Numerology in 20th century music

SIX
Numerology
When studying multiple examples of numerological applications in
twentieth-century music, some scholars establish a direct link between
numerology and music. An intermediary in this connection, the cosmologi-
cal myth, has remained outside the main focus of such studies, although
numerology as such originally pertained to cosmological myths and asso-
ciated rituals. Numerology is a part of cosmology.
Numbers’ Role in Cosmology

Numbers used in creation myths establish the order of creation and
hierarchical systems of relationships. For example, the classification of
nine great gods in ancient Egyptian mythology worked through this
progression: 1-2-2-4 (= 9).
Atum-Ra (one) created Schu and Ternut (two); both Schu and
Ternut created Geb and Nut (two); those two created Osiris,
Isida, Seth, and Neftida (four), altogether nine gods.1
In ancient Chinese mythology, the main elements of the cosmological

picture each bear an associated number: the sky, 1; the earth, 2; the human
being, 3; and so on. Number 5 was a canonic model to categorize the main
elements of both macro- and microcosmos, such as the five elements of
nature, the five senses, five classes of animals, five parts of the human
body, and five emotional states.
Many archaic texts, such as The Elder Edda or the Rig-Veda, treat
numbers as venerated and potent entities because of their role in
creation—for example, the three stages of creation described in the Rig-
Veda.2 Toporov refers to a group of archaic folk texts unfolding sacred
1
Vladimir Toporov, “Chisla” [numbers], in Mify narodov mira [The myths of the world’s
peoples], ed. Sergei Tokarev, v. 2 (Moscow: Bol’shaya Rossiysskaya Enziklopediya, 1997),
630.
2
Stella Kramrisch, “The Triple Structure of Creation in the Rg.-Veda,” Journal of the History
of Religions 2 (1962).
183
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184 Numerology
operations with numbers, the operations intending to establish order out of

chaos and to segment the continuity of time. Some of these texts are magic
spells, in which the undesirable elements are asked to leave the world one
by one (“from nine eight, from eight seven,” and so on.)3
Some simple folk texts preserve the cosmological myths with their
numerical components. Such a text is a Russian folk puzzle describing the
year and the World Tree:
There stands a pillar to the sky.
It has twelve nests;
Each nest has four eggs;
Each egg has seven embryos.4
In archaic myths, each number had a unique meaning attached to it.

Number 3 appears as the fundamental and dynamic structural element of
the cosmos. In the Indian mythology of Jainism, three layers—dense water,
dense wind, and thin wind—separate this world from the outer world.
This world itself consists of three pyramids, the lower, the middle, and the
higher worlds. The lower world has seven discs, which are occupied by
seven hells.5 In the Rig-Veda, a group of gods holds three heavens and
three grounds.6 In other myths, the number 3 represents the divine unions
of three deities, such as Trimurti of Hindu mythology (the triad of Brahma,
Vishnu and Shiva), or a three-headed or three-faced deity.7 The goddess
Hecata of Greek mythology has three faces. In the myths of Baltic Slavs,
the three heads of Triglav symbolize three kingdoms: heaven, earth, and
the underworld.8 The World Tree of many mythologies typically divides
the world horizontally into three layers, as well as marking the four points
of the compass. By contrast to the dynamic 3, 4 appears in mythologies
throughout the world as a static and stable structural element of the cos-
mos. The sum of these numbers is the number 7, which is a magic number
in many mythologies.
3
Toporov, “Chisla,” 631.
4
Ibid.
5
Alex Terentiev, “Addkhaloka,” in The Dictionary of Mythology, ed. E. Meletinsky (Moscow:
Sovetskaya enziklopediya, 1991), 20. Other sources on Jain mythology include Chimanlal J.
Shah, Jainism in North India: 800 B.C.-A.D. 526 (New Delhi: A. Sagar Book House, 1989),
and Margaret S. Stevenson, The Heart of Jainism (London: Oxford University Press, 1915).
6
Described in books II and V, hymns 27 and 29 of the Rig-Veda.
7
Sergei D. Serebryannyi, “Trimurti,” in The Dictionary of Mythology, 549.
8
Vladimir Y. Petrukhin, “Triglav,” ibid., 548.
Return of Number Symbolism 185
Return of Number Symbolism

