Arnold Schönberg
1948
Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara
After he retired from his professorship at UCLA, Schönberg traveled only sporadically. One of these trips took him to Santa Barbara in the summer of 1948, where he taught and lectured for several weeks at the Music Academy of the West. In an interview with a local editor, he spoke about the need for fundamentally educating the audience in the interests of opening their ears to New Music. In the journalist’s opinion, throughout the discussion the composer certainly seemed open, even to “good popular music […]. Despite his 73 years, and his eminence as a composer and musicologist, Schoenberg is far from the ‘old fogey’ in his musical tastes.” Accordingly, this article is illustrated with the photograph of a visiting professor, standing beneath palms and radiating the best of moods.