Schönberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra

Introduction

The Five Pieces for Orchestra (Fünf Orchesterstücke), Op. 16, were composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1909. The titles of the pieces, reluctantly added by the composer after the work's completion upon the request of his publisher, are as follows:

1. "Vorgefühle", Sehr rasch ("Premonitions", very fast)
2. "Vergangenes", Mäßige Viertel ("The Past", moderate)
3. "Farben", Mäßige Viertel ("Summer Morning by a Lake: Chord-Colors", moderate)
4. "Peripetie", Sehr rasch ("Peripeteia", very fast)
5. "Das obligate Rezitativ", Bewegte Achtel ("The Obbligato Recitative", with movement).

The Five Pieces further develop the notion of "total chromaticism" that Schoenberg introduced in his Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11 (composed earlier that year) and were composed during a time of intense personal and artistic crisis for the composer, this being reflected in the tensions and, at times, extreme violence of the score, mirroring the expressionist movement of the time, in particular its preoccupation with the subconscious and burgeoning madness.

The work had its world premiere in London at a Promenade Concert on 3 September 1912, conducted by Henry Wood.

At Wood's suggestion, Schoenberg's British pupil and friend Edward Clark (later to become a renowned BBC music producer and conductor) invited the composer to make his British conducting debut with this work at the Queen's Hall, and on 17 January 1914 he conducted it at the same venue. This was attended by Gustav Holst, who obtained a copy of the score, the only Schoenberg score he ever owned. Echoes of the work appear in The Planets (originally titled Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra), and in the opening of his ballet The Lure (1921), which closely resembles the third of Schoenberg's Five Pieces.