Sechs kleine Klavierstücke, op. 19

Arnold Schoenberg's Sechs kleine Klavierstücke Op. 19 (1911) are compositions of extraordinary aphoristic brevity and are particularly characteristic of Schoenberg and his early period of free atonality. Each movement has a specific mood expressing the musical substance in a highly condensed form: 'My music must be short. Lean! In two notes, not built, but "expressed". And the result is, I hope, without stylized and sterilized drawn-out sentiment. That is not how man feels', Schoenberg wrote to Ferruccio Busoni in 1909. Heinz Holliger who also has a penchant for miniature-like, delicate forms in his own compositions has arranged Schoenberg's piano pieces for Ensemble Contrechamps from Geneva.