The manuscript and original score, intended for sale and lending, were destroyed in the fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, according to the composer's son Larry Schönberg.
Arnold Schönberg fled from Europe in 1933, a few months after Nazi Germany introduced a law that Jewish officials would be dismissed from the civil service. Schönberg lost his job at the art academy in Berlin, moved to France, and then to California. There, he eventually got students like composer John Cage. Among his neighbors were Shirley Temple and George Gershwin, and among his new friends, Harpo Marx.