The numbers in archaic myths “were connected to each other not
mathematically, but rather symbolically, associatively, aesthetically, and
mnemonically,” according to Alexey Kobzev, an expert in Chinese
cosmology.9 While modern science deprives all numbers of any extra-
mathematical semantics, in the twentieth century, Toporov wrote,
a tendency to return semantic significance back to numbers is
being realized in the arts and poetry–the realm that serves as a
sanctuary for the achievements of archaic epochs. […] Archaic
numerical notions continue their life in the modern creative mind;
moreover, those notions undergo development and transforma-
tion, as they serve again and again as nascent material for the
new mytho-poetical images and concepts.10
Neo-mythologism promotes the reattachment of semantic values to

numbers. The importance of numerology in twentieth-century music is a
reflection of the increasing role of mythification in artistic consciousness.
I will use some random examples of numerological applications by various
composers to illustrate this idea. Many of these examples have already
been recognized, while others have received less attention.11 My goal is to
consider even those better-known examples in a new context: numerology
as a part of cosmology and, ultimately, neo-mythologism. I will present
this material according to the different levels of composers’ thought—
from philosophical views and theoretical systems to operatic librettos and
the musical fabric itself, including form, pitch organization, choice of
instruments, and other parameters.
Boris de Schloezer, in his description of the philosophical views of
Scriabin, who approached numerology from a theosophical perspective,
uncovered the special role of the number 7:
9
Alexey I. Kobzev, “Metodologia kitaiskoi klassicheskoi filosofii: numerologia i protologika”
[The Methodology of Chinese classical philosophy: numerology and proto-logic], Ph.D. diss.
(Moscow University, 1988), 21.
10
Toporov, “Chisla,” 631.
11
In addition to the works cited below, for the significance of numerology to twentieth-
century composers, see Douglas Jarman, The Music of Alban Berg (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1979), 228-30; George Perle, The Operas of Alban Berg, vol. 1 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1980), 128-29; Robert U. Nelson, “Schoenberg’s Variation
Seminar,” Musical Quarterly 50 (1964), 148; and Walter Rubsamen, “Schoenberg in
America,” Musical Quarterly 37 (1951), 487ff.
186 Numerology
His conversation was full of theosophical allusions to […] Seven

Planes, Seven Races, and the like; he used these terms volubly
as if they were familiar to all and as if they reflected incon-
vertible truths.12
Hindemith singled out the number 7. In his “new method of erecting
a scale,” Hindemith emphasized an exceptional role of the seventh over-
tone (B flat in an overtone series based on CC of the Great Octave). While
the first six overtones of that pitch “can establish their own households,”
each producing other tones derived from them in accordance with
Hindemith’s special rules, the seventh overtone should not be used for this
purpose, for “the result would be chaos.”13 Hindemith’s mathematical
method of scale construction, based on the number of vibrations per
second and representing each note of the overtone series divided by the
ordinal number within the series, does not work for the seventh
overtone.14
Hindemith interprets such a discrepancy within his method in a rather
metaphysical way. He recalls the “impure” quality of the seventh,
surrounding the number 7 with a mystical aura that guides us back to the
ancient mythic interpretation of this number:
Numbers and number-relations meant more to antiquity than they
do to us, for we have lost the sense of the mystery of number
through our familiarity with price-lists, statistics, and balance
sheets. The secret of the number 7 was well known; to conquer it
was to become the master or the destroyer of the world. It is
understandable that such a mystic and unfathomable number
should have been looked upon as holy. And in the world of tone,
too, we must acknowledge the holy circle to be inaccessible.15
In his appeal to mythical concepts of the past, Hindemith not only

identifies with the holiness of the number 7, but also uses another mythic
motive—that of the holy circle—to justify the limitation of his theoretical
system with only six prime tones of the overtone series. Thus, mytho-
logical imagery reawakens in one of the major musical-theoretical
systems of the twentieth century.
12
Boris de Schloezer, Scriabin: Artist and Mystic, trans. Nicolas Slonimsky (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987), 67.
13
Paul Hindemith, The Craft of Musical Composition, vol. 1, trans. Arthur Mendel,
4th ed. (New York: Schott, 1942), 38.
14
Ibid., 32-8.
15
Ibid., 38.
Numerology in Musical Fabric 187
The number 7 plays an important role as part of the whole cosmo-

logical picture in Stockhausen’s Licht. It exemplifies the treatment of
numbers in a mythic way in an opera libretto. Seven stops during the
principal character’s journey relate to seven languages and cultures. In the
“Examen” scene it takes seven moments for Michael’s mother to find him
a name. Furthermore, she considers seven versions of his name, including
the final one, in this seven-day opera. Subsequently, the mother experi-
ences seven events in a mental hospital.
Another important number in this libretto is 3. There are three
versions of personification, for example: the father as singer, mime, and
trombonist. The number 3 also embodies the triple unity of Eva, Luzifer,
and Michael; this is shown, in particular, in the “Kindheit” scene, when
Stockhausen introduces the first two as Michael's parents. This three-fold
unity corresponds to a traditional mythic connotation of the number 3.
Numerology in Musical Fabric and in Piece Grouping

