re: weird stories

Haverstick wrote:

>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


Then Gary Morrison wrote:

>That's one of those stories that might be difficult to prove one way or
>the other, but I certainly wouldn't discount the possibility that its true.
>If I remember correctly, the circumstances of Alban Berg's death look
>perhaps a little bit too much like a "he knows too much" kind of affair.

It's a hoax. This fake AP story has been floating around the
net for a few weeks this spring. I don't have the full
story handy but it's full of factual inaccuracies to tip
us off that it's phony.

Like John Adams quoting from his home in upstate NY?
I thought he was a SF Bay composer. Like Schoenberg, a Jew
is going to be a Nazi spy? I don't think so.
I even think that the hoaxter changed the nationality
of the person that shot Webern to clue us in.

If you don't believe me - do a Deja News search.

So much for Marc Shulgold's credibility...getting a story
from a newsgroup with out following up on with AP!



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End of TUNING Digest 1449
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