Institutions, Industries, Technologies

Arnold Schoenberg and the

Cinematic Art

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Sabine'M. Feisst

When Schoenberg and film are discussed, one event is always men-
tioned: the meeting between Schoenberg and Irving Thalberg, the cele-
brated young producer at the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer. The encounter took place at MGM's studios in November 1935
regarding the filming of Pearl S. Buck's novel The Good Earth. Thalberg
had heard Schoenberg's Verkldrte Nacht, op. 4, and imagined a similar
music for his new film project. The negotiations, however, foundered
when Schoenberg insisted on full control of the soundtrack (including
dialogue) and, during a second meeting at MGM, demanded a fee of
$50,000. The various anecdotal embellishments and distortions of this
event have created for the most part the impression of a quixotic
approach on Schoenberg's part to the film industry and of a naive,
eccentric undertaking that the composer had not carefully thought out.1
This is probably far from the truth. Before their second meeting, the
composer had carefully read Buck's short novel and made notations and
sketches for a film score. The copy of the book made available to him by
the MGM library contains numerous underlinings. Two of Schoenberg's
sketchbooks contain a series of roughly worked out tonal, chromatic,
and pentatonic motifs and themes having specific reference to The Good
Earth. Among them are a "motif of an eventful growing crowd of peo-
ple," a motif to "the uncle of Ching," a "lotus" theme, a "fishpond"
motif, themes of "the Uncle of Wang," "funeral/death" motifs, motifs of
a "turbulent folk scene in connection with the revolution," and motifs
about the "fear of the Wang family because of the soldiers," as well as a
"pearl/wealth" motif.2 Although disappointed, Schoenberg took note of
Thalberg's rejection in the beginning of December with a measure of
relief. He even seems to have expected a negative response, for he noted
in his calendar immediately after the meeting, "MGM [I] seemingly
asked too much."3 But shortly afterward, he wrote the producer with a
glimmer of hope:

93
94 The Musical Quarterly

Dear Mr. Thalberg,

When I left you, about three weeks ago, you told me you would answer in
a few days. Having got no answer until today, I can not believe, this is
your intention: to give me no answer at all. Maybe you are disappointed
about the price I asked. But you will agree, it is not my fault, you did not

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ask me before and only so late, that I had already spent so much time,
coming twice to you, reading the book, trying out how I could compose it
and making sketches . . . But even in case you are still considering to
make me a proposition, I wanted to ask you to give me your decision or at
least to write me a letter. Looking forward to such a letter with great
interest, 1 am
yours very truly,
Arnold Schoenberg.4
A short time later Schoenberg received a separate offer from Boris
Morros, the manager of the music department of Paramount Pictures,
who was particularly interested in recruiting reputable contemporary
composers for his film projects.5 Schoenberg was to compose the music
of the film Souls at Sea (1937), as the film's promotional brochure indi-
cates. Morros contacted Schoenberg through Ralph Rainger, a pop
composer, music arranger, and pianist employed by Paramount and at
that time taking lessons from Schoenberg. But this project also came
to nothing. William Franke Harling, Ralph Rainger, and Leo Robin
were ultimately responsible for the music of Souls at Sea, which mainly
consists of variations on diverse shanties and of some original songs.
During the same period the composer received two other offers, one
from Else Lasker-Schuler and the other from Charlotte and William
Dieterle. Lasker-Schuler, a German poet who had emigrated to Jeru-
salem, asked Schoenberg to provide the music for the filming of one
of her plays, a project that seemed to interest him greatly: "Surely, if I
should be asked and what is to be described is fairly within the limits of
my means of expression, it will be a pleasure and I will throw myself into
the composition."6 In case Lasker-Schuler had not yet contacted a film
studio, Schoenberg even offered to show her play to a couple of produc-
ers and suggested that she might get in touch with the director and pro-
ducer Dieterle, whom he respected highly and with whom he was on
friendly terms. Nothing came of this plan. Dieterle then asked Schoen-
berg to compose the music to a film about Beethoven, but Schoenberg
refused and suggested in his place Otto Klemperer, whom he held in
high regard and whom, if need be, he would gladly support "in stylistic-
compositional questions." In addition, he recommended the actor Peter
Lorre to Charlotte Dieterle for the role of Beethoven:
 Arnold Schoenberg and the Cinematic Art 95

Dear Mrs. Dieterle,

• . . 1 hoped to be of use to you in the matter of the Beethoven film: in so
far as my capacities and circumstances permit. For I'm afraid: in this case I
am somewhat hampered. Perhaps you read my answer: "I shall tell you

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whether I can do it or whom I consider suitable . . ." as meaning that I
cannot do it myself. My position in musical life would compel me to
maintain a certain attitude even if I did not myself feel that way. Nobody
could help understanding if 1 were, to say to form a poetic version of
Beethoven's life out of my own imagination and my own feelings about
him, and make a film of it. For the conception would from the beginning
be a musical one, and what I would then do with Beethoven's music
would not be a mere use of it but "a fantasy," a symphonic-dramatic fan-
tasy that would necessarily have the same artistic justification as if 1 were
to write variations on a theme of Beethoven's. But if I were to "serve" by
adapting Beethoven's music to a "libretto," no matter how good (and I do
not doubt that yours is good), written by someone else, it would not be in
keeping with what people are entitled to demand of me, namely that I
should create out of my own being.7

All four of these episodes point to Schoenberg's ambivalent atti-

tude towatd the cinematic art; they show that he was basically not
averse to the film medium and actually reflected upon it. In any case,
the acceptance of an offer, with its attendant concessions, could have
telieved him of his financial worries. The reason for the failure of every
compositional commission on me part of the Hollywood film industry
was Schoenberg's refusal to accept the principle of the division of labor
required in film production. For him, a cooperative style of creation—
collaboration with producers, distributors, and directors, combined with
numerous handicaps and concessions—was hardly conceivable. A film
project in which he alone would be responsible for the total conception
and direction would have come considerably closer to his ideas and
demands. More than twenty years earlier, during the silent-film era,
Schoenbetg was already thinking of using film for his drama with music
Die Gliickliche Hand (1910/1913), and in this case the conditions for
filming would have been more favorable. 8 He would have had control
over more aspects of the production. In respect to the treatment of
music and text, he set the highest standards, which had to be main-
tained with each new presentation of the silent film. He alone would
have to accomplish whatever changes were needed. In addition to a first-
class orchestra, six male and six female voices, including a male and
female performer capable of singing difficult solos, were necessary for a
film performance. On the othet hand, a performance utilizing a high-
quality cinema otgan would be acceptable. A painter like Kokoschka or
96 The Musical Quarterly

Kandinsky was to design the scenery, and since color and light played a
major role in the opera, Schoenberg thought of coloring the black-and-
white film when the shooting had been completed. He expected from
film technique principally the realization of unreal specific effects, for
instance with the assistance of trick shots, producing effects that could

