Gertrud Schoenberg was Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

's wife (1924-1951), sister of violinist Rudolf Kolisch

Rudolf Kolisch

Rudolf Kolisch was a Viennese violinist and leader of string quartets, including the Kolisch Quartet and the Pro Arte Quartet. He played a right-handed violin left-handed—an extremely rare occurrence in classical music settings....

 and founder of Belmont Music Publishers. Though ultimately unfinished by Schoenberg, the piece Die Jakobsleiter

Die Jakobsleiter

Die Jakobsleiter is an oratorio by Arnold Schoenberg that marks his transition from a contextual or free atonality to the twelve-tone technique anticipated in the oratorio's use of hexachords...

was prepared for performance by Schoenberg student Winfried Zillig

Winfried Zillig

Winfried Zillig was a German composer, music theorist, and conductor.Zillig was born in Würzburg. After leaving school, Zillig studied law and music. One of his teachers there was Hermann Zilcher. In Vienna he was a private pupil of Arnold Schönberg, later following him to Berlin...

 at the request of Gertrude. Von heute auf morgen

Von heute auf morgen

Von heute auf morgen is a one act opera composed by Arnold Schoenberg, to a German libretto by "Max Blonda," the pseudonym of Gertrud Schoenberg, the composer's wife...

is a one act opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 composed by Arnold, to a German libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by "Max Blonda," the pseudonym of Gertrud. Arnold used the notes G and E (German: S) for 'Gertrud Schoenberg'.

Not to be confused either with Schoenberg's eldest child by his first wife Mathilde (née Zemlinsky), Gertrud Schönberg (1902–1947), who married Felix Greissle in 1921, or with Gertrude Schoenberg (June 28, 1914 – January 14 or 17, 1999), a soprano singer married to Leon Kirchner

Leon Kirchner

Leon Kirchner was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his String Quartet No. 3.Kirchner was born in Brooklyn, New York...

(8-Jul-1949), coincidentally a student of Schoenberg's. They had one son and one daughter, Paul and Lisa.