SCHOENBERG Arnold, Three Piano Pieces Op. 11 

Schoenberg wrote a famous essay called ‘Brahms the Progressive’, and he drew much inspiration from the intimate sound-world of Brahms’s late piano pieces. But by 1909 he had started to abandon conventional tonality in favour of a free atonal language, without anchoring the music in traditional keys or harmonies. But through the use of recurring motifs, Schoenberg creates a unified work of extraordinary boldness. The composer likened his music to Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings, describing it as ‘an ever-changing, unbroken succession of colours, rhythms and moods’. 

Nigel Simeone © 2015