Drei Klavierstücke (Schoenberg)

Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11 (or Three Piano Pieces) is a set of pieces for solo piano written by the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg in 1909. They represent an early example of atonality in the composer’s work. The tempo markings of the three pieces are:

The Three Piano Pieces form an important milestone in the evolution of Schoenberg’s compositional style. The first two, dating from February 1909, are often cited as marking the point at which Schoenberg abandoned the last vestiges of traditional tonality, implying the language of common-practice harmony that had been inherent in western music in one way or another for centuries. The functionality of this language, to Schoenberg at least, had by this time become stretched to bursting point in some of the more chromatically saturated works of Wagner, Mahler, Richard Strauss and indeed some of Schoenberg's own earlier tonal works such as the string sextet Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 of 1899.

Although there are vestigial, superficial remnants of tonal writing, such as lyrical melody, expressive appoggiaturas, and chordal accompaniment, tonal hearing and tonal analysis are difficult to sustain. Nevertheless, at least three attempts at tonal analysis of the first piece have been made, by three respected authorities. One of them (Brinkmann 1969) says it is in E, another (Benjamin 1984) says it is a prolongation of F♯ as the dominant of B, and the third (Ogdon 1982) concludes that it is in G. While all three are persuasive in their own way, other keys may also be heard here, but all are insubstantial. Any complete analysis must take these ghostly remnants of tonality into account, but no one key reliably shapes the structure (Straus 2000, 116, 131–32). Atonal analyses of this first piece are also divided in opinion. Allen Forte describes its pitch organisation as "straightforward" and based on hexachords (Forte 1972, 45). George Perle is equally certain that it is constructed instead from three-note "intervallic cells" (Perle 1977, 10–15).

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