The Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra in B-flat is a work by the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, freely composed after the Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 7 by George Frideric Handel. The work is divided into four movements: # Largo –

Allegro Allegro may refer to: Common meanings * Allegro (music), a tempo marking indicate to play fast, quickly and bright * Allegro (ballet), brisk and lively movement Artistic works * L'Allegro (1645), a poem by John Milton * ''Allegro'' (Satie), an ...

# Largo #

Allegretto In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...

grazioso #

Hornpipe The hornpipe is any of several dance forms played and danced in Britain and Ireland and elsewhere from the 16th century until the present day. The earliest references to hornpipes are from England with Hugh Aston's Hornepype of 1522 and others ...

Circumstances

The Concerto was written in the summer of 1933. In May of that year Schoenberg had been forced to flee

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

after the accession of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

. He first went to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

(where he reconverted from

Lutheranism Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

to the

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

of his childhood). He spent the summer of 1933 with his wife and infant daughter in the French town of

Arcachon Arcachon ( ; ) is a commune in the southwestern French department of Gironde. It is a popular seaside resort on the Atlantic coast southwest of Bordeaux, in the Landes forest. It has a sandy beach and a mild climate said to be favourable for i ...

, a seaside resort near

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...

, completing the Concerto there before leaving for permanent residence in America in October. The work was first performed on September 26, 1934 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

with the

Kolisch Quartet The Kolisch Quartet was a string quartet musical ensemble founded in Vienna, originally (early 1920s) as the New Vienna String Quartet for the performance of Schoenberg's works, and (by 1927) settling to the form in which it was later known. It h ...

as soloists.

The music

Schoenberg wrote of the work: "I was mainly intent on removing the defects of the Handelian style. Just as Mozart did with Handel's ''

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

'', I have had to get rid of whole handfuls of rosalias and sequences, replacing them with real substance. I also did my best to deal with the other main defect of the Handelian style, which is that the theme is always best when it first appears and grows steadily more insignificant and trivial in the course of the piece".

Similar works

Other works for string quartet and orchestra have been written by

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...

Mehdi Hosseini Seyed Mehdi Hosseini Bami (born July 10, 1979; Persian: سید مهدی حسینی بمی) is a Persian composer of contemporary classical music. Biography Hosseini was born in Tehran, Iran, and received his master's degree and Doctor of Musi ...

,Tehran Times
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Benjamin Lees Benjamin Lees (January 8, 1924 – May 31, 2010) was an American composer of classical music. Early life Lees was born Benjamin George Lisniansky in Harbin, Manchuria, of Russian-Jewish descent. Lees was still an infant when his family emigra ...

, Bohuslav Martinů, Emmanuel Nunes,

Julián Orbón Julián Orbón de Soto (August 7, 1925, Avilés, Spain – May 21, 1991, Miami, Florida was a Cuban composer who lived and composed in Spain, Cuba, Mexico, and the United States of America. Aaron Copland referred to Orbón as "Cuba's most gifte ...

Gunther Schuller Gunther Alexander Schuller (November 22, 1925June 21, 2015) was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, educator, publisher, and jazz musician. Biography and works Early years Schuller was born in Queens, New York City ...

Louis Spohr Louis Spohr (, 5 April 178422 October 1859), baptized Ludewig Spohr, later often in the modern German form of the name Ludwig, was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Highly regarded during his lifetime, Spohr composed ten symphonies, t ...

, and

Julia Wolfe Julia Wolfe (born December 18, 1958) is an American composer and professor of music at New York University. According to ''The Wall Street Journal'', Wolfe's music has "long inhabited a terrain of its own, a place where classical forms are re ...

, while concertos for string quartet and wind orchestra have been written by

Walter Piston Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter Ha ...

Joel Puckett Joel Puckett (born in 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American composer. He comes from a musical family; his father was a classical tubist and in his retirement still plays dixie-land jazz gigs around Atlanta. Joel completed his academic work at ...

, and

Erwin Schulhoff Erwin Schulhoff ( cs, Ervín Šulhov; 8 June 189418 August 1942) was an Austro-Czech composer and pianist. He was one of the figures in the generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the ...

Sources

* Program notes by

Robert Craft Robert Lawson Craft (October 20, 1923 – November 10, 2015) was an American conductor and writer. He is best known for his intimate professional relationship with Igor Stravinsky, on which Craft drew in producing numerous recordings and books. ...

for the recording ( Naxos Records 8.557520) of Schoenberg's ''Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra in B-flat major'' performed by the

Fred Sherry Fred Sherry (born 1948) is an American cellist who is particularly admired for his work as a chamber musician and concert soloist. He studied with Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School before winning the Young Concert Artists International Audit ...

Quartet with the Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble under the baton of Robert Craft.
Center in Vienna
devoted to Arnold Schoenberg

References

{{Authority control Compositions by Arnold Schoenberg 1933 compositions Compositions in B-flat major Schoenberg