4/7/2020 Joseph Schillinger - Wikipedia

Joseph Schillinger
Joseph Moiseyevich Schillinger (Russian: Иосиф Моисеевич
Шиллингер, 1 September  [O.S. 20 August]  1895[1][2] (other sources: 31
August [O.S. 19 August] 1895[3]) – 23 March 1943) was a composer, music
theorist, and composition teacher who originated the Schillinger System of
Musical Composition. He was born in Kharkiv, in the Kharkov Governorate
of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine) and died in New York City.

Contents
Life and career
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Life and career Joseph Schillinger and the

Rhythmicon
The unprecedented migration of European knowledge and culture that
swept from East to West during the first decades of the 20th Century
included figures such as Prokofiev and Rachmaninov, great composers who were the product of the
renowned Russian system of music education. Schillinger came from this background, dedicated to
creating truly professional musicians, having been a student of the St Petersburg Imperial Conservatory
of Music. Unlike his more famous contemporaries, Schillinger was a natural teacher and communicated
his musical knowledge in the form of a precise written theory, using mathematical expressions to
describe art, architecture, design and (most insistently, and with most detail and success) music.

In New York, Schillinger flourished, becoming famous as the advisor to many of America's leading
popular musicians and concert music composers including George Gershwin, Earle Brown, Benny
Goodman, Glenn Miller, Oscar Levant, Tommy Dorsey and Henry Cowell.

George Gershwin spent four years (1932–1936) studying with Schillinger. During this period, he
composed Porgy and Bess and consulted Schillinger on matters concerning the opera, particularly its
orchestration. There has been some disagreement about the nature of Schillinger's influence on
Gershwin. After the posthumous success of Porgy and Bess, Schillinger claimed he had a large and direct
influence in overseeing the creation of the opera; George's brother Ira Gershwin completely denied that
his brother had any such assistance for this work. A third account of Gershwin's musical relationship
with his teacher was written by Gershwin's close friend Vernon Duke, also a Schillinger student, in an
article for The Musical Quarterly in 1947.[4] Some of Gershwin's notebooks from his studies with Joseph
Schillinger can be found at the Library of Congress.

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In the field of electronic music, Schillinger collaborated with Léon Theremin, the inventor of an early
electronic musical instrument, the Theremin. Schillinger wrote his First Airphonic Suite for Léon
Theremin, who played the instrument at the premiere in 1929 with the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted
by Nikolai Sokoloff.

His mathematical principles were applied to various fields other than

music. For example, Schillinger collaborated with the film maker
Mary Ellen Bute and he also published a new method of dance
notation.[5]

In the USA Schillinger taught at a number of educational institutions

but his greatest success was his postal tuition courses, which later
Chart by Joseph Schillinger became The Schillinger System of Musical Composition, published
graphing Johann Sebastian Bach's posthumously in a 2 volume set compiled by Lyle Dowling and
Invention no. 8 in F Major, BWV 779 Arnold Shaw.

Schillinger accredited a small group of students as qualified teachers

of the System and after his death, one of them, Lawrence Berk, founded a music school in Boston to
continue the dissemination of the System. Schillinger House opened in 1945 and later became the
Berklee College of Music where the System survived in the curriculum until the early 1970s.

There has been debate surrounding how many teachers were certified by Schillinger himself. The
numbers cited range from seven to twelve certified teachers. Yet, to date, only seven certified teachers of
the Schillinger System have been substantiated. Two certified teachers were Asher Zlotnik of Baltimore,
Maryland, a student and personal friend of Lyle Dowling[6] and Edwin Gerschefski.[7]

