Arnold Schoenberg Concerto for Piano & Orchestra Op. 42 Andante – Molto allegro (bar 176) Adagio (bar 264) Giocoso (Moderato) (bar 329)
Alfred Brendel, piano Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Rafael Kubelik, conductor
Arnold Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, Op. 42 (1942) consists of four interconnected movements: Andante (bars 1–175), Molto allegro (bars 176–263), Adagio (bars 264–329), and Giocoso (bars 330–492). A concerto for piano, the piece features consistent use of the twelve-tone technique and only one tone row […]. The concerto was initially the result of a commission from Oscar Levant. Around 20 minutes long, its first performance was given February 6, 1944 at NBC Orchestra's Radio City Habitat in New York City, by Leopold Stokowski and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, with Eduard Steuermann at the piano.
The opening melody of the concerto is thirty-nine bars long and presents all four modes of the tone row in the following order: basic set, inversion of retrograde, retrograde, and inversion. Both of the inversions are transposed. The composition uses four different types of partitioning of the row: linear, by dyads or tetrachords, free, and by trichords. Linear presentations are ordered, strict presentations of either complete rows or component hexachords, and dominate the Andante and Giocoso movements. The second type symmetrically divides the twelve-tone aggregate into either six dyads or three tetrachords, and is found in the Molto allegro. The third type consists of irregular presentations of segments or fragments of the row, and is used mainly in the Adagio section. The last type, trichordal partitioning, is found throughout the concerto, and is a two-dimensional design created from the discrete trichords of complexes made from pairs of inversionally combinatorial rows.
The piece is a late work, written in America. The manuscript contains markings at the beginning of each of the four movements, suggesting an autobiographical connection between this work and the composer, as well as German refugees in general. The markings are \"Life was so easy\", \"Suddenly hatred broke out\", \"A grave situation was created\", and \"But life goes on\", each matched with a suitable expression in the music. These markings were not included in the final published version, as Schoenberg disapproved of this kind of fixed musical interpretation: they were to guide his composition of the work, and not to provide a programmatic reference for the listener. [...] Aimard (2010) described the sections as follows: 1. \"very Viennese,\" containing a \"waltz\" 2. full of, \"anxious fragmentation,\" and the \"sort of free Expressionist gestures that fueled his middle period\" 3. \"very expressive, sombre and tragic,\" \"slow,\" containing a \"Funeral March\" 4. \"very ironic and very varied in terms of character\".