The Alliance-Walzer  and the Sonnenschein-Polka by Arnold Schönberg, which Hannah Weirich and Sara Cubarsi have recorded here, is one of Arnold Schönberg’s early works. The exact date of origin is unclear: “after 1882, but probably later,” says the Arnold Schönberg Center website:

“Through Hans Nachod (1883 – 1966), cousin of Arnold Schönberg and also the first interpreter of Waldemar from the “Gurre-Lieder,” some of the composer’s early pieces, including several violin duets, have been preserved. Whether these are actually derivatives of those first compositions, music for a circle of friends or even a commercial work, remains uncertain. In any case, works such as the »Alliance«-Walzer or the »Sonnenschein«-Polka leave no doubt that this music was intended as light entertainment”.

And Arnold Schönberg writes in his essay “My evolution”(1949):

“I began studying violin at the age of eight and almost immediately started com­posing. One might accordingly assume that I had acquired very early agreat skill in composing. […] All my compositions up to about my seventeenth year were no more than imitations of such music as I had been able to become acquainted with – violin duets and duet-ar­rangements of operas and the repertory of military bands that played in public parks.”