The framework for all Schenkerian historical and biographical studies—and of a great deal else besides—is provided by Heinrich Schenker’s own filing system, i.e. the folders in which he stored his ever-increasing mass of working papers, correspondence, diaries, and other materials at his apartment. This system was evidently a joint creation: the product of Schenker’s own legalistic mind, but also significantly of Jeanette’s organizational powers. How far back the two were acquainted is unknown, but she may have done secretarial work for him during the summer vacations that her family spent together with him between 1903 and 1909. It was in 1910 that Jeanette left her first husband, Emil Kornfeld, and their sons Erich and Felix in Aussig (Ústí nad Labem) to share her life with Schenker in Vienna.

In 1911 Jeanette started taking down the contents of Schenker’s diaries from dictation using her stenographic skills and copying them in her neat hand. At some point she organized the disparate-sized sheets and scraps of paper that constituted his early diaries and paginated them; and in 1912 she compiled an index of all the diaries from 1896 to September 1912 in a small, alphabetically tabbed book—an invaluable, but little-known, biographical resource. In later years, after the couple’s marriage in 1919, there are records of their purchasing folders, labeling them, and filing papers away. There are also records of their purchasing two boxes of index cards for the cataloguing of papers. Additionally, Jeanette took down Schenker’s lesson notes and copied them into “lessonbooks,” starting with January 15, 1912. She copied extracts from documents for his use and took down many important items of correspondence in shorthand, writing first drafts for Schenker to amend and copy out; on other occasions she made file copies of letters of which he needed a permanent record (there are examples of both situations in the present volume). She also helped draft his theoretical and analytical texts and thoughts. Schenker once declared that in addition to being an excellent cook Jeanette “stands fully equipped at my side intellectually”; and in a codicil to his will he stated: “Without her practical help down to the very last detail, it [Free Composition] would not be complete.”