David and Art - Losing the Scores Pt.2

Last week we talked about groundbreaking modernist composer Arnold Schoenberg who died in Los Angeles in 1951. In 1965, Schoenberg’s son established Belmont Music Publishers to manage his father’s publishing rights. He also kept an official repository of Schoenberg’s scores from which orchestras worldwide could rent or buy copies. It operated out of a building behind the family house. That house was in Pacific Palisades, California. Earlier this month in the fires that have devastated the area, the house and the archive burned, and an estimated 100,000 scores and parts were destroyed.

The Belmont website posted simply that “We have lost our full inventory of sales and rental materials. We hope that in the near future we will be able to ‘rise from the ashes’ in a completely digital form.” Leon Botstein, the Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra, said that the Belmont archive played “an essential role in making Schoenberg’s music available to the public.” “It’s a catastrophe,” he said. Art galleries, studios, artists homes full of a lifetime of work, are gone.

In addition to the lives lost and artwork destroyed, there’s the architecture. More than 30 buildings that preservationists consider historically significant have burned. The New York Times says that “the diversity of destruction reveals, in a tragic way, the stunning diversity of the region’s architecture, including Modernist, Beaux-Arts, Spanish Revival, Craftsman, Art Deco, Victorian, Postmodern, and contemporary buildings.”

One of the last examples of early 20th century bungalow motels, The Topanga Ranch Motel, built in 1929, was destroyed in the Palisades fire. The home of Western novelist Zane Grey, built in 1907 and bought by the author in 1920, was destroyed in the Eaton Fire. The ranch house that Will Rogers built in the 1920s is gone.

It’s staggering and heartbreaking — I don’t know any other way to put it,” said Ken Bernstein, principal city planner at Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources. “This is widespread destruction of significant architecture and places that are cherished in our communities.”

Such a tragedy could be a reminder to other places to consider their own cultural histories and do their best to preserve them.

RECENT EPISODES OF DAVID AND ART

David and Art - Remembering a Critic

On today’s David and Art, host David Smith looks back at the life and work of a longtime art critic whose writing helped bring clarity to the modern art world, and offered readers a closer look at the artists behind it.

David and Art - Art and National Identity, Part 2

Ideas about national identity don’t just show up in politics—they show up in art and architecture, too. Today on David and Art, host David Smith continues that conversation.

David and Art - "Art and National Identity"

David Smith gives some insight as to how nations use are and architecture to define who they are.

David and Art - "The Art of a Seapower"

Art doesn't just reflect history - it can shape how we see ourselves.

David and Art - “The Theater and the University”

College campuses are places for discovery, and not all of it happens in a classroom. Today on David and Art, host David Smith looks at the role theater can play in a university education.

David and Art - John Cale

Today on David and Art, host David Smith traces the unusual path of a musician whose work helped bridge classical experimentation and rock and roll.

David and Art - A Little Global Perspective

On today's David and Art, David Smith connects Art and History through paintings that reveal how Europe followed the American Civil War, in real time.

David and Art - Open Mic Night

On today’s David and Art, host David Smith takes us inside a jazz club in New York’s West Village for a look at what happens when musicians who’ve never met share a stage—and what that kind of collaboration can teach us.

David and Art - The Artists and the President

Continuing his exploration of the problematic background behind Lynden B. Johnson's White House Arts festival, here's David Smith with this weeks installment of David and Art.

David and Art - When the Art World Came to washington

Despite his advocacy for the arts, Lyndon B. Johnson's tenure in the White House also brought political friction to the creative consciousness of 1960's America. With this week's edition of David and Art, here's David Smith.