ABSTRACT
Bernstein examines Schoenberg’s compositional influence on Cage, drawing on primary sources (students’ class notes and recollections from Schoenberg’s time at USC and UCLA) and Schoenberg’s theoretical writings from the same time. Bernstein reconstructs Cage’s experiences in Schoenberg’s analysis, composition, harmony, and counterpoint classes. Both the archival evidence and Schoenberg’s theoretical works point up topics that were likely taught in his classroom, including Schoenberg’s notion of the “musical idea,” Grundgestalt, developing variation, etc. These Schoenbergian concepts are demonstrably present in Cage’s early works from the 1930s, such as the Solo for Clarinet (1933), which uses a rudimentary and idiosyncratic twelve-tone compositional technique.
