Schoenberg's Opus 33B and the Problem of its Contrasting ‘Continuation’ and Second Theme

Abstract

Schoenberg's Piano Piece Op. 33b can be interpreted fruitfully using the composer's notion of ‘musical idea’, in which a problem or conflict is introduced at the beginning, elaborated during the piece and resolved near the end. Previous studies of the piece disagree about whether bars 5b–11a should be understood as the continuation of the first theme's sentence or as a second theme, because of differences between the tetrachordal row partitions of bars 1–5a and the trichordal partitions of bars 5b–11a, and the marked dissimilarities in set‐class content, interval successions (including <−2, −2> in the trichordal partitions), rhythm and heard metre that result. These differences introduce the work's ‘problem’, which the piece then elaborates in bars 21–28 by taking an element from the transitional bars following the ‘continuation’, <+2, +2> and <−2, −2> interval successions paired together in vertical symmetry, and further developing that element to create hexachords that are not equivalent to contiguous hexachords of the source row. The solution to the problem occurs gradually after bar 32, in two ways: first, the set classes, interval successions, pitches and rhythms associated with each kind of partition are shown to be generable by the other partition; second, after bar 57 both kinds of partition project themselves simultaneously on a single row form, demonstrating intervallic, pitch and rhythmic similarities between the elements of the contrasting partitions.