The first piece simultaneously unfolds series of 21, 20, and 13 pitches, which later recur in the same order, but changed in rhythm and octave to generate a different, contrasting musical texture.
Its initial impetus was a June 1920 solicitation from Henry Prunières, editor of the French music magazine "La Revue musicale," for contributions to a proposed "Tombeau de Claude Debussy," although Schoenberg ultimately decided not to submit it for inclusion in that project.
The third, composed in 1923, is based on a motive of five notes, and the fourth, started in 1920, then resumed in 1923, features four recurring pitch constellations.
[5] They have been commercially recorded by pianists such as Glenn Gould, Claude Helffer, Paul Jacobs, Maurizio Pollini, Eduard Steuermann, and Peter Serkin.
[6] Kathryn Bailey devoted a monograph to the Five Piano Pieces, "Composing with tones": A Musical Analysis of Schoenberg's Op.