Charlie Chaplin, Arnold Schönberg

“In the Autumn of 1935 I was working in Hollywood with Charlie Chaplin on the Music of his Film, ‘Modern Times.’ On free evenings, I usually hung out with my friends and colleagues […]. On one of those evenings, Oscar [Levant], who was studying with Arnold Schönberg, told me that ‘the Old Man’ was eager to meet Chaplin. I spoke to Charlie at once, and it was arranged to visit the studio for Schönberg a few days later. […] Schönberg, with his strong sense of his own eminence and his intellectual rigor, seemed baffled by the disparity between Chaplin’s preeminent position as a film artist and his casual urbanity. It was disconcerting for the Austrian composer to find that the cinematic genius he admired so much did not affect the serious demeanor which is in some cultures the mark of greatness.” (David Raksin, 1987)