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Schoenberg, Arnold - String Trio [Op 45]
Identifier
021090
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The idea of representing the ‘sound’ of a Near Death experience in music was carried out in this original composition by Arnold Schoenberg, namely his String Trio [Op 45], a work commissioned by the Department of Music of Harvard University.
The story behind the composition is that in August 1946, Schoenberg had a heart attack, which was nearly fatal. His heart stopped beating for a while and he returned to life only after an injection in the cardiac muscles.
As he revealed in a letter dated 9th May 1946, his string trio is an attempt to reproduce all the phases of his travel in the after life.