Arnold Schoenberg wrote his one and only Piano Concerto in 1942. By then he had moved to Los Angeles. He decided to flee Germany in the year Hitler came to power (he taught in Berlin between 1926 and 1933) and on the way he made a spectacular return to the Jewish community that he had left in his youth. Sketches reveal that his piano concerto has certain hidden autobiographical aspects. In the early phase he provided (English-language) notes for all of the four movements that follow each other without interruption; however, eventually he decided not to bring the notes out in the printed score. The first movement said, “Life was so easy”; the second, Molto allegro, “Suddenly hatred broke out”; the third, an Adagio, “A grave situation was created”; and the fourth Giocoso movement “But life goes on”. Schoenberg composed his piano concerto with the dodecaphonic method, the twelve-tone technique he had invented in 1921 and which he more or less consistently employed later on. The work begins with the tone row, followed by its retrograde inversion, then its retrograde motion and eventually its inversion. It is unlikely, however, that the listener will be able to follow this; it is not important either.