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not be realized on the stage. In a letter to Emil Hertzka, he wrote:

[T]he basic unreality of the events, which is inherent in the words, is

something that they should be able to bring out even better in the filming
(nasty idea that it is!). For me this is one of the main reasons for consider-
ing it. For instance, in thefilm,if the goblet suddenly vanishes as if it had
never been there, just as if it had simply been forgotten, that is quite dif-
ferent from the way it is on the stage, where it has to be removed by some
device. And there are a thousand things besides that [can] be easily done
in this medium, whereas the stage's resources are very limited. My fore-
most wish is therefore for something the opposite of what the cinema gen-
erally aspires to. I want: The utmost unreality!9

In film's ability to represent things unreal as well as real, Schoen-

berg saw the new medium posing a special challenge for opera and the-
ater, comparable to the effect of photography on painting: "The crisis of
the theater is, in part, caused by the films; this is also the reason for the
situation in which the opera finds itself: unable to compete with the
realism which is offered there [in films]. Films have spoiled the eye of the
viewer: one sees not only truth and reality, but also the make-belief
which used to be the prerogative of the stage. And that which was never
intended to be anything but make-belief, now, by fantastic means, will
have to turn away from realism or find another appropriate way for it."10
On another occasion Schoenberg predicted that the film, with its tempt-
ing possibilities, would soon steal the audience away from the opera: "[I]t
[opera] has less to offer the eye than the film has—and colour-film will
soon be here, too. Add music, and the general public will hardly need to
hear an opera sung and acted any more, unless a new path is found."11
The speech that Schoenberg gave in 1927 as a participant in
talking-film experiments of Universal Film AG Berlin reflected much
artistic hope: "One should not consider the talking film as just a simple
combination of picture, speech and music. On the contrary, it is a new
and independent instrument for a novel artistic expression. In this sense
it has a great future. It is certain that here the power of the thought, the
word, and art music will win a deciding influence."12 In 1929 Schoen-
berg contacted the Gesellschaft der Filmmusikautoren Deutschlands
(Society of German Film Composers) and asked for advice and support
 Arnold Schoenherg and the Cinematic Art 97

for his interest in sound film." Franz Schreker, an advocate of high-

quality film music, shared Schoenberg's excitement about the develop-
ment of the sound film and invited him to become a collaborator for the
Deutsche Gesellschaft fiier Ton und Bild (German Society for Sound
and Picture) in 1929 and for the ComediaTonfilm (Comedia Sound

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Film) in 1932.H As two letters to Schreker verify, he was very interested
in cooperating on projects of the latter institution.15 And at the begin-
ning of the sound-film era, Schoenberg composed his Begleitungsmusik
zu einer Lichtspielszene, op. 34 (1929-30) at the suggestion of F. Charles
Adler, then the conductor of the Municipal Opera in Diisseldorf and a
representative of Heinrichshofen's Verlag in Magdeburg.16 Adler himself
made the publishing arrangements with the publishing house, whose cat-
alog also included scores for silent movies. While a number of well-
known composers, fascinated by the new medium, created music for spe-
cific silent films, surprisingly, Schoenberg, in his Begleitungsmusik, reverts
back to the custom prior to 1915 in which codified collections of atmos-
pheric music and so-called cue sheets were common.17 It is known that
the music for a silent film could be written independently of the pro-
ducer and director, since the music was not considered part of the film
itself but was a service provided by the cinema owner. The scoring of
the Begleitungsmusik for small orchestra with enlarged percussion allowed
for performance by a cinema orchestra. The subtitles of the composition
suggest three imaginary scenes: "Drohende Gefahr" [Threatening Dan-
ger], "Angst" [Fear], and "Katastrophe" [Catastrophe]. These titles com-
pare to similar cues found in cheat books issued by Hawkes & Son, B.
Schott's Sohne, or Heinrichshofen's Verlag. However, since the three
scenes are bound together in Schoenberg's through-composed, demand-
ing dodecaphonic setting of about eight and a half minute's duration
and the three episodes are not clearly delineated (by caesuras, for
instance), the use of the score as cue sheets is highly impractical.18
One wonders then whether these subtitles were applied later, similar to
the indications "Vorgeftihle" or "Peripetie" in the Fu'nf Orchesterstucke,
op. 16. In the beginning Schoenberg had no plans for the practical use
of his Begleitungsmusik. But Klemperer, who gave the official premiere
performance of this piece in November 1930 in Berlin, suggested to
Schoenberg that the music be combined with a film:19 "We have
accepted the film music. I believe that it will be effective as a pure
concert piece. Would you consider it possible that an artist (perhaps)
Moholy invented an abstract film for your music which can perhaps
even be played in concert together with your music? Or is this against
your way of thinking?"20 Schoenberg replied:
98 The Musical Quarterly

I find your suggestion about the abstract film, after thinking it over and
over, very tempting indeed, since it solves the problem of this "music to
no film." Only one thing, the horror of the Berlin staging of my two stage
works, the abomination which was here committed because of lack of
faith, missing talent, ignorance, and thoughtlessness and which has dam-

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aged my works very deeply in spite of the musical accomplishments, this
horror is still making me shake all over too much, so that I must be very
cautious. How shall I protect myself against such matters? I do not know
Mr. Moholy. But if I have especially bad luck, then he combines the ras-
cally, ignorant skepticism of a Mr. Rabenalt with the unimaginative
decency of Mr. Schlemmer. There seems to be only one way: that Mr.
Moholy works on the film together with me (in that case there is at least
one participant who can think of something). But perhaps that can be
done?21

Schoenberg did not pursue this suggestion further. At a discussion

of the Berliner Rundfunk in 1931, Heinrich Strobel asked Schoenberg
about the use of the Begleitungsmusik as a film score, and Schoenberg
emphasized that his score would be best matched to future films with a
decidedly artistic orientation. 22 Yet much later his Begleitungsmusik
served filmmakers like Luc Ferrari, Jan Morthenson, Jean-Marie Straub,
and Danielle Huillet as a basis for the conception of a Lichtspielszene
(film scene), whereby the genesis of a film was reversed and the music
exerted structural influence on the pictorial fashioning. 23 The Straub-
Huillet film Introduction to Arnold Schoenberg's Accompaniment to a Cine-
matic Scene (1972) is a socially critical film with marked political focus.
The filmmakers combine Schoenberg's music with the reading of a text
by Brecht, as well as two of Schoenberg's letters to Kandinsky, in which,
as early as 1923, he anticipated the great disaster of Europe's steadily
growing anti-Semitism. The viewer sees the various text readers, Huillet
with a cat, war graves, and the preparation and execution of an air
attack on Vietnam, as well as headlines about the acquittal of two Vien-
nese concentration-camp architects. When Lukas Foss conducted the
Begleitungsmusik at California's Ojai Festival in 1979, he used a scene of
F. W. Murnau's 1922 horror classic Nosferatu, projecting it on a screen
behind the orchestra. 24 And more recently David Neumeyer applied
parts of Schoenberg's op. 34 experimentally to various scenes from
Frankenstein (1931), Der blaue Engel (1930), and The Public Enemy
(1931 ). 25 The American premiere of the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Licht-
spielszene took place in the film capital of Los Angeles in July 1933,
shortly before Schoenberg was to settle there. Nicolas Slonimsky con-
ducted the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, although with some opposition,
in a "Twilight" Sunday Concert of the Hollywood Bowl.26
 Arnold Schoenberg and the Cinematic An 99

