Die Jakobsleiter (Jacob's Ladder) 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. Though ultimately unfinished by Schoenberg the piece was prepared for performance by Schoenberg student Winfried Zillig at the request of Gertrude Schoenberg. Schoenberg began the libretto in 1914-15, published it in 1917, and began the music in 1915, finishing most of his work on it in 1926, and finished a small amount of orchestration in 1944, leaving 700 measures at his death.