Schönberg had spent the whole day in bed suffering from triskaidekaphobia. On his seventy-sixth birthday, his friend, mentor and fellow composer Oskar Adler wrote Schönberg 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.