weird stories

Here's a good one, from the Sunday June 14 issue of the Rocky Mt.
News. This is reported by Marc Shulgold ( a very good friend of
microtonal music in Denver, by the way)..."A former Nazi propagandist
named Hans Scherbius says important wartime data collected by German
spies was transmitted through the 12 tone music of New Viennese School
composers." and ""These pieces were nothing more than cipher for encoding
messages,"" Scherbius claimed, referring to the thorny music of Anton
Webern, Alban Berg, and Arnold Schoenberg." Supposedly, for example,
Webern's Opus 30 Variations for Orchestra contain "a mathematical grid
that deciphered into German a comparison between the neutron release
cross sections of uranium isotopes 235 and 238..." Sounds out there, but
local composer Donald Keats goes on to point out that "Berg did encrypt
secret thoughts to his mistress." So...Hstick