Some composers have structured rhythm according to numerological
notions. In her analytical sketch of Anton Webern’s Symphony, op. 21,
Elizabeth Kerr expressed durations numerically, so that a sixteenth-note
unit equals 1, and discovered that the numbers 5 (predominantly) and 8
control the rhythm in the fifth variation on many different levels.16 Even
more astonishing is that Webern employs complex numerical correspon-
dences, for example, between the number of sets and the variation
number.
John Carbon discusses numerological connotations in Crumb’s
Makrokosmos.17 This is a work in which numerology implicitly deter-
mines the ordering of pieces within the cycle. Carbon connects the three
groups of four pieces in Makrokosmos with the Christianity-based
astrological tradition of “trinity times the cross.” Keeping in mind,
however, that Crumb is not a practicing believer, I suggest that we
examine Crumb’s piece grouping within the Makrokosmos cycle outside a
particular religious orthodoxy.18 For Crumb, religion and mythology
16
Elizabeth Kerr, “The Variations of Webern’s Symphony, Op. 21: Some Observations on
Rhythmic Organization and the Use of Numerology,” In Theory Only 8 (1984): 5-14.
17
John Carbon, “Astrological Symbolic Order in George Crumb’s ‘Makrokosmos,’ ” Sonus
10 (1990): 65-80.
18
The interview that I took with Crumb at Rutgers University in 1997 explores the
composer’s views on myth and religion: see Appendix.
188 Numerology
equally represent a number of poetic truths. In this broader perspective,

the “trinity times the cross” formula is only one version of a “3 times 4”
archetype, which appears in various mythological traditions. The formula
demonstrates the ties between the two cosmologically important numbers
3 and 4, which together produce the other sacramental numbers: 12 and 7.
Multiplication, addition, and subtraction serve to structure and explain
creation in cosmogony myths.
Before Crumb utilized the “3 times 4” multiplication formula to
organize pieces within a cycle, Schoenberg, in Pierrot lunaire, used the
subtitle “Three Times Seven Poems,” employing two mythologically
significant numbers, 3 and 7. According to Jung’s theory of the collective
unconscious, retrieval of archaic mythological archetypes in the artistic
creations of modern times are typically unconscious, and from this per-
spective, different artists may come up with similar results quite indepen-
dently. Douglas Jarman, for example, remarks that, “although the tradition
of applying numerology to music has been established long ago, a
twentieth-century composer such as Berg was hardly aware of it.”19
In both Schoenberg’s and Crumb’s scores, numerology plays an
important role in structuring the pitch organization. For example, as
Alexander Ringer has demonstrated, Schoenberg used the number 6 for his
hexachordal row of the unfinished Modern Psalm (1950) listed as op. 50c
and in the “sixfold six-tone pattern” in the opening of Die Jakobsleiter.
Ringer also links Schoenberg’s employment of a six-part texture in the
Psalm to the numerological significance of the number 6. Some mytho-
logical traditions regard 6 as a “perfect number.” One example is in the
book of Genesis, when, famously, God creates the world in six days.20
Sterne, in his analysis of Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire and other
works, demonstrates how numerology defines several parameters of music
simultaneously:
Five numbers, 3, 7, 1, 11, and 22, governed the format of the work
[Pierrot lunaire], its time span, pitches and intervals, timbre, and
instructions to the performer. […] Even more importantly, the
19
Douglas Jarman, “Alban Berg, Wilhelm Fliess, and the Secret Programme of the Violin
Concerto,” in The Berg Companion, ed. Douglas Jarman (Boston: Northeastern University
Press, 1989), 181.
20
Alexander Ringer, “Faith and Symbol: On Schoenberg’s Last Musical Utterance,” Journal
of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute 6 (1982): 87-94. As Ringer notes, the six days of creation
were a foundation for additional meanings in Emanuel Swedenborg’s theosophical novel
Arcana Coelestia, as described in Balzac’s Seraphita. It is the source to which Schoenberg
referred in his lecture “Composing with Twelve Tones.”
Eclecticism and the Attachment of Private Meanings 189
five-number set controlled […] not only all the rest of Schoen-
berg’s atonal music, but, beginning with his Opus 1, his tonal
music, and, amazingly enough, even his twelve-tone composi-
tions. […] Even the texts Schoenberg wrote himself were con-
trolled by the same small group of five numbers with seven
digits21
According to Sterne’s description, Schoenberg limits the variety of