As a resident of Hollywood, Schoenberg was more than ever confronted

with the phenomenon of film. A neighbor of Shirley Temple in Brent-
wood, Schoenberg was on friendly terms with Joseph Achron, Paul
Dessau, Hugo Riesenfeld,27 George Gershwin, Louis Gruenberg, Werner
Janssen, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alexandre Tansman, Ernst Toch, and

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Nathaniel Shilkret, all of whom offered their compositional capabilities,
in considerable measure to the film industry. Schoenberg was also in
contact again with his earlier student Hanns Eisler, who was deeply
engaged in the film medium in the United States and was, among many
activities, one of Charlie Chaplin's assistants during the 1940s.28
Schoenberg also corresponded in various matters with important film
composers such as Alex North, John Green, Gail Kubik, Sigmund
Romberg, and the future composer of numerous Alfred Hitchcock film
scores, Bernard Herrmann, who recorded Schoenberg's Second Chamber
Symphony, op. 38 (1906/1939), with the CBS Orchestra in New York in
1949.29
After Oscar Levant began taking lessons with Schoenberg in June
1935, Schoenberg's reputation as an excellent teacher of composition
also flourished in Hollywood circles. More and more film composers took
private lessons with Schoenberg or attended his classes at the University
of California at Los Angeles, including Ralph Rainger, Edward Powell,
Eldon Rathburn, David Raksin, Alfred Newman, Hugo Friedhofer, Serge
Hovey, Leonard Rosenman, and Franz Waxman.30 Yet Schoenberg's
commentators seem to have trouble resisting the cliched image that
most film composers sought out Schoenberg more out of curiosity, wish-
ing only to learn a few required compositional tricks. After a few weeks,
according to these critics, Schoenberg's students .turned away from him
in disappointment, since his method did not respond to their expecta-
tions. In contrast to this often condescending view of the profession of
film composition, one soon discovers that these students from the film
industry usually expressed gratitude for Schoenberg's instruction and
allowed themselves the luxury of regular private lessons for as long as
they could afford them. However, depending on fluctuations within the
movie business, Hollywood composers often ran short of money and
were forced to make certain sacrifices. Although they ended their lessons
with Schoenberg, they remained in friendly contact with him, expressed
their appreciation, and offered to help him with everyday problems.
Forced to make a new life for himself and his family, Schoenberg could
make good use of the money from these rather expensive private lessons.
He also did not have to struggle with beginners but instead discovered in
the film composers students who already knew something of the craft of
composing.
100 The Musical Quarterly

One of his most talented pupils was the legendary Oscar Levant,
the Gershwin pianist, composer, and broadcast entertainer ("Informa-
tion Please") who participated for a time in numerous film projects such
as The Street Girl (1929) and Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936). Levant
took lessons with Schoenberg over several years and under his guidance

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composed a Piano Concerto (1936) and a String Quartet (1937), as well
as a Nocturne for Orchestra that was premiered in a symphony concert
of the Federal Music Project together with Schoenberg's Pelleas und
Melisande, op. 5 (1903). Despite a change of residence that terminated
his lessons, in the following years Levant maintained friendly ties with
Schoenberg and did him various favors. He brought Schoenberg
together with George Gershwin and, according to his memoir, also with
Harpo Marx, Beatrice Lillie, and Fanny Brice.31 In October 1935 he
arranged a meeting with Charlie Chaplin, whom Schoenberg admired
greatly.32 Moreover, in 1939 Levant helped Schoenberg become a mem-
ber of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers
(ASCAP). However, the vague negotiations regarding the commission
of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, op. 42, eventually strained the rela-
tionship between the two men. Levant, who had initially requested a
piano piece from Schoenberg, inspired his former teacher to embark on a
large-scale piano concerto. In August 1942 Levant was still in agreement
in principle with the concerto project and also seemed not to place any
definite financial limitations on it. Eventually, however, he reassessed
Schoenberg's high monetary demands and backed out of the project.33
While the relations of Levant with Schoenberg appear extraordi-
nary, the interaction between Ralph Rainger and Schoenberg can be
considered exemplary.34 Between 1934 and 1937, Rainger participated in
many successful film projects such as Little Miss Marker (1934), The Devil
Is a Woman (1935), and Waikiki Wedding (1937) and eventually became
known principally for his song "Thanks for the Memory" from The Big
Broadcast of J938.35 Until his premature death in 1942, Rainger kept his
teacher well informed about the Hollywood scene, even after his own
financial situation had worsened, forcing him to drop his private lessons.
Rainger's letters to Schoenberg confirm his attachment to his teacher:
All during this summer I was kept busy writing a Broadway show. After
four months of strenuous work, the show lasted only two weeks on the
road and closed. I am happy to report that at least its failure was not due
to the music. But it has left me in a very questionable position financially,
not only for the present but alsoforthe near future. There is absolutely no
prospect immediately at hand of my doing anything either in New York or
in Hollywood . . . The short year I spent with you is undoubtedly the most
valuable I've had. Your gentle teachings have stayed with me and have
 Arnold Schoenberg and the Cinematic Art 101

guided me many many times. 1 genuinely look forward to the time when I
can again study with you.36

When Rainger described such difficulties, Schoenberg did not hesitate to

encourage him to trust his considerable talent.37

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As in the case of Rainger, Schoenberg's instruction had a lasting effect
on David Raksin. Raksin was then Chaplin's musical assistant and coop-
erated with the comedian on the music for Modern Times. After his first
lessons in harmony and counterpoint, he brought along to Schoenberg
sketches for the film scores on which he was then working: "Since I was
almost always busy with film scores, I would bring him bits and pieces as
the work progressed. When I was on recording deadline, we would spend
our time together analyzing scores that seemed pertinent to the subject
of the moment. Schoenberg would bring from his library an example of
someone's solution of a problem with which we were occupied, and if I
could not elucidate both problem and solution he would either guide me
toward them or explain the significance of the passage himself. As a way
of learning it was effective and thrilling."38
Raksin also pointed out that Schoenberg approached certain com-
positional problems with an attitude similar to that of film composers:
"If one was assigned, for instance, to a film about some esoteric time or
place, the practice was to seek out music with appropriate or related
musical characteristics, to attempt to absorb these and then—without
borrowing their actual notes or contriving rude imitations—to try to
evoke the desired atmosphere."39 Raksin's lessons with Schoenberg came
to an end because of declining scoring commissions. But afterward Rak-
sin's film scores repeatedly made reference to Schoenberg. His score for
Force of Evil (1948) incorporates sketches and studies from his lessons
with Schoenberg. For an intricate nocturnal love scene in Separate
Tables (1958), Raksin composed a string piece which he entitled "Ver-
kehrte Nacht" [Topsy-turvy Night] in a punning allusion to Schoen-
berg's Verkldrte Nacht [Transfigured Night]. Schoenberg respected Rak-
sin's most famous film score, Laura (1944), later telling one of his
students that he regarded the film's music highly.

