Three Piano Pieces, Op 11 (1909) - Schoenberg

Fantasia in C, Op 17 (1836) - Schumann

Were it not for the dates printed in the programme, the unwary listener at Sunday's recital might well have thought that Schoenberg came before Schumann. The Three Piano Pieces seem to proceed by a sort of free association, taking up short motifs only to abandon them; sometimes heavily scored in the Romantic manner, sometimes austerely simple, the music is strangely directionless. By comparison, Schumann's Fantasia, though obviously arising from a similar emotional ground, replaces the inchoate with the highly organised and the music has a purposeful movement. The repetitions of themes have a structural importance, whereas the repeated accompanying figure in the second of Schoenberg's pieces sounds as if it could have been dispensed with: it is a surprise in the context.