Piano Concerto, op. 42 - Programmatic keywords

Arnold Schönberg’s Piano Concerto, op. 42, which was originally commissioned by his former student Oscar Levant, is conceived as a single-movement form displaying the characteristics of a multimovement sonata cycle. Like the program of the concerto it divides into four parts. Schönberg noted on his final manuscript that the concerto was composed between 5 July and 29 December 1942, but the earliest sketch is marked 27 June 1942. The manuscript includes the four parts of the programme (which – according to Schönberg scholarship – is clearly autobiographical), each accompanied by a musical example from one of the four sections of the concerto. The first statement of the programme “Life was so easy,” is illustrated on this sketch only by a schematic presentation of the row. The second statement, “Suddenly hatred broke out,” at the top of the left corner of the page, is matched by a close approximation of the musical material that begins the second section of the concerto, although it appears there at a different transposition. The third statement of the text, “A grave situation was created,” introduces three sketches related to material from the third section of the concerto, although in far different form from that which they take in the finished work. Statement four, “But life goes on,” is matched by a literal representation of the melodic material that opens the final section of the concerto, followed by sketches for other motives in the finale.