Schoenberg considered Alfred Newman, the director of music at Twenti-

eth Century-Fox, and Franz Waxman, an influential and prolific com-
poser, not as mere students, but also as important contacts to help his
friends and pupils find employment in the film industry.40 Newman not
only initiated the first recordings of Schoenberg's four string quartets (by
the Kolisch Quartet in 1936-37) but also persuaded the independent
102 The Musical Quarterly

producer Samuel Goldwyn to fund the project. In 1938 he also engaged

S'choenberg to present the Academy Award for the best film score of
1937-41 Although Schoenberg was supposed to give a speech about the
"importance of music to pictures and complimenting the winning pic-
ture as a fine achievement in scoring,"42 he expressed his hope for better

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times "when the severe conditions and laws of modernistic music will be
no hindrance any more toward a reconciliation with the necessities of
the moving picture industry," and he hoped that the movie industry
would gradually succeed in familiarizing future moviegoers with modern
ways of musical expression.43 Unfortunately, because of illness, Schoen-
berg had to cancel his speech and his participation at the ceremonial
banquet of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. When
Universal Pictures and its music director, Charles Previn (Andre
Previn's second cousin), received the award for the score of A Hundred
Men and a Girl by Henry Koster, winning over thirteen other films,
among them Souls at Sea, some brief remarks of Schoenberg's were
read.44

In the late 1920s and early 1930s Schoenberg enjoyed going to the cin-
ema and appreciated the high entertainment value of American films.45
He looked forward to the development of the sound film and expected a
"renaissance of the arts."46 He compared feature films to opera and the-
ater performances and demanded from them the highest possible stan-
dards. He even expected to be able to see film productions of Goethe's
Faust 11, Balzac's Seraphita, or Wagner's Parsifal. Of course, he soon
became disillusioned. Living at the center of the film industry, he must
have been all the more aware of film as product for the masses. In the
1930s and 1940s the American film industry produced over 500 feature
films yearly. Because of this, Schoenberg wrote a critical essay in 1940
titled "Art and the Moving Pictures." And despite the different produc-
tion conditions and the different goal of the motion pictures of that era,
he criticized their vulgar and sentimental character, their naive and sim-
plistic screenplays, their realistic backdrops, and their lack of classical
music, as well as the uncritical and undemanding attitude of movie audi-
ences. He demanded a high-quality cinematic art:

There can, and must be founded a production of plays and operas to sat-
isfy the demands of the more highly educated, plus the demands of art. 1
do not assume that the industry, which at present produces moving pic-
tures could, or cares to start such a turn towards pure art . . . This could
only be done by new men. I, further do not assume that the theatres
which are owned by the industry should be used for such works of art. Art
does not need so much pomp. Its own splendor creates a scene of dignity,
which cannot be surpassed by materialistic profusion.4'
 Arnold Schoenberg and the Cinematic Art 103

Schoenberg hardly criticized the film composers in Hollywood here

or in other texts. But when he was approached by John Green on the
occasion of a fundraiser, the United Jewish Welfare Drive, he voiced his
reservations about the freelance composers in Hollywood. In a letter to

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Green he distanced himself from those "who did better in earning": "I
am no Hollywood composer . . . and I never enjoyed the advantage in
writing Hollywood style."48 Rather, Schoenberg declared his solidarity
with his "poor colleagues" who had to fight a harder struggle for survival
and refused any donation.
In 1940 Schoenberg also created a lengthy proposal for a "School
for Soundmen," which he planned to present to the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences.49 Therein Schoenberg unfolded his pedagogi-
cal experience regarding film composition and his specific cinemato-
graphic ideas. A "soundman" was, according to Schoenberg, a person
involved in the production of a sound track and/or in recording and
broadcast techniques. The term "soundman" referred not only to sound
technicians, sound engineers, and sound mixers, but also to film com-
posers, arrangers, and orchestrators. Schoenberg states, "I would be ready
to found a School for Soundmen (Movie and Radiotechnic [sic]) pur-
porting to give its students a scientific and practical training in all fields
pertaining to musical and technical necessities of Motion Pictures,
Radio and Phonograph." For those so-called soundmen he envisioned a
special studio-technical and musical training that would include intro-
ductory courses in mathematics, physics, acoustics, chemistry, and
mechanics, as well as thorough training in score reading, music theory,
ear training, harmony, counterpoint, composition, orchestration, and
conducting. The technical training was intended to give the student a
solid foundation so that he might actively take part in the latest techni-
cal developments, or at least comprehend them. Specialized musical
courses would be available for composers, arrangers, or orchestrators. For
talented composition students he planned lessons in musical illustration
and in the technique of dramatic composition, and he differentiated
(referring to the divisions in the film business) between composers,
arrangers, and orchestrators who have to complete specific studies:
For composers: 1) How to derive characteristics out of the pictures; 2)
How to plan the length of a reel; 3) Transition from one mood or charac-
ter to another; 4) How to illustrate actions, moods, characters, etc. 5)
Providing for cuts extensions.
For arrangers: 6) Where to look for similar illustration; 7) How to change
music in order to fit better as illustration; 8) How to insert characteristic
segments; 9) How to cut out misleading or uncharacteristic segments; 10)
How to use motives or themes or whole melodies of "free" compositions;
11) Accommodation for purpose.
104 The Musical Quarterly

For orchestrators: 1) How to illustrate action, moods, characters, etc. 2)

Addition of characteristic accompaniment; 3) Deriving characteristic
additions from the main voice (theme); 4) Use of different registers and
their combinations; 5) Expressive effect of main voice (theme); 6) the
Unison; 7) Use of legato and staccato as regards to character and sonority;

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8) Transparency.

In "School for Soundmen," Schoenberg particularly criticized pro-

ducers and directors.

