Eric Schissel wrote:

>Stirling S Newberry writes: (at least I think; I had a lot of trouble
>making sense of this one)
>
>>Schoenberg at the time was requiring students to write with all 12 tones,
>>but he only went over his working methods - which would be codified into
>>his 12 tone system - with a few people: Zemlinsky, Berg and Webern being
>>three of them.
>
>An interesting statement, even though of limited relevance to the original
>claim if true (which was whether Berg was .taught. serialism or 12-tone
>composition as a student, which if Steve Schwartz was right, he was not.)
>Have you any evidence for either part of your claim? (Interesting to see
>Zemlinsky included among this group, by the way.)

The statement that he was requiring all of his students to write with all
12 tones is from Schoenberg himself.

   "I went to my students and told them, write as you have before, only
   with all 12 tones."

However it is also well known that he had not explicated the method to
very many people at this time.  As for the dates that Berg, Zemlinsky and
Webern - one must deduce it from the correspondance, after all, one cannot
be arguing about that what they haven't seen.  One can deduce from the
arguments over authorship of particular ideas that Webern and Schoenberg
spoke to each other about working ideas *before* they had reached
systematic form - eg who created the term "Klangfarbenmelodie".

Later on, of course, the 12 tone system would become the *cause celebre*
of composition and Scheonberg wrote and spoke on the topic.

Stirling S Newberry
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