Arnold Schoenberg — Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra in B-flat Major (1933) [Score Video]

Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra in B-Flat, freely transcribed after Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 7 by George Frideric Handel. Performed by Lenox Quartet and London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Harold Farberman. “From the standpoint of composition, I have gone further than Brahms or Mozart in the Handel arrangements. I have not limited myself, as they did, to expunging sequences and uninteresting figure-work and to enriching the texture; instead, especially in the third and fourth movements, whose insufficiency with respect to thematic invention and development could satisfy no sincere contemporary of ours, I have acted quite freely and independently, and while employing what was usable, undertaken an entirely new structure. I believe that such freedom will be found hardly more disturbing, stylistically, than the cadenzas which modern writers apply to classical concertos. I do not venture much further than they do in matters of harmony. Nor do I believe that I need yield to them as regards solidity of form and intensification of motivic development, and their interrelating.” – Arnold Schoenberg (1935) 0:00 I. Largo – Allegro 5:10 II. Largo 9:01 III. Allegretto grazioso 15:29 IV. Hornpipe. Moderato