The American film production is renowned for the accuracy and thor-
oughness by which it works out every little detail. It is one of its most
important technical merits that even minor traits are treated with the
greatest of care . . . one must wonder why the relation between music and
action, and between music and words is left in such an imperfect state . . .
Why is music added to movies, if not because it contributes considerably
to the effect. . . Nobody is doubtful about the magic power of music, and
nobody denies that this power also affects those whose sense of music is of
the lowest standard. As nobody can escape the waves of cosmic rays, or of
electricity or of gravitation, so nobody can escape entirely the magic
effect of these well arranged acoustic waves which we call music. I know
many grave instances in which neglect for the effect of this power pro-
duces imperfection, imbalance, shortcomings which otherwise are not to
be found in the action, in the dramatization, in the scenery nor in the
photography . . . There is a problem, and it occurs in every movie, when
music "underscores" a scene in which actors have to talk. But how is this
problem resolved: In the roughest and most damaging manner. Without
the regard to the formal and logical conditions of the "underscoring"
music, it is simply turned down to the lowest pianissimo, destroying every
possible contribution of the music toward a greater effect. A talented and
ambitious composer might have strengthened his imagination and inven-
tiveness to the highest degree in order to produce the highest support to
the mood, the character, the psychology of the scene; experienced as he is
in "underscoring" he might have foreseen this problem of acoustics, and
with a skillful and subtle hand an orchestrator might have tried the
utmost to remain below the sound of the voice. But what happens: the
most rough hand simply turns down, what the most delicate hand has pro-
duced. Thus an effect of the highest order, an effect of which nobody
could escape, is simply and coldbloodily [sic] killed.

However, Schoenberg's specifically trained soundmen would guar-

antee better results in the coordination of picture, text, and music and
would know how to deal with the film music in a highly responsible way.
Schoenberg outlined some of his goals for training a soundman:
 Arnold Schoenberg and the Cinematic Art 105

A student who graduates from this school should be able to study a score
and build up in his imagination a perfect image of the sound of this score.
His eartraining shall then enable him a) tofindout whether or not a
recording harmonizes with the image in his imagination; b) to define'
exactly the differences between his image and the sound of the recording;

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c) to indicate what should be corrected and how; d) if necessary suggest or
even carry out such mechanical improvements of all acoustic, physical or
mechanical devices as might be necessary for the case in question.

But would Schoenberg's soundmen be able to prevail against the

producers' and directors' decisions? The project of a school for soundmen
never came to fruition, though Schoenberg's ideas found their way into
his outline for a university music department, which he presented in
1946 to Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago.50 The
"School for Soundmen" can be considered a visionary and pioneering
work for the later establishment of courses for film composers, sound
mixers, and sound engineers.

One might ask whether Schoenberg may have influenced film music and
filmmaking, and if so, how? Most film scores of the 1930s and 1940s are
based on compositional principles of the mid and late nineteenth cen-
tury and are influenced by the music of Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, Delius,
or Richard Strauss, to cite only the most prominent names. When
teaching, Schoenberg never imposed his own compositional methods on
his pupils but customarily preferred to use examples of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. And although from the late 1940s on one
finds occasional examples of film scores using "modernistic ideas and
ways of expression," Schoenberg's hopes for the film medium seem not to
have been fulfilled. Most of today's film scores are still dominated by tra-
ditional idioms. One can only speculate whether the reason for this con-
servatism is to be found in the sure success of well-established proce-
dures, in the public's satisfaction with traditional film music, or in the
restraints imposed by producers and directors. Raksin, whose pathbreak-
ing film scores Laura (1944) and Force of Evil (1948) contain abundant
dissonance as well as complex atonal and polytonal textures, is con-
vinced that movie audiences can be gradually educated musically, if
given the chance:

The audience is actually a thousand times more receptive to progressive

musical trends than most of our producers (and some of our critics) give
them credit for... By the process of unconscious musical education that
goes on through the constant hearing offilmmusic we can encourage
that willingness to progress, to accept to ask for the new . . . All this must
106 The Musical Quarterly

be accomplished gradually; not until we can find at least fifty per cent of
our total audience burgeoning into an emotional response at the sound of
"Pierrot Lunaire," can we consider its harmonic idiom an efficient means
of communicating with them . . . an audience that can accept plainsong
in films when the occasion demands it, can certainly adju.c: itself to some

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of the advanced musical idioms of today.51

Even before Raksin, Eisler used twelve-tone methcds in his film

scores Regen (1929/1940) and Eis (Naturszenen) (1943). He refashioned
the music of Regen and, on the occasion of Schoenberg's seventieth
birthday, dedicated the score to him with the new title Vierzehn Arten,
den Regen zu beschreiben, op. 70, in which the revised instrumentation
pays homage to Pierrot Lunaire. In his 1947 essay Composing for Films,
cowritten with Adorno, Eisler in addition emphasized the need for more
appropriate new musical resources and made reference to compositional
techniques of Schoenberg, Bartok, and Stravinsky.52 Roberto Gerhard,
Jerry Goldsmith, and Roman Vlad also made use of Schoenbergian pro-
cedures, and Leonard Rosenman, who studied with Schoenberg in 1947,
used atonal and dodecaphonic techniques when scoring East of Eden
(1955) and The Cobweb (1955).53 The latter film score actually reflects
the strong influence of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, op. 42 (1942).
Moreover, the British composer Benjamin Frankel provided The Curse of
the Werewolf (1961) with a serial score.54 Yet atonality and dodecaphony
generally appear in negative contexts and are quite frequently used as
steteotypes in science fiction, horror, or thriller genres. In Ernest Gold's
film score On the Beach (1959), a twelve-tone theme symbolizes radioac-
tivity: "I used the 12-tone set approach in this sequence to bring out the
chain reaction of radiation, the billiard balls analogy used in freshman
physics. This is precisely where I like the 12-tone system—it is like
physics to me."55 And in his music for King of Kings (1961), Miklos
Rozsa underscored the character of Lucifer with a twelve-tone theme.
This use seems in part to have something to do with Rozsa's own per-
sonal rejection of serial music. It also alludes to Thomas Mann's novel
Doktor Faustus (1947).

Whereas numerous abstract films by Peter Kubelka, Kurt Kren, Mark

Adrian, or John Whitney were influenced by serial principles, their use
in film music is limited.56 Yet Schoenberg, whose work certainly can-
not be limited to twelve-tone composition, influenced filmmaking in
various other ways, particularly through his teaching of numerous film
composers and through his essay "Art and the Moving Pictures." Holly-
wood, Schoenberg's adopted home, challenged him with new and
unusual projects and left its mark on some of his works. A notable
 Arnold Schoenberg and the Cinematic Art 107

instance is Schoenberg's participation in the seven-part collective com-

position Genesis (1945), commissioned by Nathaniel Shilkret. Yet Hol-
lywood did not spoil his artistic approach, contrary to the assessment of
Olin Downes, expressed after the New York premiere of the Suite for
String Orchestra in G in October 1935:57 "Only one thing more fantas-

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tical than the thought of Arnold Schonberg in Hollywood is possible,
and that thing has happened. Since arriving there about a year ago,
Schonberg has composed in a melodic manner and in recognizable keys.
That is what Hollywood has done to Schonberg. We may now expect
tonal fugues by Shirley Temple."

