The Classical Tradition and Schoenberg's Piano Concerto

This analysis of Op. 42 examines the way that Schoenberg adapts the classical tradition with respect to form, voice-leading on various structural levels, and how he reinterprets essentially tonal formal archetypes in an atonal context. After a brief introduction and definition of terms, each section of the first movement is examined in detail in both its dodecaphonic serial and traditional manifestations. The majority of the discussion is on the first movement, but since the four-movement work also yields an overarching form, there is a cursory examination of global phenomena as they influence first-movement compositional decisions and vice-verse. As part of the discussion, I examine several examples from the classical tradition as well as excerpts from Schoenberg's writings on tradition and form. The paper closes with observations on how the first movement also functions as a large-scale first theme-group and transition in the context of the whole Concerto.