numerical relationships to only five numbers, which implicitly penetrate
many parameters of his compositions. This is comparable to some archaic
mythic systems that limit the elements of the cosmos to only five funda-
mental numbers. These represented the combination of 1 (the center of the
world) and 4 (the points of a compass).
Michael Votta writes that numbers, in particular, the number 3,
govern “all levels of musical organization” in Alban Berg’s Kammer-
konzert.22 Berg not only uses three distinct types of pitch organization—
tonal, atonal, and twelve-tone—but he employs the number 3 to manage
other aspects of the work: the number of movements, the sections of the
form (grouped in three), the measures (divisible by three), the rhythm
(three types of rhythmic ideas), meter, and even the instrumentation (three
groups of instruments).
Eclecticism and the Attachment of Private Meanings

Eclecticism of sources, typical of neo-mythologism, allows blending
of the incompatible elements of various mythologies, religions, quasi-
scientific beliefs, and products of individual mythmaking. Numerology
itself is eclectic in its origins, as Sterne notes:
[A numerologist] traces his belief back through antiquity—to
the Egyptians, Hebrews, Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Chinese, and
Hindus—but it is Pythagoras, called the “Father of Number,”
who is given credit for establishing the system in the West.23
21
Colin S. Sterne, Arnold Schoenberg, the Composer as Numerologist (Lewiston: Edwin
Mellen, 1993), vi and 4. By his phrase “time span,” Sterne means the total number of beat
units in a composition, which is a product of the total number of measures and the value of
a unit (for example, a quarter note equals 4).
22
Michael Votta, “Pitch Structure and Extra-musical References in Alban Berg’s
‘Kammerkonzert,’ ” Journal of Band Research 26 (1991): 1-32.
23
Sterne, Arnold Schoenberg, the Composer as Numerologist, 9.
190 Numerology
Schoenberg’s source of numerology, as Ringer indicates, was an

eclectic combination of Judaic and Christian numerological traditions.24
Schoenberg combined the traditional with the idiosyncratic, to the point
that his individual mythmaking contradicts established numerological
symbolism. Sterne says:
Though 22 (1939), 3 (39), and 11 (65) are all considered
auspicious by numerologists, there is no way for us to deny that
Schoenberg may have interpreted them as omens of disaster.25
Kerr cites another instance of a privately attached meaning in Webern’s

Concerto, op. 24, which he dedicated to Schoenberg. In it, Webern makes
use of multiples of the number 13, Schoenberg’s own “number of fate.”26
Berg’s music displays a numerological encoding of similarly insistent
personal character. In Berg’s Kammerkonzert, as in literary neo-mytholo-
gism, where traditional symbolism blends with individually attached
meanings, the traditional significance of unity associated with the number 3
has a unique personal nuance. As Votta notes,
[Kammerkonzert] represented a point of unity among the three
composers of the Second Viennese School. In his Open Letter to
Arnold Schoenberg, Berg frequently mentions a “Holy Trinity,”
which presumably refers to teacher and students. In addition, the
work marks a three-fold anniversary: Schoenberg’s 50th birth-
day, Berg’s 40th, and the twentieth year of their friendship.27
Jarman writes:
Whatever Berg’s numbers symbolize, they represent something
that is purely personal: even when the private significance of a
number is known, Berg’s reasons for choosing it often remain
obscure. […] It is clear from the annotations in the score of the
Lyric Suite and from the Open Letter on the Chamber Concerto
[…] that the numbers upon which he based these schemes had,
for Berg, a deeply subjective and almost mystical significance.28
Jarman documented the unique nature of twentieth-century musical

