Schoenberg: Zwei Klavierstücke, Op.33

Introduction

Zwei Klavierstücke, Op. 33, also known as Zwei Stücke, or in English as Two Piano Piecesand Two Pieces, is a composition for piano by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg. They were composed between 1928 and 1931 and were Schoenberg's last works for piano.

Composition

Schoenberg's Piano Pieceswere just some of the smaller compositions that he made after finishing Von Heute auf Morgen and Moses und Aron. He started composing the first movement, Op. 33a, when the director of Universal Edition contacted him to publish the first piece in Op. 11 in an anthology of piano compositions. Schoenberg then decided to write a new piece on December 25, 1928, and finished it on April 25, 1929. The composition of the second movement, however, took only three days, from October 8 to 10, 1931, while he was staying in Barcelona. They were composed separately, but it is still unknown if Schoenberg had conceived them to be a full-length composition in itself.

Both movements were also premiered separately. The first movement was published by Universal Edition in July, 1929, and premiered in Berlin, on January 30, 1931, by Else C. Klaus. The second movement was published by The New Music Society of California Publisher, in April, 1932, and premiered in San Francisco's New Music Society on January 11, 1934, by Douglas Thompson. Since then, it has also been published by Belmont Music Publishers and by Schott Music.

Analysis

The two movements of this composition show the development of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, from its initial conception until its culmination in 1936. It takes approximately five minutes to perform both movements, and neither movement has a title. In some recordings, the movements are titled according to their tempo markings:

• I. Mässig
• II. Mässig langsam

Both movements follow the principles of the twelve-tone technique, according to which a row of twelve tones is selected in order to construct the composition. The row of Op. 33a is 0 7 2 1 11 8 3 5 9 10 4 6. In order to compose the piece, Schoenberg uses inverted and retrograde versions of the row in various forms. The first movement starts with six chords, which show the row used in the piece.

Arrangements

Takatoshi Naitoh arranged this composition for computer and synthetizer in 1991. It was recorded at the Polydor KK Studio in Tokyo, in June, 1991, and was released by Deutsche Grammophon in Japan.