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- Maiko Kawabata When
did Schoenberg first come to UCLA?
Leonard Stein It
was in the fall of 1936. He had been in Los Angeles since October
1934, shortly after his sixtieth birthday on September 13. He
had departed from the East Coast (Boston and New York) after suffering
a freezing winter which affected his health (he was asthmatic),
and although he warmed up at Lake Chautauqua during the summer
of 1934, he was advised by friends that the salubrious climate
of California was not only better for his health but that he might
make a decent living teaching Hollywood film composers as well.
So he took the train from Chautauqua, accompanied by his wife,
Gertrud, and his baby daughter, Nuria, and disembarked a week
later in Pasadena. Here is how he described his first days in
California:
Today, the 25th
of November, I am sitting by the open window, writing, and my
room is full of sunshine! […] We have a very charming little
house, not too large, furnished, with many amenities customary
here but hardly known at all in Europe. (Style and Idea 29;
original in German)
- At first he taught privately.
Soon after his arrival a notice appeared in the Los Angeles
Times announcing his presence in Los Angeles: "The distinguished
composer, Arnold Schoenberg, has moved with his family to Hollywood
and is accepting students." As Pauline Alderman, a professor
of music at USC tells it, she soon got in touch with Schoenberg
and organized a class with some of her colleagues at his home
in the Hollywood Canyon. Later on, in the Spring, she signed up
twenty-five students for a private class which began with an analysis
of Bach’s Art of Fugue. However, the class soon prevailed
upon Schoenberg to discuss one of his own works, his Third String
Quartet, which he had composed in 1927. For this class Schoenberg
wrote out an analysis of the Quartet in English. It was also performed
for the class by the Abas Quartet, a local ensemble that played
all three of the Schoenberg quartets written up until that time.
- I heard the Abas Quartet
play the Third Quartet in the Spring of 1935. That was the first
time I saw Schoenberg—a rather roly-poly individual already
bronzed by the California sun. I had previously become acquainted
with some of his piano music. The Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19
had been played by my piano teacher, Richard Buhlig in 1932, I
believe, but I cannot recall hearing any other Schoenberg before
that time. From Buhlig subsequently I learned the Three Pieces,
Op. 11, pieces which he had premiered in Berlin in 1912, becoming
acquainted with Schoenberg in the process. Buhlig had known Schoenberg
in Berlin and they remained close friends as well in Los Angeles.
- Pauline Alderman arranged
an appointment for
 Schoenberg
at USC in the summer of 1935—he was a recipient of the Alchin
Chair, as it was called. He taught rather large classes in analysis
and composition. As I recall, most of the students were music
teachers, apparently with very little knowledge of the class ics,
which Schoenberg referred to in the classes. He continued to teach
special classes at USC during the following school year and through
the summer of 1936.
I attended some of these classes in composition and analysis.
- MK But how and when
did he come to UCLA?
LS As
I said at the beginning of our interview, it was in the fall
of 1936. There are various stories about his appointment to
the music faculty at UCLA. One of them concerns Otto Klemperer,
the distinguished conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra and Dr. Vern Knudsen, an eminent acoustician and Physics
professor at UCLA. Dr. Knudsen was a member of a search committee
seeking a distinguished musician for the Music Department, a
department which had not yet outgrown its Normal School origins
as part of the Education Department. The Music Department did
not even offer a BA in music at that time, only offering a teaching
degree. Dr. Knudsen heard about Schoenberg from his friend Maurice
Zam:
How UCLA got Schoenberg:
in the early Spring of 1936, I was in New York and other points
East interviewing suitable candidates to fill a professorship
in composition for the Department of Music at UCLA. My interviews
with top ranking prospects were terminated immediately following
receipt of a letter from my wife. Her letter was written immediately
following her return from a party at which Maurice Zam and other
admirers of Schoenberg were entertained by modern music. The
letter relates that when Maurice asked Florence where I was,
she replied that I was in New York, as Chairman of a Faculty
Committee searching for a professor of composition. Maurice
replied, ‘By G--, why is he searching in the East when
the greatest of all living composers is right here in Los Angeles
and is professor of music at the University of Southern California.’
I immediately called Ernest Carroll Moore, Provost of UCLA,
and recommended that he initiate negotiations with Professor
Schoenberg. He acted promptly, and with USC’s consent,
Arnold Schoenberg accepted the professorship, much to the good
fortune and glory of UCLA. (Zam 224)
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