– Composer: Arnold Schönberg Schoenberg after 1934 (13 September 1874 — 13 July 1951)
– Performers: Kohon Quartet
– Year of recording: 1967
String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30, written in 1927.
00:00 – I. Moderato
08:18 – II. Theme and Variations (Adagio)
17:05 – III. Intermezzo (Allegro moderato)
23:57 – IV. Rondo (Molto moderato)
Schoenberg’s 3rd is one of this first pieces he wrote, after he had worked out the basic principles of his twelve-tone technique. Though the work is serial, he discouraged attempts to follow the transformations of the pitch series aurally. The themes of this work seem to consist mainly of rhythmic patterns rather than pitch, which are reused in variation just as in music of the Classical period. Indeed, Schoenberg had followed the “fundamental classicistic procedure” by modeling this work on Schubert’s String Quartet in A minor, Op. 29, without intending in any way to recall Schubert’s composition. There is evidence that Schoenberg regarded his 12-tone sets—independent of rhythm and register—as motivic in the commonly understood sense, and this has been demonstrated with particular reference to the second movement of this quartet.
Schoenberg diverged from the serial row-form in this String Quartet to the extent that, when questioned about a particular passage by a violinist from Kolisch’s quartet he angrily responded: ”If I hear an F-sharp I will write an F-sharp . . . Just because of your stupid theory you are telling me what to write?” This is an indication of his revulsion towards conceptual responses to composition as an actual expression of feeling in sound. He was telling the theorist What it Is.
The piece was commissioned by, and dedicated to, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge on 2 March 1927, though the work had already been completed by this time, and its première was given in Vienna on 19 September 1927 by the Kolisch Quartet.
On 20:45 an ‘easter egg’ : which popular song does this little part resemble? First right answer gets an upload of choice!