numerology, including its extremely closed and private character. He noted
24
Ringer, “Faith and Symbol,” 80-95.
25
Sterne, Arnold Schoenberg, the Composer as Numerologist, 5.
26
Kerr, “The Variations of Webern’s Symphony, Op. 21,” 11.
27
Votta, “Pitch Structure and Extra-musical References in Alban Berg’s ‘Kammerkonzert,’” 2.
28
Jarman, “Alban Berg, Wilhelm Fliess, and the Secret Programme,” 181.
Eclecticism and the Attachment of Private Meanings 191
that the symbolic arithmology of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, as
well as the famous three opening chords of Mozart’s Magic Flute “made
reference to a body of knowledge that, if not generally well known, was at
least familiar to the cognoscenti,” but that “the numbers employed in Berg’s
music […] have no such generally understood significance.”29
Jarman’s observation that Berg’s numerological encoding is even
more subjective than that of preceding historical periods is applicable to
the notion of neo-mythologism as a whole. Jarman contends that since the
Baroque era, numerological encoding fell into disrepute and almost
disappeared from European music. The “Masonic” music of Mozart was
one of the few exceptions. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the
fascination with number symbolism returned, along with an unprece-
dented burst of interest in the occult, theosophy, and quasi-religious
thought. That was precisely the period when, as Meletinsky noted, neo-
mythologism peaked. The reawakening of numerology was part of the
neo-mythological trend of the time.
Others place twentieth-century musical numerology in a historical
context by comparing it to earlier periods. In Peter Stadlen’s impressive
sketch of the numerological tradition in music through Berg (not-
withstanding the sketch’s role as only an introduction to an article on
Berg), he places works of Dufay, Dunstable, and Bach in a context of
ideas deriving from Plato, the Pythagoreans, and Christian traditional
numerology.30 Ringer points to Zarlino’s Senario as one of the examples
of the use of the “perfect number six” in Renaissance musical thought.31
Indeed, in a historical perspective, modern number symbolism evokes
earlier eras of numerology, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and
to Bach. However, the self-centered character of neo-mythologism and its
lesser orientation on religious convention makes the numerology of the
modern period particular, as Stadlen shrewdly noted in regard to Berg:
Berg has by no means disclosed all the countless secret features
which he said in his Open Letter he had built into the Chamber
Concerto and some of which may never be revealed. […] In
Berg there has reappeared for the first time a mentality which we
had virtually forgotten had existed. He shared this—not with
Schumann or even with Bach—but with those early composers
who were positively set on secretiveness. […] The only difference
29
Ibid.
30
Peter Stadlen, “Berg’s Cryptography,” in Alban Berg Symposion, vol. 2 (Wien: Universal
Edition, 1981), 171-73.
31
Ringer, “Faith and Symbol,” 86.
192 Numerology
lies in the motivation: the religious and philosophical ideologies

prevailing in the age of the Renaissance are replaced, in the case
of Berg, by an individual’s unique psychological peculiarity.32
Of course, the secretiveness with which composers integrate nume-

rology is a feature not exclusive to Berg’s music. This secretive character
of numbers present in the musical fabric contributes to the aura of sacred-
ness in twentieth-century musical numerology. Another contributing
factor is the belief in the actual ruling power of numbers.
From Beliefs to Games with Numbers

Colin Sterne demonstrated how Schoenberg seriously believed in
lucky and unlucky numbers and their impact on his personal fate and his
works.33 In this respect, Schoenberg’s thinking carries the quality of a
mythic thought recognizing the authority of numbers to govern the uni-
verse. In modern numerology, the quasi-science that preserves the nume-
rology of cosmological myths, and with which Schoenberg was apparent-
ly familiar, specific meanings are attached to numbers, as in archaic
cosmological myths.34
Alfred Schnittke’s employment of numerology in his First symphony
is an expression of both rationalism in his approach to the construction of
form and a reverence for the mytho-symbolic properties of numbers. In his
1978 conversations with Dmitry Shulgin regarding the work, Schnittke
cited the “row of Eratosthenes”35 as his model for a systematic pro-
cedure of composition. Schnittke recalled:
[during the composition of the First symphony], a […] composer
Vieru came to Moscow. He showed me some compositions based
on the row of Eratosthenes, employing very witty technique. I
could not resist the temptation of using it in the symphony,
although in a modified form.36
32
Stadlen, “Berg’s Cryptography,” 177.
33
For example, Schoenberg considered the number 3 to be extremely good and 13 to be
extremely bad. See Sterne, Arnold Schoenberg, the Composer as Numerologist, 1-4.
34
Sterne refers to Schoenberg’s own numerological calculations found on the margins of his
early composition Lied ohne Worte, in Arnold Schoenberg, the Composer as Numerologist, 3.
35
The Eratosthenes’s progression—named for the Greek astronomer Eratosthenes of Cyrene
(c. 276–194 B.C.)—consists of prime numbers: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, etc.
36
Dmitry Shulgin, Gody neizvestnosti Al’freda Shnitke [Alfred Schnittke’s obscure years]
(Moscow: Delovaya liga, 1993), 64.
From Beliefs to Games with Numbers 193
He goes on to explain how he incorporated compound numbers along

