Composer’s vast archive destroyed in fires in LA
At least 100,000 scores of the pioneering Austrian-American composer of the 20th century, Arnold Schoenberg, were destroyed in the wildfires in Los Angeles.
The sheet music was kept at his family’s music production company — which burned down last week in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
Although no original manuscripts were lost, the music owned by Belmont Music Publishing was a major collection of scores rented out to orchestras and musicians.
The director of the American Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein, said they were an “indispensable resource” for the musicians’ performances.
Schoenberg’s son Larry, 83, said the sheet music was kept in a building behind his house. Both buildings were destroyed in fires last week.
Other Schoenberg mementos were also destroyed, including photographs, letters and posters.
“For a company that has focused exclusively on the works of Schoenberg, this loss is not only a physical destruction of property, but also a profound cultural blow,” Larry said in a statement.
He described the collection as “essential” for musicians who rely on “carefully selected editions” of his father’s back catalog.
Arnold Schoenberg was born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1874. He achieved great success as a composer in Berlin before fleeing to the USA in 1933 to escape persecution by the Nazis.
Eventually he settled in Los Angeles where he continued with his revolutionary compositions. He was known for his atonality and his 12-tone technique that deviated from conventional harmonies. He died in 1951 at the age of 76 in Los Angeles.
Belmont said in a statement that he hopes to make digital copies of the scores.
“We hope that in the near future we will be able to ‘rise from the ashes’ in a completely digital form,” the statement reads.
Most of Schoenberg’s original manuscripts are kept in a museum in Vienna, Austria.
Firefighters are still struggling to control the massive wildfires in Los Angeles that broke out in early January. So far, they have killed at least 24 people, destroyed thousands of buildings and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
Two large fires are still raging in Los Angeles, including the largest fire in the Palisades that has burned more than 24,000 acres.