In 1921 Arnold Schoenberg was forced to leave his holiday home in Austria because of the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe. This experience caused him to re-evaluate his Jewish identity, and was eventually to lead to the composition of his “fragmentary masterpiece” Moses und Aron. The opera draws its figures and motifs from the Book of Exodus, and the conflict between the beliefs of the two central characters is reflected in the music. Schoenberg died six years before its première, but he regarded Moses und Aron as his most important work.