951 he addresses the letter to "My Dear Professor Deutsch" and signs it "My very good wishes".

The majority of the content of the letters is professional with relatively little in the way of personal remarks, and where there are such remarks, they normally reflect a serious illness, or emotional conflict. Deutsch is clearly very careful to preserve MJEBs scholarly credentials, and there is no sign of any 'competition' between them. There are a number of discussions of joint projects, with almost more effort expended on exactly how the credits should read, than on the research itself.

The first few years of these letters cover the period when some of Deutsch's famous works, including the Thematic catalogue and Memoirs were being published, the Documents having been published in 1946. There are various references to publishing details, checking galley proofs, last minute corrections etc. OED asks advice on how best to index the works, wording of dedications, and so on. From some of Deutsch's comments it is clear that these books were hardly runaway successes from a financial point of view, with relatively few copies sold, so it is perhaps no suprise that it may take a while to track down a copy of some of them.

Later on, there is considerable discussion of German editions of the works, and originally, OED wanted MJEB to do the translation of the Memoirs. MJEBs first book Schubert's Variations was published during these years (1954), and there are frequent references to his disappointments in attempting to find a publisher, before his agreement with Macmillan. Works from other Schubertians are mentioned several times - it is clear that OED though more of Einstein's book than MJEB, and there are some sideways swipes at such as Kobald and Flower.

I've now finished a initial pass through the letters (A full day's study got me up to the late 50s, and another half day finished it off), but not the more detailed analysis that would be required to discover and appreciate all the nuggets contained within their pages. Paul Reid, erstwhile editor of the SIUK journal, The Schubertian has produced a glossy 16 page write up of the letters appropriately entitled Dear Brown. Information about how to acquire a copy is given on our SIUK Goodies page. There now follows a few interesting little snippets from the letters to whet your appetite. Unless otherwise stated, these are from OED to MJEB. Comments from me in square brackets thus - [[a comment from RM]].