Pierrot Lunaire

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Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds 'Pierrot lunaire', ("three times seven poems from Albert Giraud's 'Pierrot lunaire'"), commonly known as Pierrot Lunaire ("Moonstruck Pierrot" or "Pierrot in the moonlight"), Op. 21, is a song cycle by Arnold Schoenberg. It is a setting of twenty-one selected poems from Otto Erich Hartleben's German translation of Albert Giraud's cycle of French poems of the same name. The work's premiere was at the Berlin Choralion-saal on October 16 1912, with Albertine Zehme as the vocalist.

The soprano soloist sings the poems in the Sprechstimme style, which complements the mood of the poems aurally. The work is atonal, but not twelve-tone as Schoenberg did not begin experimenting with twelve-tone music until later in his career.

Contents

[edit] History

The work originated in a commission by Zehme for a cycle for voice and piano, setting a series of poems by the Belgian writer Albert Giraud. The verses had been first published in 1884, and later translated into German by Otto Erich Hartleben. Schoenberg began on March 12 and completed the work on July 9, 1912, having expanded the forces to an ensemble consisting of flute (doubling on a piccolo), clarinet (doubling on bass clarinet), violin (doubling on viola), cello, and piano. After forty rehearsals, Schoenberg and Zehme (in Columbine dress) gave the premiere at the Berlin Choralion-saal on October 16, 1912. Reaction was predictably mixed, with Anton Webern reporting at the premiere whistling, laughing, but in the end "it was an unqualified success".[1] There was some criticism of blasphemy in the texts, to which Schoenberg responded, "If they were musical, not a single one would give a damn about the words. Instead, they would go away whistling the tunes".[2] The show took to the road throughout Germany and Austria later in 1912.

[edit] Structure

"Pierrot Lunaire" consists of three groups of seven poems. In the first group, Pierrot sings of love, sex and religion; in the second, of violence, crime, and blasphemy; and in the third of his return home to Bergamo, with his past haunting him.

  1. Mondestrunken (Moon-drunk)
  2. Colombine
  3. Der Dandy (The Dandy)
  4. Eine blasse Wäscherin (A Faded Laundress)
  5. Valse de Chopin
  6. Madonna
  7. Der kranke Mond (The Sick Moon)
  8. Nacht (Passacaglia) (Night)
  9. Gebet an Pierrot (Prayer to Pierrot)
  10. Raub (Theft)
  11. Rote Messe (Red Mass)
  12. Galgenlied (Gallows Song)
  13. Enthauptung (Beheading)
  14. Die Kreuze (The Crosses)
  15. Heimweh (Homesick)
  16. Gemeinheit! (Mean Trick!)
  17. Parodie (Parody)
  18. Der Mondfleck (The Moonfleck)
  19. Serenade
  20. Heimfahrt (Barcarole) (Journey Home)
  21. O Alter Duft (O Old Perfume)

Schoenberg, who was fascinated by numerology, also makes great use of seven-note motifs throughout the work, while the ensemble (with conductor) comprises seven people. The piece is his opus 21, contains 21 poems, and was begun on March 12, 1912. Other key numbers in the work are three and thirteen: each poem consists of thirteen lines (two four-line verses followed by a five-line verse), while the first line of each poem occurs three times (being repeated as lines seven and thirteen).

[edit] Music

Pierrot Lunaire uses a variety of older forms, including canon, fugue, rondo, passacaglia and free counterpoint. The poetry is a German version of a rondeau of the old French type with a double refrain. Each poem consists of three stanzas of 4 + 4 + 5 lines, with line 1 a Refrain (A) repeated as line 7 and line 13, and line 2 a second Refrain (B) repeated for line 8.

The instrumentation of each song is varied so that no two successive numbers have the same combination of timbres. The entire ensemble plays together only during the last poem.

The atonal, expressionistic settings of the text, with their echoes of German cabaret, bring the poems vividly to life. Sprechstimme, literally "speech-voice" in German, meaning speak-singing, is a style in which the vocalist uses the specified rhythms and pitches, but does not sustain the pitches, allowing them to drop or rise, in the manner of speech.

[edit] Analysis

Pierrot Lunaire is a work that contains many paradoxes: the instrumentalists, for example, are soloists and an orchestra at the same time; Pierrot is both the hero and the fool, acting in a drama that is also a concert piece, performing cabaret as high art and vice versa with song that is also speech; and his is a male role sung by a woman, who shifts between the first and third persons.

[edit] Recordings

In 1940 Schoenberg recorded the work with Erika Stiedry-Wagner as the soloist. Other distinguished artists to record the cycle include Phyllis Bryn-Julson (in 1991 and again in 1992), Jan DeGaetani (1970), Yvonne Minton (1977), Karin Ott (1990-94), Helga Pilarczyk (1961), Christine Schäfer (1997) and Anja Silja (with Robert Craft conducting, 1999).

The pop star Björk, known for her interest in avant-garde music, performed Pierrot Lunaire at the 1996 Verbier Festival with Kent Nagano conducting. According to the singer in a 2004 interview, "Kent Nagano wanted to make a recording of it, but I really felt that I would be invading the territory of people who sing this for a lifetime."[1] Only small recorded excerpts (possibly bootlegs) of her performance have become available.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Quoted in Winiarz.
  2. ^ Quoted in Hazlewood.

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

  • Dunsby, Jonathan. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire. Cambridge University Press. 1992.

[edit] External links

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