ABSTRACT
In Arnold Schoenberg's case, both words and music are at once inextricably bound to and wildly divergent from each other. Schoenberg's depiction of Moses might also be thought of as a self-portrait of himself as the reviled musical revolutionary. He sensed his mission as the bringer of a salvational musical system that would lead harmonic usage out of the dead end of tonality vitiated by excessive chromaticism. Schoenberg himself never heard any part of Moses und Aron performed. Promises were made but never kept. The first performances were in Switzerland in 1957, six years after he died. Schoenberg has done something rare for an opera composer; he has fashioned a libretto of both religious and philosophical resonance, an opera for a thinking audience, and he makes it work on stage by means of a clever dramaturgy and carefully thought-out staging.