with prime numbers, aiming for a total formal control through the use of
three types of pitch organization: serial, tonal, and one based on
Eratosthenes’s progression of numbers.
[In the symphony] it serves as the basis for some chords,
melodic lines; some pitches in the beginning are derived from it
in a complex way, as well as the flute solo from the second
movement, the climax chord from the Finale, and all the Finale’s
“disintegration,” where I calculated all the chords, their various
intervallic structure (for example, the chords made of minor
seconds, major seconds, minor thirds, major thirds…).37
Such a systematic process is evocative of the archaic tectonic model

typical of cosmological myths, in which genesis is described as a process
of continual expansion and addition. Toporov refers to a group of archaic
texts (including the book of Genesis), in which the process of adding
numbers served as the basis for an unfolding cosmological myth.38 In the
episode immediately following the “failed” second theme, Schnittke ap-
plies an additional formula. A crescendo wave rolls in further instruments
and pitches, expanding orchestral tessitura in a systematic manner. The
progressively widening intervals appear both underneath and above the
initial single pitch E-flat, creating a consistently expanding space around
that pitch until a sorcerer’s gesture, the three chords, stops the process.
The six distinct steps of this widening musical “cosmos” correspond to six
consecutive intervals that one might easily associate with the six days of
creation (Figure 62).
In the cosmological picture Schnittke draws in the beginning of the
First symphony, particular importance is attached to the symbolism of the
numbers 3 (the three Grand Pauses separating “chaos” from “cosmos”),
30 (the rehearsal number marking the conductor’s entrance), and 33 (the
rehearsal number at which the first consonant “event” occurs—the octave
tutti of “C”s). To these latter can be added the symbolism of 12 and 7. A
discomfiting rag melody in the piano part (rehearsal number 34, whose
digits result in 7 as their sum) is only one of as many as 12 thematically
and rhythmically independent layers that Schnittke imposes on each other
in a simultaneous intrusion, stylizing them as fragments of pop music.
37
Ibid.
38
Vladimir Toporov, “O chislovykh modelyakh v arkhaichnykh tekstakh,” [About numerical
models in archaic texts] in Struktura teksta [The structure of text] (Moscow: Nauka, 1980),
40.
194 Numerology
FIGURE 62: Schnittke, First symphony, I, pitch accumulation
This section occupies seven measures, ending as abruptly as it has started,

as if the window to a different world momentarily opened. In light of
Schnittke’s deep interest in Christianity, which brought the composer from
an atheistic environment typical for the Soviet era to formal baptism and
regular confessions to a Russian orthodox priest, the meaning of numerol-
ogy in Schnittke’s works is not merely poetic or fanciful. Considering the
significance of the numbers 3, 7, and 12 in the Bible and its cosmology,
Schnittke’s choices of these would hardly seem accidental.
Neo-mythologism embraces diverse and even conflicting approaches,
from serious beliefs, mysticism, and a tendency for sacralization, to irony
and estrangement, or, sometimes, a mixture of both the serious and the
ironic. The title Günter Peters chose for his recent book on Stockhausen,
Holy Seriousness in the Play, effectively reflects this phenomenon.
The irony typical of neo-mythologism may welcome games with
numbers, although the numbers still carry the sacredness attached to them
in the contexts of many modern compositions. On the one hand, Dolly
Kessner calls Crumb’s preoccupation with numerology, in particular in
Gnomic Variations, “number games.”39 On the other hand, she claims that
7 (half-steps, or a perfect fifth) in Black Angels symbolically represents
“God and Life,” while 13 (half-steps, or a minor ninth) stands for the
39
Dolly Kessner, “Structural Coherence in Late Twentieth-Century Music,” Ph.D. diss.
(University of Southern California, 1992), 114.
“Devil and Death.”40 Crumb himself decoded his association between 7

and the tritone in this manner: “In Black Angels I used a tritone, which
corresponds to the number seven.”41 During the interview at Rutgers
University, the composer drew a sketch illustrating what he later called
the “basic sound,” or the “tritonal axis of the piece”42 (Figure 63).
FIGURE 63:
Crumb’s sketch illustrating
“the tritonal axis” in Black Angels
The contradiction between a double association between 7 as both a

