Composed between 1921 and 1923, Arnold Schoenberg’s Suite for Piano Op. 25 is the earliest work in which the composer deployed his 12-tone technique in every movement. Earlier compositions – the Five Pieces for Piano, Op. 23 (1920–23) and the Serenade, Op. 24 (1920-1923) – make use of tone rows only in a single movement. Rather than deploying traditional tonal relationships, the Suite is constructed of permutations of a sequence of all 12 chromatic pitches. The basic ‘tone row’ (order of the pitches) is: E–F–G–D♭–G♭–E♭–A♭–D–B–C–A–B♭. For the first time, Schoenberg employs transpositions and inversions of this tone row; beginning the row on a different pitch but following the same contour, and presenting the row as a mirror image (a step up of a tone becomes a step down of a tone, and so on). 

In other regards, however, the Suite is quite traditional. In form and style, it echos the Baroque Suite; an popular form for instrumental music in the 17th Century consisting of a series of dances. Schoenberg’s suite has six movements or dances: 

i. Präludium (or prelude) 
ii. Gavotte (characterized by a moderately quick quadruple meter, a distinctive upbeat, and often involving hopping or skipping steps) 
iii. Musette (a lively dance) 
iv. Intermezzo  
v. Menuett. Trio (a dance in triple time) 
vi. Gigue (a lively concluding movement) 

The suite was first performed by Schoenberg’s pupil Eduard Steuermann in Vienna on 25 February 1924.