Schoenberg, Numerology, and Moses und Aron

Abstract

Throughout his opera Moses und Aron, Arnold Schoenberg spells “Aaron” with a single a instead of the double a spelling customarily found in English translations of the Bible. When I point this out to my students, they often assume that Schoenberg was either using a German spelling of the name or that he was transliterating from the Hebrew. In neither case is that so. In German Bibles based on Martin Luther's translation, Aaron is always spelled with two a's, just as it is in English.1 And had Schoenberg wanted to transliterate from the Hebrew, he would have added a letter—Aharon—not subtracted one.2 No, the reason for the missing a has nothing to do with orthography; rather, Schoenberg's motivation for removing the a is probably numerological. Had the title included the second a, it would have had thirteen letters. Without the second a, there are only twelve.3 Since Schoenberg believed that thirteen was a baleful number, one with all kinds of negative influences, whereas twelve was a benign number, one with all kinds of positive influences, it is likely that Schoenberg omitted the second a so that his title would have only twelve letters.4