In 1934, Arnold Schoenberg made a general assessment of his music: "I will not show you that my music is beautiful. You know it is not; I know it is not." The Fantasy for Violin and with Piano accompaniment, Op. 47, composed in March 1949, does nothing to overturn this judgment; Schoenberg's last instrumental work (his final years were devoted mainly to vocal works, mostly on religious themes, and an attempt to complete the opera, Moses und Aron), it represents the height of the composer's twelve-tone complexity and the complete subordination of aural concerns to those of rigorous order and derivation.

The title of the Fantasy is appropriate, given the process used in its composition: Schoenberg composed the solo violin melody first alone, and then wrote a separate piano accompaniment to go with it. The composition of the melody apart from the accompaniment was no doubt facilitated by the twelve-note idiom, applied here with the same kind of rigor as in the much earlier Piano Pieces, Op. 33a & b.

The Fantasy was composed for violinist Adolf Koldofsky (1905-51), a native of Los Angeles, and was first performed by him on the International Society for Contemporary Music's concert in commemoration of Schoenberg's seventy-fifth birthday (13 September 1949).

The Fantasy is not large—only 166 measures in length—but is among Schoenberg's densest works. In the first movement, marked Grave at the outset, the pianist fills in row forms around the sustained tones of the violinist, who is often instructed to perform harmonics and pizzicato notes. About midway through the movement a recurring trilled passage in the piano accompanies a quiet, sustained melody in the violin. This gives way to a return of the opening tempo and an ensuing segment featuring strong rhythmic drive derived from repeated notes and rhythmic figures in both the violin and piano. Without pause, the second movement, Scherzando, begins with an angular tune on the violin played in double stops. The generally detached playing of the first section becomes more connected as the violin enters with a repeated rhythmic figure similar to the one in the middle of the first movement. In the last measures, the "octave equivalency" aspect of the twelve-note method comes to the fore as pitches are played in drastically different registers on the violin. A few trills on the violin precede the work's screechingly abrupt close.



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