Despite numerous offers from the film industry, Schoenberg never car-
ried out any film scoring project in his lifetime, even though he ap-
proached film music when he wrote sketches for The Good Earth and
outlined his treatise "School for Soundmen." His Begleitungsmusik fur
erne Lichtspielszene, considered by Eisler to be a "landmark pointing the
way for the full and accurate use of the new musical resources" in film
scoring, had to await the attention of such later producers and directors
as Straub and Huillet.58 Schoenberg's operas Moses und Aron (1930/
1932) and Von Heute aufMorgen, op. 32 (1928/1929) were coproduced
and directed by Straub and Huillet in 1975 and 1996 respectively, result-
ing in outstanding film projects independent of any commercial film
business.59 In using film techniques very economically and unconven-
tionally in these projects, Straub and Huillet seemed to adhere to
Schoenberg's visionary idea of a "pure cinematic art."

Notes
Many thanks to R. Wayne Shoaf, Marilyn McCoy, and Deborah How of the Arnold
Schoenberg Institute at the University of Southern California at Los Angeles and to
Therese Muxeneder of the Arnold Schonberg Center Vienna. I am also very grateful to
Leonard Stein, Joseph Auner, Don Gillespie, and Cole Gagne for their comments on
earlier drafts of this essay.

1. Salka Viertel's description of this event seems, however, to offer the most detailed
account. She was herself an employee of the MGM story department, arranged the con-
tact between Schoenberg and Thalberg, and was present as translator during the negotia-
tions. See The Kindness of Strangers: A Theatrical Life, Vienna, Berlin, Hollywood (New
York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1969), 206-208.

2. Arnold Schoenberg, Kleine Skizzenbiicher V und VI. "The Good Earth" (Pearl S. Buck)
Themen fiir eine Filmmusik fur dieses Buch, Arnold Schonberg Center Vienna.

3. Arnold Schoenberg, calendar entry of 20 Nov. 1935, Arnold Schonberg Center

Vienna.
108 The Musical Quarterly

4. Arnold Schoenberg to Irving Thalberg, letter of 6 Dec. 1935, Arnold Schonberg

Center Vienna. Thalberg apparently did not reply to Schoenberg. He died before finish-
ing the film. Albert Lewin was the coproducer, Sidney Franklin the director, and Herbert
Stothart (1885-1949) the composer of the film music for The Good-Earth. Stothart, one
of MGM's influential musicalfiguresduring the 1930s and renowned for his scoring of

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The Wizard ofOz (1939), actually frequented Schoenberg's house. Leonard Stein remem-
bers a dinner at which "Schoenberg and Stothart found common ground discussing Puc-
cini." Leonard Stein to the author, letter of 1 Feb. 1999.
5. See Tony Thomas, "Hollywood and Arnold Schoenberg," Cue Sheet 3, no. 1 (1986):
8.
6. Arnold Schoenberg to Else Lasker-Schiiler, letter of 3 Oct. 1937, Arnold Schonberg
Center Vienna. In this letter Schoenberg also warned Lasker-Schuler of too great expec-
tations and of the low intellectual level of Hollywood. He also mentioned that there had
been several attempts to use his name to cover disgraceful productions. Unfortunately
there was no mention of the title or content of Lasker-Schiller's play. Lasker-Schiiler's
letter to Schoenberg is not available.
7. Arnold Schoenberg to Charlotte Dieterle, letter of 30 July 1936, in Arnold Schoen-
berg, Letters, ed. Erwin Stein, trans. Eithne Wilkins and Ernest Kaiser (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), 198. It seems that Dieterle, who in
the 1930s made a series of biographical films (Pasteur, Zola), did not follow up on the
Beethoven project.
8. Interestingly, Schoenberg uses cinematic vocabulary to describe aspects of Enuartung
and Die Gluckliche Hand: "In Eruiartung the aim is to represent in slow motion every-
thing that occurs during a single second of maximum spiritual excitement, stretching it
out to half an hour, whereas in Die Gluckliche Hand a major drama is compressed into
about 20 minutes, as if photographed with a time-exposure." Arnold Schoenberg, Style
and Idea, ed. Leonard Stein, trans. Leo Black (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1984), 105.
9. Arnold Schoenberg to Emil Hertzka, letter of fall 1913, in Schoenberg, Letters,
43-45. Jeremy Tambling regards the stage directions, the magic effects, and the predomi-
nance of action over singing as cinematic, but he considers the text too monologic. See
Opera, Ideology, and Film (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), 72. Regard-
ing a production of his opera, Moses und Aron, Schoenberg also thought about introduc-
ing a film sequence into the scene of the Golden Calf (act 2): "Eine konzertmassige Auf-
fuhrung des Tanzes um das Goldene Kalb halte ich fur nahezu unmoglich, da die Musik
durchaus illustrierend ist . . . Vielleicht ist irgendeine Filmgesellschaft dazu bereit, die
wichtigsten Momente movie-massig aufzunehmen?" Arnold Schoenberg to Hermann
Scherchen, letter of 29 Apr. 1950, Arnold Schonberg Center Vienna. "Es sind manche
Dinge da, die ich verlange, von denen ich immer gewusst habe, dass sie mit den heutigen
Materialien kaum ausfiihrbar sind. Vielleicht muss man da irgendeinen Ausweg finden,
mit Movies oder dergleichen . . . Zum Beispiel: Wenn zwolf Reiter auf die Biihne stur-
men und sich nicht darum kummern, ob sie jemand nicht dabei niedertreten, das ist
wohl sehr schvver zu machen, anders als mit Movies." Arnold Schoenberg to Hermann
Scherchen (Schweizerischer Rundfunk), letter of 1950, Arnold Schonberg Center
Vienna.
10. Arnold Schoenberg, "Gibt es eine Krise der Oper?" Musikbldtter des Anbruch 8, no.
5 (1926): 209.
 Arnold Schoenberg and the Cinematic Art 109

11. Arnold Schoenberg, "The Future of the Opera" (1927), in Style and Idea, 336.
12. Arnold Schoenberg, "Uber den sprechenden Film" (1927), unpubl. manuscript,
Arnold Schonberg Center Vienna. Also see Arnold Schoenberg to Dr. [Guido| Bagier,
letter of 4 Feb. 1927. Schoenberg actually tried in vain to get his son Georg a job as an
actor in an Ufa-film. Schoenberg to Dr. Bagier, letter of 12 Mar. 1927, Arnold Schonberg

