Funny you should choose Schoenberg as an example here. Schoenberg was massively influenced by Brahms, and viewed his own work as a natural extension of Brahms'. He even wrote a fairly well known essay 'Brahms the progressive' outlining the...progressive (surprise) features he saw in Brahms' music. Of course, Brahms revered Beethoven above everyone and studied his works keenly. Beethoven wrote his own early works under the influence of Mozart. See where this is going?
Unrelated: nice to see someone sticking up for Dufay and des Prez.