Schoenberg's setting in A Survivor from Warsaw of the Shema Yisrael has an audible similarity to traditional melodies used for this prayer. The emphasis of the minor second as the concluding interval in Schoenberg's version evokes the "Avavoh Rabboh" Jewish cantillation mode, closely related to the Phrygian mode of Western music. Schoenberg seems to have constructed the basis twelve-tone row used in this piece with its application to the Shema in mind. Heller joins Christian Schmidt in disputing the contention of Wilfried Gruhn that other material in this work also has sources in traditional Jewish music.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: David Lieberman