Arnold Schönberg dedicated a canon bearing this inscription to the author Thomas Mann on his 70th birthday, which he celebrated on June 6, 1945. Schönberg and Mann probably met each other in Hollywood in 1938, although they had already been exchanging letters since 1930. When Thomas Mann came to Los Angeles in 1940, he first lived in Brentwood just a few houses away from Schönberg. Mann’s later residence in Pacific Palisades was also nearby, about two miles away. The two men were in close contact beginning in 1943. At the time, Mann was working on his novel Doctor Faustus and studying Schönberg’s Theory of Harmony as well as his oratorio Jacob’s Ladder.

Contact between the two men was never particularly affectionate, though they both frequented the salons of Alma Mahler-Werfel and Salka Viertel. Mann also praised Schönberg in his diaries for his wife Gertrud Schönberg’s exquisite coffee. Yet apart from these few social contacts and the professional correspondence surrounding the novel Doctor Faustus, the two were not especially close. Schönberg’s dedication to Mann, in which he does address him quite affectionately, is therefore surprising in this respect. In composing the short canon, Schönberg included an excessive number of difficulties, which was likely symbolic of their personal relationship. After the novel was published in 1947, a serious rift materialized between Schönberg and Mann. Schönberg had felt that the novel reflected disparagingly on him and his twelve-tone method. The conflict was never fully resolved before their deaths.