In the second half of this decade, he undertook concert tours which took him through Europe and to the USA. Having returned to Germany, he took over the job of President of the Prussian Academy of the Arts in 1932, succeeding Max Liebermann. From March 1933 until his death, Schillings was also the artistic director of the Städtische Oper Berlin. He died in 1933 from a pulmonary embolism in Berlin. His ashes were entombed at Frankfurt-am-Main. His composition work includes several operas, melodramas, choral works, chamber music pieces, violin and piano concertos, symphonic poems and works for stage (see list below). His most important work is undoubtedly his opera "Mona Lisa" (first performed on September 26, 1915 in Stuttgart), which became one of the most-performed operas in Germany until his death. He stands beside Engelbert Humperdinck and Richard Strauss as one of the composers who re-established the music form of melodrama at the start of the 20th century. Schillings was renowned as a music educator - one of his more famous students was Wilhelm Furtwängler. He was the dedicatee of "Sea Drift" by Frederick Delius. Max von Schillings was an opponent of the Weimar Republic and a declared anti-Semite. The expulsion and exclusion of important Jewish and free-thinking artists from the Prussian Academy of the Arts began during his time as President - some artists affected were Käthe Kollwitz, Heinrich Mann, Ricarda Huch, Alfred Döblin, Thomas Mann, Max Liebermann, Alfons Paquet, Franz Werfel and Jakob Wassermann. He laid off Arnold Schoenberg from the teaching staff of the Academy, in contravention of Schoenberg's contract and in 1933, he ordered Franz Schreker, the leader of masterclasses in composition at the Academy, into early retirement. Letters by Max von Schillings held by the State Archives in Leipzig, company archives of the Music Publishing House C.F.Peters (Leipzig).