Joseph Schillinger (1895–1943): Music Science Promethean

By Warren Brodsky

Joseph Schillinger is a cult figure among music theorists. While he composed over thirty pieces between 1917 and 1941, including the first known work for an electronic instrument and orchestra in 1929, he is best known as the teacher of George Gershwin, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Vernon Duke, Oscar Levant, Charles Previn, and Carmine Coppola. However, more than anything else Schillinger was a music scientist receptive to new technologies and experimentation related to the arts. He helped solve the problem of artistically coordinating soundtrack with film track, patented inventions that foreshadowed the rhythm box and color organ, and codeveloped with Leon Theremin the first electronic synthesizer (manufactured by RCA in the early 1930s). It is claimed that his treatise describing the mathematical basis of art was heralded by Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell.