Although Arnold Schoenberg is often seen as a composer strictly concerned with pitch, his interests in timbre and sonority are ever-present in all five of his completed piano works. On Schoenberg Piano Music And His 17 Fragments, pianist Yoko Hirota performs three of Schoenberg's completed works along with the 17 fragments that he never brought to completion. Hirota, praised as being "precise and keenly projective" and demonstrating the "highest level of proficiency," is one of the leading interpreters of contemporary piano repertory, and she brings Schoenberg's compositions to life with conviction. The three pieces that make up Drei Klavierstücke op.11 demonstrate Schoenberg's burgeoning awareness that, as a corollary to the atonal structures he was beginning to use, more emotionally stringent use of the piano made for fertile musical ground. A close examination of the 17 fragments illustrates the composer's preoccupation with and research into expressivity and color in his piano music - elements that are communicated clearly in Hirota's performances. The evolution of Schoenberg's musical thought can be clearly traced in the fragments, which were written throughout the first quarter of the 20th Century.

• Genre: Classical
• Label: NAVONA