See also
Schillinger System of musical composition

References
1. Gojowy, Detlef (2005). "Schillinger, Joseph" (https://www.mgg-online.com/article?id=mgg11534&v=1.
0&q=Schillinger&rs=mgg11534). In Finscher, Ludwig (ed.). Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.
Personenteil 14 (Riccati – Schönstein) (2 ed.). Kassel/Stuttgart: Bärenreiter/Metzler. ISBN 978-3-
7618-1134-4.
2. "Schillinger, Joseph" (http://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w6ft8jhh). SNAC. Retrieved 6 September
2018.
3. James M. Burk and Wayne J. Schneider. "Schillinger, Joseph" (http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/su
bscriber/article/grove/music/24863). Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University
Press. Retrieved 31 August 2017.
4. Dukelsky, Vladimir (Vernon Duke) (1947). "Gerswhin, Schillinger, and Dukelsky: Some
Reminiscences" (http://mq.oxfordjournals.org/content/XXXIII/1/102.full.pdf+html). The Musical
Quarterly. 33: 102–115. doi:10.1093/mq/xxxiii.1.102 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fmq%2Fxxxiii.1.102).
Retrieved 22 April 2011.
5. Template:Cite web title=A Modern Instantiation of Schillinger's Dance Notation
6. "Asher G. Zlotnik Papers". University of Maryland Special Collections in Performing Arts.
hdl:1903.1/1210 (https://hdl.handle.net/1903.1%2F1210).
7. Goss, Glenda Dawn, Jean Sibelius: A Guide to Research (https://books.google.com/books?id=91q0z
aJKFREC&printsec=frontcover), Routledge (Routledge Music Bibliographies), 1997. ISBN 978-0-

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8153-1171-3. Cf. p.216 (https://books.google.com/books?id=91q0zaJKFREC&pg=PA216&lpg=PA21

6&dq=%22edwin+gerschefski%22&source=bl&ots=y1BaqTh51n&sig=qFsYNtySg0JF8ywabF71MDc
6RxY&hl=en&ei=JFkWSsuHF4iZkQWN6emBDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9) on
Edwin Gerschefski in the summary of his son's (Peter Edwin Gerschefski) Ph.D. thesis at Florida
State University in 1962 on Jean Sibelius.

Further reading
Anderson, Ruth. Contemporary American composers. A Biographical Dictionary, 2nd edition, G. K.
Hall, 1982, ISBN 081618223X
Arden, Jeremy, "Keys to the Schillinger System, course A, Basic principles and foundations"; Rose
Books 2006, ISBN 1-59386-031-5
Arden. Jeremy, Keys to the Schillinger System, course B, Basic principles and foundations.; Rose
Books 2008, ISBN 978-1-59386-032-5
Arden, Jeremy, "Focussing the musical imagination: exploring in composition the ideas and
techniques of Joseph Schillinger" (http://www.ssm.uk.net/Schillinger_Theory.pdf), Ph.D. thesis 1996,
City University, London.
Brodsky, Warren. "Joseph Schillinger (1895-1943): Music Science Promethean" American Music
21/1 (Spring, 2003): 45-73.
Butterworth, Neil. A Dictionary of American Composers, Garland, 1984.
Lyman, Darryl. Great Jews in Music, J. D. Publishers, 1986.
Sadie, Stanley; Hitchcock, H. Wiley (Ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of American Music. Grove's
Dictionaries of Music, 1986.
Schillinger.J; The Schillinger System of Musical Composition (two volumes.); Rose Books 2005;
ISBN 1-59386-028-5
Sitsky, Larry. Music of the repressed Russian avant-garde, 1900–1929, Greenwood Press, 1994.
Dowling, Lyle. A Brief Note on the Schillinger System. New York: Allied Music, 1942.
Carter, Elliott. "The Schillinger Case: Fallacy of the Mechanistic Approach." Modern Music 23 (1946):
228-230.
Cowell, Henry and Sidney. "The Schillinger Case: Charting the Musical Range," Modern Music 23/3
(1946): 226-8
Cowell, Henry. "Joseph Schillinger as Composer," Music News 39/3 (1947): 5-6
Duke, Vernon. "Gershwin, Schillinger, Dukelsky: Some Reminiscences," Musical Quarterly 33/1
(1947): 102-115
Human, Alfred. "Schillinger Challenges Genius," Musical Digest 29/8 (April, 1947): 12-14, 16.
Previn, Charles. "Schillinger's Influence on Film Music," Music News 39/3 (1947): 39-40.
Shaw, Arnold. "What is the Schillinger System?" Music News 39/3 (1947): 37-38.
Slonimsky, Nicholas. "Schillinger of Russia and the World," Music News 39/3 (1947): 3-4.
Schillinger, Frances. Joseph Schillinger: a Memoir. New York: Greenberg, 1949 (Reprint: New York:
Da Capo Press, 1976)
Solomon, Seymour. "Schillinger and 20th Century Rationalist Trends in Music," Music Forum and
Digest (Jan., 1950): 4-5
Smith, Charles Samuel. "An Analysis of Selected Mathematical Aspects of Schillinger's Approach to
Music," M.A. Thesis, University of Iowa, 1951.
Backus, John. "Pseudo-Science in Music," Journal of Music Theory 4 (1960): 221-232.
Gojowy, Detlef. "Sowjetische Avantgardisten," Musik und Bildung 1/12 (Dec. 1969): 537-542.
Vaglio, Anthony. "The Compositional Significance of Joseph Schillinger's System of Musical
Composition as Reflected in the Works of Edwin Gerschefski," Ph.D., diss. University of Rochester,
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Eastman School of Music, 1977.

