Presentation Notes 03/26/2017

In a letter to Arnold Schoenberg dated May 26, 1914 he shared: I

shall now write a major piece for cello and piano. My father asked me for it.
He likes cello music. For me, however, his wish becomes the occasion to find
at last an approach to longer movements again your idea.

Started writing his sonata for cello and piano and realized it was gonna
be a lot longer than he anticipated so he instead started writing the 3 little
cello pieces

In the same letter to Schoenberg he apologizes: I beg you not to be

indignant that it has again become something so short. I should like to tell
you how this happened and thereby try to justify myself. I already had the
quite distinct conception of a major two-movement composition for cello and
piano and at once began working it out. However, when I was already far
along with the first movement, it became ever more compellingly clear to me
that I had to write something else. I felt with complete certainty that I would
leave something unwritten if I suppressed the urge. Thus I broke off that
major work, although my progress in it had been smooth, and quickly wrote
these small pieces.

after the letter the first world war broke out so he didnt finish it until after