Schoenberg had developed an interest in film as a medium for his own creative work in the years before composing the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene, but his personal artistic beliefs also made him wary of it.

Robert Craft and Allen Shawn considered it one of Schoenberg's most attractive works, while Igor Stravinsky called it "best piece of real film music ever written".

[8] The artistic possibilities of film interested him,[9] but its essentially collaborative creative process ultimately dissuaded him from exploring it as a vehicle for his own work.

[16] At the time of the creation of the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene, Schoenberg had succeeded Ferruccio Busoni as professor of composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts, earned a comfortable living, and his music was regularly performed in major cities across Europe, which brought him international renown.

[17] Additionally, he had achieved a level of mastery with twelve-tone technique that allowed him to begin applying it to large-scale forms, evidence of which is discernible in the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene.

Upon hearing this, his friend Franz Schreker, a proponent for improving the standards of film music, invited him to work with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ton und Bild and, later in 1932, Comedia Tonfilm.

Adler liaisoned between Schoenberg and Heinrichshofen Verlag during negotiations; he also coordinated the work's eventual publication,[21] one of several commissioned by the publisher from German film composers for a commemorative collection.

[21] A collection of photoplay music published by Universal Edition in 1927 includes a cue composed by Gustav Lindner called "Drohende Gefahr" (Threatening Danger), which Schoenberg also used in his work's subtitle.

The negative of the manuscript score indicates a starting date of October 15, but preparations for the premiere and publication of the opera Von heute auf morgen, as well as guest conducting engagements in London, detained his progress.

[27] Carl Dahlhaus called the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene a return to the symphonic poem, a form that Schoenberg had used often in his early works, and classified it as "program music in dodecaphonic technique".

[29] During World War II, the original manuscript score, along with the rest of Heinrichshofen Verlag's archives, was stored in a salt mine in Staßfurt.

[30] The world premiere of the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene occurred on April 28, 1930, at the Broadcasting House of the Südwestdeutsche Rundfunkdienst AG in Frankfurt, Germany.

[5] After the world premiere conducted by Rosbaud, Theodor W. Adorno described the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene in a review as a "succinct introduction to twelve-note technique".

"[37] After having conducted the Austrian premiere of the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene on January 31, 1932, Webern wrote to Schoenberg: It is a wonderful piece, exciting beyond all measure.

[39] Despite the organization's desire to perform both the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene and Friede auf Erden at the 1932 ISCM Festival, Schoenberg refused to grant them permission.

A compromise was reached by including both works at a special concert of the Workers' Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Webern, that took place on June 21, 1932, during the ISCM Festival, but apart from it.

[40] Webern's "fanatically dedicated" performance was praised by the Wiener Zeitung; the ovation that greeted the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene continued several minutes into the concert's intermission.

[43] Schoenberg had included the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene on a Boston Symphony Orchestra program scheduled for January 11, 1934, that was intended to be his United States debut as a conductor,[44] but he canceled because of back strain, and the work was not played.

Despite its complex organization and evident difficulty, this music of Schoenberg to me is merely another in the lengthening parade of 12-tone pieces which rasp, scratch, whine, and make what I believe Ernest Newman once described as "nasty noises".

Craft, who had heard that the choreographer was seeking a suitable Schoenberg work to adapt into a ballet, suggested to him the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene.

[...] [A]ny listener must recognize that the surface qualities of the music, the sonorities, the rhythms, the immediate apprehendability of the form establish the work as the most accessible Schoenberg of the period.

[54]The filmic and programmatic quality of the work was a crucial part of its appeal, according to Carl Dahlhaus, who wrote that its listeners are prepared to accept dissonances they otherwise would not "since it is only film music".

[55] In 2002, Allen Shawn referred to the "concise and moody" Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene as one of Schoenberg's "most immediately appealing twelve-tone works".

The 15-minute film layers Schoenberg's music over recitations of a letter he wrote to Kandinsky in 1923 decrying anti-Semitism in Germany and a 1933 speech made by Bertolt Brecht,[57] combined with archival footage of the Paris Commune and the Vietnam War.

[58] At the 1979 Ojai Music Festival, Lukas Foss and William Malloch programmed the Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene with a screening of a scene from F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu.

[59] After Foss presented the same adaptation at a concert with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra on February 13, 1981, Bill Zakariasen wrote in his review that it was a "stroke of genius" and an "absolutely brilliant idea".