The truth about the number 12+1

Yeah I don't even dare to write that number, but I should openly, honestly tell you that that number terrifies me, and have had (negative) effects on me. There is even a name for the fear of number 12+1, and that is TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA. I suffer from it. I wanna write this entry after the correspondence with my pianist friend Henoch Kristianto whose CD of his interpretation of my Rapsodia Nusantara is just released and is the talk of the week at the moment, telling him that I was (and still not finished) writing both Rapsodia Nusantara no. 12 and no. 12A (I haven't made up my mind whether it will be numbered as such or 12+1). He wrote : 12A! Oh, come on, you believe that kind of stuffs? Hehe, why not even go with a horror theme for no 13? And I answered in my next email : About 12A, yes yes, I am very afraid of that number, 12+1 . And if Shakespeare, Arnold Schoenberg and even JESUS CHRIST fell upon it, why shouldn't I? ............................................................................................................................................ Well I'm gonna tell you the facts, the real facts of what happened with William Shakespeare & Arnold Schoenberg. I don't have to explain about Jesus Christ since we all know that that number originally came from him and his disciples, which made a total of 12+1, and one of them (Judas) betrayed him. With Shakespeare, suicide occurs an unlucky 13 times in his plays. If I still should give you some examples, the most famous ones occur in Romeo and Juliet where both Romeo and Juliet commit suicide, and also in Julius Caesar where both Cassius and Brutus die by consensual stabbing, as well as Brutus’ wife Portia. And WS, I am sure, was very conscious about this unlucky number when he wrote Romeo and Juliet, which is a love story that ended in failure. Here we go: ............................................................................................................................................ Do you know how old (or better rephrase it: how young) was Juliet when she fell in love with Romeo, and then committed suicide just a few days later? As the story occurs, Juliet was approaching her fourteenth birthday. She was born on "Lammas Eve at night" (August 1), so Juliet's birthday is July 31. Her birthday is "a fortnight hence", putting the action of the play in mid-July. So, she was 13. And notice the inversion of that number with her birth date. Her name is JULIET CAPULET. Check how many letters does it have. And in order of appearance, Juliet was the thirteenth character to appear on stage (ok, ok, she comes out together on stage with her nurse, but still...). Romeo referred (or called her name) 14 times, and the last time he did was when he was dying. So you can count how many times it was before he killed himself. Now those facts I wrote just from memory, there are more things that involve this unlucky number. ............................................................................................................................................ And to top it all off, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre burnt down in 1613 after a cannon shot set fire to it during a performance of Henry VIII. OK, that year was perhaps just coincidental, but still .... ............................................................................................................................................ With the composer Arnold Schoenberg, it was more terrifying. He himself knew that that number would kill him. Indeed, he was born on September 13th 1874 and died on July 13th, 1951. His triskaidekaphobia possibly began in 1908 with the composition of the thirteenth song of the song cycle Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten Op. 15. Moses und Aron was originally spelled Moses und Aaron, but when he realised this contained 13 letters, he changed it. According to friend Katia Mann, he feared he would die during a year that was a multiple of 13. He dreaded his 65th birthday in 1939 so much that a friend asked the composer and astrologer Dane Rudhyar to prepare Schoenberg's horoscope. Rudhyar did this and told Schoenberg that the year was dangerous, but not fatal. But in 1950, on his seventy-sixth birthday, his friend, mentor, and fellow composer and musician, Oskar Adler wrote Schoenberg a note warning him that the year was a critical one: 7 + 6 = 13. This stunned and depressed the composer, for up to that point he had only been wary of multiples of 13 and never considered adding the digits of his age. He died on Friday, 13 July 1951, shortly before midnight. Yup, Friday the 13th, 76 years of age. Schoenberg stayed in bed — sick, anxious and depressed all day. In a letter to Schoenberg's sister Ottilie, dated 4 August 1951, his wife Gertrud reported, "About a quarter to twelve I looked at the clock and said to myself: another quarter of an hour and then the worst is over. Then the doctor called me. Arnold's throat rattled twice, his heart gave a powerful beat and that was the end". Gertrud Schoenberg reported the next day in a telegram to her sister-in-law Ottilie that Arnold died at 11:45 pm. I took all these data and some exact quotes from his biography by Hans Stuckenschmidt. ............................................................................................................................................ So now you have my reason of not writing my 13th Rapsodia Nusantara. In fact, I've been writing two Rapsies at the same time, and since I like to write a set of variations for my rapsies whose numbers are a multiple of 4, BOTH Rapsy 12 and 12A are a set of variations, and both are based on just 1 folktune, just like the 4th Rapsy is based on the song Buka Pintu, and the 8th on O Inani Keke. And I've been enjoying writing both rapsies very much, since all the pianistic ideas that can't be valid for 1 Rapsy can be applied to the other Rapsy. I planned to write both just 2 weekends ago, thinking that I would need a few days or a maximum of 1 week to finish them, but apparently I am still working on them. It's already 10 days now. But things are going well. And yeah, there have been some small misfortunes happening in this year that ends with the unlucky number, but overall, I am happy and productive. One of the happiest moments of this year is, of course the release of this CD by Henoch. Those Rapsies sound as I never imagined they could sound Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBKjNO2fm50 . And I am excited to give a solo piano concert again for the Jakarta public after almost 3 years not doing so. Jakarta public? Well, I heard from Chendra my manager that piano lovers from all around Indonesia are already booking tickets for it. Put the date in your agenda: Sunday, October 20th at 4.30 p.m. at Aula Simfonia Jakarta. Yup, when it's over, you go out of the hall and you still can watch the nice sunset. That's why I am playing my light n sweet Sunset pieces too, apart from 6 numbers of Rapsodia Nusantara. Which ones? I still dunno. It's still more than 2 weeks from now.