tritone (with its historically notorious “bad” intervallic ethos) and a
perfect fifth (with its culturally rooted connotation of “good” intervallic
ethos) is only apparent, for the number 7 is applicable to interval calcu-
lation in two ways—expressing either a number of half steps, or the pitch
names involved. From Figure 63 it is clear that Crumb has used the latter
to assign the number 7 to F# on the sketch, while a subtraction of 7 from
13 till gives 6 as the expression of the tritone’s intervallic size. This
multivalence of associations is likely to be an intended effect on Crumb’s
part in the general equilibrium-like atmosphere of this work. In the fore-
word to the score, Crumb indicates that “an important pitch element in the
work—ascending D#, A and E—[…] symbolizes the fateful numbers 7-
13.” Based on the number of half steps, the tritone D#-A corresponds to 6,
and the fifth A-E corresponds to 7, while the sum of these two numbers is
13, which is also a standard numerical expression for a minor ninth (in
this case, D#-E) as a minor second (1) plus an octave (12).
The essential difference between mathematical operations in the
modern sense and operations with numbers in myths lies in the fact that in
myths, each number or combination of numbers carries a unique and
tangible “ethos,” meaning, or mode; as a result of this, formulas such as
“13 times 7” and “7 times 13” would never be equal, while in the abstract
science of mathematics these do not differ in their resulting values.
Crumb’s program in the preface to Black Angels contains a diagram
clearly demonstrating this type of operation: “13 times 7 and 7 times 13”
of the first movement is the direct opposition of “7 times 13 and 13 times
7” of the last. How is this opposition realized in the inner structure of both
movements?
40
Ibid.
41
Interview at Rutgers University, December 1997 (see Appendix).
42
Phone conversation, June 5, 2001.
196 Numerology
197
From Beliefs to Games with Numbers
198 Numerology
The first movement contains bracketed groups of notes with numbers

under them that indicate the number of repeats of that group (Figure 64).
Crumb fills the entire movement with quintuplets as beat units, each of
which equals one second, or an eighth note, as he indicates in the score.
Each labeled number indicates duration in seconds, as well as the number
of repeats. The total number of eighth notes in the movement equals 91—
precisely the product arrived at by multiplying the two fatal numbers 7
and 13. Since an eighth-note beat unit equals one second, the total sound-
ing time ideally should also be 91 seconds. However, performances vary
in this respect; here lies the natural borderline between the numero-
logically ideal model and the actual reality of performance. The number 7
predominates among all bracketed indications of the first movement—
namely, 7 is met here six times. (This seems to be not accidental, for both
6 and 7 are significant in the pitch formula of the piece).
Let us compare this to the last movement. Including the “bridge”
from the previous movement—a sustained high D in the cello part, marked
13 seconds (Figure 65)—-and excluding the Coda that begins on page 9
of the score (Sarabanda de la muerte oscura), this movement (“13.
Threnody III: Night of the Electric Insects”) contains an approximately
similar number of units, or seconds, if we apply the same rule of counting
bracketed groups as in the first movement. New here, however, are eight
groups, each labeled 13 seconds. Their overlap makes calculation of total
time less precise. Nevertheless, there are clearly three continuous 13-
second durations in the first segment (shown as figure 65). With the cello
and violin I groups only slightly overlapping, the overall duration of the
segment results in ca. 39 seconds. The similar brackets of the second seg-
ment carry the sacramental numbers 7-3-4-7 (totaling 21 seconds), which
overlap by one group (= 1 second) with the final segment. The latter
consists of three slightly overlapping 13-second groups. Thus, adding
<39, 20, and <39, we obtain a number that is less than 98, which
approximates the number 91 of the first movement. This gives a justifica-
tion to Crumb’s labeling both movements 1 and 13 in a similar, yet oppo-
sitional, fashion (“13 times 7 and 7 times 13” versus “7 times 13 and 13
times 7”), based on the polarities of their inner structures. While there
were no 13-second groups in the first movement, in movement 13 Crumb
uses many instances of such groupings. Likewise, what served as the
opening of the entire piece (a structure of 7-3-4-7) appears as the central
internal segment of movement 13. Conversely, the tritone-based glissandos
that initially followed the four opening groups of the first movement now
serve as the opening for the last movement. The structure 7-3-4-7 is, of
course, numerically invertible by itself as 7–7–7: its core contains the