Augustine, Daniel. "Four Theories of Music in the United States, 1900-1950: Cowell, Yasser, Partch,
Schillinger," Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1979.
Burk, James M. "Schillinger's Double Equal Temperament System." In The Psychology and
Acoustics of Music: a Collection of Papers, ed. E. Asmus. Lawrence, KS: [publisher], 1979.
Gilbert, Steven E. "Gershwin's Art of Counterpoint." Musical Quarterly 70/4 (1984): 423-456.
Burk, James M. "Joseph (Moiseyevich) Schillinger," in New Grove Dictionary of American Music, ed.
By H. Wiley Hitchcock. New York: Macmillan/Groves Dictionaries, 1986.
Isenberg, Arnold. "Analytical Philosophy and The Study of Art," Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 46 (1987)
Heath, James. "Joseph Schillinger: Educator and Visionary," Jazz Research Papers (IAJE) 10
(1990): 126-131.
Nauert, Paul. "Theory and Practice in Porgy and Bess: the Gershwin-Schillinger Connection,"
Musical Quarterly 78 (1994): 9-33.
Sitsky, Larry. Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900-1929. Westport: Greenwood
Press, 1994.
Beyer, Richard. "George Gershwin's Variations on 'I Got Rhythm'," Musica 49/4 (July-Aug 1995):
233-238.
Rosar, William H. "Letter to the Editor," Musical Quarterly 80 (1996): 182-184. [response and
amplification to Nauert's article]
Levinson, Ilya. "What the Triangles Have Told Me: Manifestations of the Schillinger System of
Musical Composition in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess," Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago,
1997.
Weissberg, David Jeffrey. "Fractals and Music" Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University, 2000.
Quist, Ned. "Toward a Reconstruction of the Legacy of Joseph Schillinger" MLA Notes 58/4 (June
2002): 765-786.
Review of "Music from the Ether: Original Works for Theremin" American Music 22/1 (Spring 2004):
[192]-197.

External links
The Schillinger Society (http://www.schillingersociety.com)
The Practical Schillinger Online School (http://www.practicalschillinger.com/)
Joseph Schillinger Papers, 1918-2000 (http://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/archivalcollections/pdf/
musschil.pdf) Music Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Practical Schillinger Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Practical-Schillinger/17101184
524?ref=ts)
The Joseph Schillinger Papers from The Museum of Modern Art (http://www.moma.org/research/arch
ives/EAD/Schillingerf.html)

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