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Center Vienna.
13. See Klaus Pringsheim, Gesellschaft der Filmautoren Deutschlands, to Arnold
Schoenberg, letter of Nov. 1929, Arnold Schonberg Center Vienna.
14. See Arnold Schonberg—Franz Schreker Briefwechsel, ed. Friedrich C. Heller (Tutzing:
Hans Schneider, 1974), 67-68. In 1930 Schreker actually composed Four Pieces for Film
Music, published as Four Little Pieces.
15. Schonberg-Schreker Brief wechsel, 81. See also Arnold Schoenberg to Comedia Ton-
film (Franz Schreker), letter of 13 Apr. 1932, Arnold Schonberg Center Vienna.
16. Since most of Heinrichshofen's Schoenberg material was destroyed during World
War 11, it is difficult to track down and verify the history of the piece. One must depend
mainly on journalistic information such as the following tidbit: "To Accompany a
'Thriller': The 'Begleitmusik' was written last year at the instigation of the Heinrichs-
hofen's Publishing Company and formed part of a volume of unpublished works of Ger-
man composers which that firm issued in honor of its jubilee." Geraldine de Courcy,
"Schonberg's Music for Movies," Musical America 50, no. 19 (1930): 50.
17. Familiar examples are Saint-Saens's Assassinat du due de Guise (1908), Mascagni's
UArnica and Rapsodia Satanica (both 1915), Milhaud's L'lnhumaine (1923), Satie's L'En-
tr'acte Cinematografique (1924), Honegger's La Roue (1924) and Napoleon (1927), and
Shosta-kovich's Novi Vavilon (1929).
18. In this connection see the analysis of the work by David Hush, "Modes of Continu-
ity in Schoenberg's Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene, Op. 34," Journal of the Arnold
Schoenberg Institute 8, no. 1 (1984): 1-45 (suppl.).
19. The first performance of the Begleitungsmusik took place on 28 Apr. 1930, with
Hans Rosbaud conducting the Siidwestfunk Symphony Orchestra at Frankfurt. But since
the piece was played in a broadcast concert without a live audience, the performance was
apparently not considered a real premiere. See Joan Evans, "New Light on the First Per-
formances of Arnold Schoenberg's Opera 34 and 35," Journal of the ArnoU Schoenberg
Institute 11, no. 2 (1988): 163-67.
20. Otto Klemperer to Arnold Schoenberg, letter of 1 July 1930, Arnold Schonberg
Center Vienna.
21. Arnold Schoenberg to Otto Klemperer, letter of 18 July 1930, Arnold Schonberg
Center Vienna.
22. See "Diskussion im Berliner Rundfunk mit Dr. Preussner und Dr. Strobel," in
[Arnold Schonberg], Sti/ uruf Gedanke: Aufsdtze zur Musik, ed. Ivan Vojtech, vol. 1 of
Gesammelte Schriften (Nordlingen and Reutlingen: S. Fischer, 1976), 281.
23. In 1949 Jean Mitry based his film of the same name on Honegger's symphonic set-
ting Pacific 231 and in 1951 conceived his film /mages pour Debussy in conjunction with
the piano piece Reflets dans I'eau by Debussy.
: 10 The Musical Quarterly

24- Foss made use of the scenes in which "the hero, on Count Nosferatu's castle bal-
cony, writes and mails a letter full of apprehension to his wife in a distant city. He signs a
rental contract with Nosferatu. Later, in his room, he senses stirrings outside his door:
the Count enters to claim his fearful prize. The wife, far off, senses the danger, halluci-
nates, sleepwalks and collapses as Nosferatu, now sated, departs the room." William Mal-

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loch, "Music for the Silent Cinema," program notes, Ojai Festival, 18 May 1979.
25. David Neumeyer, "Schoenberg at the Movies: Dodecaphony and Film," Music The-
ory Online 0, no. 1 (1993): 1-9.
26. Slonimsky's concert was not reviewed in the Los Angeles Times. Instead a substan-
tial article appeared on the day of the concert questioning the conductor's ability and the
programming of "ultra-modern" compositions. See Isabel M. Jones, "What Is Test of
Ability for an Orchestral Conductor?" Los Angeles Times, 23 July 1933.
27. Hugo Riesenfeld (1879-1939) came to Hollywood in the early 1920s to work for
United Artists and Paramount, where he composed film scores for The Ten Command-
ments (1923) and Grass (1925). He found a place for Schoenberg to live in a Hollywood
canyon; and, in gratitude, Schoenberg gave him a manuscript of his transcription of
Reger's Romantic Suite. Leonard Stein to the author, letter of 1 Feb. 1999. In 1935
Schoenberg actually made a caricature of Riesenfeld. See Lawrence Schoenberg and
Ellen Kravitz, "Catalog of Arnold Schoenberg's Paintings, Drawings and Sketches," Jour-
nal of the Arnold. Schoenberg Institute 2, no. 3 (1978): 220, no. 184.
28. Thanks to Schoenberg's recommendation, in 1927 Eisler received the opportunity
to compose the music for Walter Ruttmann's abstract short film Opus 111.
29. Schoenberg was also in touch with the film directors Ernst Lubitsch, Hans Richter,
and Orson Welles, as well as with the screenplay writers Clifford Odets and Salka Vier-
tel.
30. Marc Blitztein, a student of Schoenberg from 1927 to 1928, devoted himself
repeatedly to the composition of film music (Hdnde [1928], Surf and Seaweed [both
1931], and War Department Manual [1935]). Another Schoenberg pupil, Walter Gronos-
tay, specialized in film music (Alles dreht sich—alles bewegt sich, by Hans Richter [1929],
and Olympische SpielelFest der Volker by Leni Riefenstahl [1938]), and Josef Zmigrod, who
studied with Schoenberg in Berlin, wrote numerous film scores also under the pseudo-
nym Allan Gray (Emil und die Detektive [1931], The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
[1943], and The African Queen [1951]). Dika Newlin, who from age fourteen took lessons
from Schoenberg, became especially active as an actress, scriptwriter, producer, and film
composer. One of her screenplays, Rockingham, uses Schoenberg as its central character.
Dika Newlin to the author, 14 May 1997.
31. See Oscar Levant, A Smattering of Ignorance (New York: Doubleday, 1940), 65-66.
However, the meeting with Marx, Lillie, and Brice mentioned by Levant cannot be veri-
fied from Schoenberg's engagement calendar.
32. According to Chaplin, Eisler introduced Schoenberg to him: "Hanns Eisler brought
Schonberg to my studio, a frank and abrupt little man whose music I much admired, and
whom 1 had seen regularly at the Los Angeles tennis tournaments sitting alone in the
bleachers wearing a white cap and a T-shirt. After seeing my film Modem Times, he told
me that he enjoyed the comedy but my music was very bad—and I had partly to agree
with him. In discussing music one remark of his was indelible: '1 like sounds, beautiful
sounds.'" Charlie Chaplin, My Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964),
397.
 Arnold Schoenberg and the Cinematic Art 111

33. "(N]ow in reference to contract for concerto would welcome any suggestion since 1
have no precedent for dealing with it." Oscar Levant to Arnold Schoenberg, telegram of
22 Aug. 1942; see also Oscar Levant to Arnold Schoenberg, letters of 28 Sept., 6 Oct.,
and 12 Oct. 1942, Oscar Levant Satellite Collection, Arnold Schonberg Center Vienna.
34. Thanks to Rainger's advance payment for his lessons, Schoenberg could finance the