numbers 3 and 4, surrounded from both sides by their sum (7). The choice
of these specific numbers and operations with them does not seem acci-
dental, for these are the most sacred and potent numbers in several archaic
cosmologies.
The central movement (7), which Crumb designates “the numero-
logical basis of the entire work,”43 corresponds to the “axis of symmetry”
role of number 7 in the simple row of 13 numbers:
1 2 3 4 5 6 (7) 8 9 10 11 12 13
The puzzling subtitle for this movement combines the numbers 7 and
13 in a repetitive manner: “7 times 7 and 13 times 13.” The movement
opens with a tritone in each of the parts repeated seven times. In the
context hinted at by the subtitle, the number 7 apparently represents the
tritone. The formula “13 times 13” applies to the number of utterances of
the word “thirteen” pronounced in different languages—namely, it appears
three times uttered by three performers (a total of nine utterances) on page
5 of the score, and one time at the end of the movement by all four
participants (9+4=13). This centerpiece is framed by two movements that
also contain uniform numbers instead of juxtaposing them: “13 over 13”
in the Sarabanda and “13 under 13” in the Pavana. Formulations that place
numbers “over” or “under” each other are also mythologically rooted; as
Losev noted, the mythological perception of number does not see in it
merely a notion, but a physical object, or “thing.”44 Crumb’s “physical”
manipulations with numbers are evident in texture, tessitura, and rhythmic
groupings. For example, in the second movement (marked “7 in 13”), a
passage consistently reappearing in the first violin part consists of 13
notes. Within these, a group of seven is clearly marked as a “centerpiece”
(Figure 66).
FIGURE 66: Crumb, Black Angels, II
43
See Crumb’s footnote to the diagram in the score.
44
Alexei Losev, Antichnyi kosmos i sovremennaya nauka [The ancient cosmos and modern
science] (Moscow: by the author, 1927), 27.
200 Numerology
In the third movement (marked “13 over 7”), 13 high-pitched notes

taken as harmonics appear after and (in terms of pitch) over a 7-second
drone. In the fifth movement, the formula “13 times 7” refers to the num-
ber of occurrences of 7 as part of a time signature. Each such appearance
indicates a shift in time signature: 7/32 to 7/16 to 7/64, and so on,
including a polymetric combination of 7/8 and 7/16.
By indicating “7 and 13” in the fourth movement, Crumb suggests
the perception of a perfect fifth A-E as 7, and the minor ninth D#-E as 13,
since these two intervals recur many times throughout this movement both
harmonically and melodically, including the opening sonority. Thus the
opposition of these two numbers is expressed here through intervallic
ethos.
Crumb comments on the use of numerology in the preface to the score
of Black Angels: “These ‘magical’ relationships [between numbers] are
expressed in terms of phrase-length, groupings of single tones, durations,
patterns of repetition, etc.”45
In Black Angels, Crumb establishes a Jungian “mythic order,” based
first on intuitive, and then on more conscious incarnations of the arche-
typal numbers 7 and 13. “It occurred to me,” Crumb testified, “that these
numbers appeared all the time in my sketches, and that was when I
decided to make use of them.”46 This order conforms to the nature of neo-
mythologism, as Meletinsky presents it.
Crumb’s numerology, like Schnnitke’s, continues the earlier modern-
ist rendezvous with numbers, although Crumb replaces Schoenberg’s
serious belief in the powers of numbers and Berg’s mysticism and secre-
tiveness with poetical symbolism and wittiness. By returning the original
wealth of meaning to numbers, all these composers have thus contributed
to the process of remythification in music.
45
Peters, 1970.
46
Interview at Rutgers University, December 1997 (see Appendix).

Numerology in 20th century music

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Numerology in 20th century music

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SIX

Numbers’ Role in Cosmology

In ancient Chinese mythology, the main elements of the cosmological

operations with numbers, the operations intending to establish order out of

In archaic myths, each number had a unique meaning attached to it.

Return of Number Symbolism

Neo-mythologism promotes the reattachment of semantic values to

His conversation was full of theosophical allusions to […] Seven

In his appeal to mythical concepts of the past, Hindemith not only

The number 7 plays an important role as part of the whole cosmo-

Numerology in Musical Fabric and in Piece Grouping

equally represent a number of poetic truths. In this broader perspective,

According to Sterne’s description, Schoenberg limits the variety of

Eclecticism and the Attachment of Private Meanings

Schoenberg’s source of numerology, as Ringer indicates, was an

Kerr cites another instance of a privately attached meaning in Webern’s

Jarman documented the unique nature of twentieth-century musical

lies in the motivation: the religious and philosophical ideologies

Of course, the secretiveness with which composers integrate nume-

From Beliefs to Games with Numbers

He goes on to explain how he incorporated compound numbers along

Such a systematic process is evocative of the archaic tectonic model

FIGURE 62: Schnittke, First symphony, I, pitch accumulation

This section occupies seven measures, ending as abruptly as it has started,

“Devil and Death.”40 Crumb himself decoded his association between 7

The contradiction between a double association between 7 as both a

The first movement contains bracketed groups of notes with numbers

course, numerically invertible by itself as 7–7–7: its core contains the

In the third movement (marked “13 over 7”), 13 high-pitched notes

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