source file: m1449.txt Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 19:59:33 -0700 Subject: re: weird stories From: Xou Oxno 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! * D a v i d B e a r d s l e y * xouoxnoREMOVE-THIS@virtulink.com * * J u x t a p o s i t i o n E z i n e * M E L A v i r t u a l d r e a m house monitor * * http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm ------------------------------ End of TUNING Digest 1449 *************************