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shipment to the United States of all his furniture, which had remained in Europe. See
Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute 18-19, no. 1-2, (1995-96): 627.
35. That year's Academy Award winner, the song became the signature of Bob Hope,
who sang it in the film.
36. Ralph Rainger to Arnold Schoenberg, letter of 25 Dec. 1939; see also Ralph
Rainger to Arnold Schoenberg, letter of 16 Feb. 1940, Arnold Schonberg Center
Vienna.
37. Arnold Schoenberg to Ralph Rainger, letter of 30 Nov. 1939, Arnold Schonberg
Center Vienna.
38. David Raksin, "Schoenberg as a Teacher," Serial: Newsletter of the Friends of the
Arnold Schoenberg Institute 2, no. 1 (1988): 5.
39. Raksin, "Schoenberg as a Teacher," Serial Newsletter of the Arnold Schoenberg Insti-
tute 3, no. 1 (1989): 1.
40. See Arnold Schoenberg to Alfred Newman, letters of 23 July 1939, 26 July 1941,
and 5 Nov. 1941; see also Arnold Schoenberg to Franz Waxman, letter of 1937, Arnold
Schonberg Center Vienna.
41. See "A Movie Studio Records Arnold Schonberg's Quartets—About Alfred New-
man," New York Sun, 23 July 1938. See also Fred Steiner, "A History of the First Com-
plete Recording of the Schoenberg String Quartets," Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg
Institute 2, no. 2 (1978): 122-37.
42. Donald Gledhill to Alfred Newman, letter of 7 Mar. 1938, Arnold Schonberg Cen-
ter Vienna.
43. Arnold Schoenberg to Donald Gledhill, letter of Mar. 1938, Arnold Schonberg
Center Vienna.
44- A Hundred Men and a Girl starred Deanna Durbin and Leopold Stokowski, Schoen-
berg's great champion. Read Kendall, who reported this event, was either not present at
the ceremony or did not realize that the Schoenbergs were absent: "Irving Berlin, dean of
American popular song writers, presented the award for the best song, while Dr. Arnold
Schoenberg gave the plaque for music scoring." Kendall also claimed to have caught
sight of the Schoenbergs seated at the speakers' table next to the Irving Berlins and
Frank Capras. "Film Awards Bestowed and Picture Notables' Gowns Dazzle at Academy
Fete," Los Angeles Times, 11 Mar. 1938.
45. Pauline Alderman, who took the Schoenberg family to the movies in 1935,
observed that "Schoenberg himself liked spy movies and western scenes." Pauline Alder-
man, "1 Remember Arnold Schoenberg," Facets [University of Southern California]
(1976): 53.
46. Some of Berg's letters to Schoenberg show their common interest in films like
Robert Wiene's Dos Kabinett des Dr. Caligari (1919) and Josef von Sternberg's Der fclaue
Engel (1930). See The Berg-Schoenberg Correspondence: Selected Letters, ed. Juliane Brand,
Christopher Hailey, and Donald Harris (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), 401 and 418.
112 The Musical Quarterly

47. Arnold Schoenberg, "Art and the Moving Pictures," Arts and Architecture 57, no. 4
(1940): 40.
48. Arnold Schoenberg to John Green, letter of 18 June 1948, Arnold Schonberg
Center Vienna. Green, incidentally, organized the filming of Schoenberg's funeral. The
35-mm. silent film was made by Green's friends, most of them cameramen from Holly-

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wood. Gertrud Schoenberg Collection, Arnold Schonberg Center Vienna.
49. Arnold Schoenberg, "School for Soundmen," unpubl. manuscript, Arnold Schon-
berg Center Vienna. Although no polished version of this proposal is available, it seems
unlikely that Schoenberg would have given away his fair copy without keeping a carbon
copy for himself. He probably simply ceased to work on the project. Schoenberg probably
discussed the matter of a "School for Soundmen" with Vern O. Knudsen, a professor of
physics at UCLA. Leonard Stein to the author, letter of 1 Feb. 1999.
50. Robert M. Hutchins, letter of 12 June 1946, in Arnold Schoenberg, Letters, 241.
51. David Raksin, "Film Music Today and Tomorrow," undated, unpubl. manuscript,
Ingoif Dahl Collection, University of Southern California Los Angeles.
52. Hanns Eisler, Composing for the Films (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947),
32.
53. In 1965 Schoenberg's pupil, George Tremblay, who did not specialize in composing
for films, yet founded a "School for the Discovery and Advancement of New Serial Tech-
niques" in Los Angeles, where numerous film and television composers studied Trem-
blay's concepts. One of his serial techniques, which he used in Modes of Transportation
(1940) for string quartet, is based on three symmetrically designed eight-tone sets. It was
frequently imitated in film music and became known as the "Hollywood eight." See Irene
Kahn Atkins, An Oral History by David Raksin 1976-78, UCLA 1978 (transcript, vol. 1,
156).
54. See Buxton Orr, "Benjamin Frankel's 12-Note Serial Score for Curse of the Were-
wolf: A Musical Appreciation," Music for the Movies 8 (Spring 1995): 59-60.
55. Gregory Burt, The Art of Film Music (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994),
48.
56. See Elena Pinto Simon, "The Films of Peter Kubelka," Artforum 10, no. 8 (1972):
33-39; Peter Weibel, "Der Wiener Formalfilm," Film als Film, 1910 bis Heute: Vom Ani-
mationsfilm der zwanziger zum Filmenvironment der siebziger]ahre, ed. Birgit Hein and Wulf
Herzogenrath (Cologne: Kolnischer Kunstverein, 1977), 174-79. Austin Lamont, "An
Interview with John Whitney," Film Comment 6, no. 3 (1970): 28.
57. Olin Downes, "New Suite by Arnold Schoenberg," New York Times, 13 Oct. 1935.
See also Lawrence Gilman, "New Music by Schoenberg," New York Herald Tribune, 19
Oct. 1935.
58. Eisler, Composing for the Films, 144.
59. Various other film projects refer to Schoenberg's music. For instance, a film titled
Moon Dances (1948) by the dance photographer Thomas Bouchard and the modern
dancer Eleanor King is based on Pierrot Lunaire. In 1950 a documentary film on Schoen-
berg was planned by Bernard Livingston and Michael Field, who focused on his Wind
Quintet, op. 26, and some of his piano music. Schoenberg was informed and open
minded about both projects. After his death, numerous films, documentaries, and broad-
 Arnold Schoenberg and the Cinematic Art 113

casts were made that refer to him and his work (see list of "Video Recordings and Film in
the Archive," Website of the Arnold Schonberg Center Vienna <www.schoenberg.at/
archiv/archivl6.html>). That list does not include the television movie James Dean
(1976), directed by Robert Butler, in which Stephen McHattie as Dean comments on
Schoenberg. Furthermore, Michelangelo Antonioni used excerpts from Verklane Nacht
in 11 Mistero di Oberwald (1980), and Jean-Luc Godard incorporated sections of Verklane

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Nacht into his film Nouvelle Vague (1990) as well.