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Musical setting past Arnold Schoenberg of 21 selected poems by Albert Giraud

Pierrot lunaire
Melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg
Cocky-portrait past Schoenberg, 1910
Full title	Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds "Pierrot lunaire"
Opus	Op. 21
Style	Complimentary atonality
Text	Albert Giraud'south Pierrot lunaire
Language	German
Equanimous	1912
Duration	Nigh 35 to xl minutes
Movements	21
Scoring	Pierrot ensemble plus reciter
Premiere
Date	sixteen October 1912 (1912-ten-16)
Location	Berlin Choralion-Saal
Conductor	Arnold Schoenberg
Performers	Albertine Zehme (voice) Hans Due west. de Vries (flute) Karl Essberger (clarinet) Jakob Malinjak (violin) Hans Kindler (cello) Eduard Steuermann (piano)

Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds "Pierrot lunaire" ("Three times 7 Poems from Albert Giraud's 'Pierrot lunaire'"), commonly known simply as Pierrot lunaire , Op. 21 ("Moonstruck Pierrot" or "Pierrot in the Moonlight"), is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg. It is a setting of 21 selected poems from Albert Giraud'southward cycle of the aforementioned proper noun as translated into German language past Otto Erich Hartleben. The work is written for reciter (vocalism-type unspecified in the score, merely traditionally performed by a soprano) who delivers the poems in the Sprechstimme style accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble. Schoenberg had previously used a combination of spoken text with instrumental accompaniment, called "melodrama", in the summer-air current narrative of the Gurre-Lieder,^[1] which was a fashionable musical style popular at the cease of the nineteenth century.^[ii] Though the music is atonal, it does not employ Schoenberg'southward twelve-tone technique, which he did not use until 1921.

Pierrot lunaire is among Schoenberg's most historic and often performed works. Its instrumentation – flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano with standard doublings and in this case with the addition of a vocalist – is an of import ensemble in 20th- and 21st-century classical music and is referred to as a Pierrot ensemble.

The slice was premiered at the Berlin Choralion-Saal on October 16, 1912, with Albertine Zehme as the vocalist. A typical performance lasts about 35 to 40 minutes. The American premiere took identify at the Klaw Theatre, on Broadway, New York, on 4 February 1923 as part of a serial of concerts organised by the International Composers' Lodge.^[iii]

History [edit]

The ensemble that premiered Pierrot lunaire

The work originated in a commission past Albertine Zehme, a old actress, for a cycle for vox and piano, setting a series of poems past the Belgian writer Albert Giraud. The verses had been first published in 1884 and later translated into German by Otto Erich Hartleben. Zehme had previously performed a 'melodrama' by composer Otto Vrieslander based on the translated poems. Only, according to Eduard Steuermann, educatee of Schoenberg and pianist of the premiere, "the music was non strong enough, and someone advised her to approach Schoenberg."^[four]

Schoenberg began piece of work on March 12 and completed the piece on July nine, 1912, having expanded the forces to an ensemble consisting of flute (doubling on piccolo), clarinet in A (doubling on bass clarinet and clarinet in B ♭ ), violin (doubling on viola), cello, and piano.

Later on xl rehearsals, Schoenberg and Zehme (in Columbine apparel) gave the premiere at the Berlin Choralion-Saal on October 16, 1912. Reaction was mixed. Co-ordinate to Anton Webern, some in the audience were whistling and laughing, but in the end "it was an unqualified success".^[five] There was some criticism of blasphemy in the texts, to which Schoenberg responded, "If they were musical, non a single one would give a damn about the words. Instead, they would go away whistling the tunes."^[6]

Construction [edit]

Pierrot lunaire consists of three groups of 7 poems. In the kickoff 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 by haunting him.

Function One Mondestrunken (Drunk with Moonlight) Colombine (Columbine) Der Dandy (The Dandy) Eine blasse Wäscherin (A Pallid Washerwoman) Valse de Chopin Madonna Der kranke Mond (The Sick Moon)

Part Ii Nacht (Passacaglia) (Night) Gebet an Pierrot (Prayer to Pierrot) Raub (Theft) Rote Messe (Red Mass) Galgenlied (Gallows Song) Enthauptung (Beheading) Die Kreuze (The Crosses)

Office Iii Heimweh (Homesickness) Gemeinheit! (Foul Play) Parodie (Parody) Der Mondfleck (The Moon Spot) Serenade Heimfahrt (Barcarole) (Journey Abode) O Modify Duft (O Ancient Fragrance)

Schoenberg, who was fascinated by numerology, too makes great use of seven-annotation motifs throughout the piece of work, while the ensemble (with conductor) comprises vii people. The piece is his opus 21, contains 21 poems, and was begun on March 12, 1912. Other cardinal numbers in the work are 3 and 13: each poem consists of 13 lines (two four-line verses followed by a v-line verse), while the showtime line of each verse form occurs three times (being repeated as lines 7 and 13).

Music and text [edit]

Though written in a freely atonal fashion, Pierrot lunaire uses a variety of classical forms and techniques, including canon, fugue, rondo, passacaglia, and gratis counterpoint.

The instrumental combinations (including doublings) vary between virtually movements. The entire ensemble is used only in Nos. 6, 11, 14, 15 (finish), xvi, 18, xix (end), 20, and 21.^[seven] Musicologist Alan Lessem states about the work that "on the whole instrumental textures tend to become fuller as the work progresses" and that, in general, "the piano is the leading [instrumental] protagonist of the melodramas."^[8]

The poetry is a German language version of a rondeau of the onetime French type with a double refrain. Each poem consists of three stanzas of 4 + 4 + v lines, with the starting time two lines of the first stanza (1,2) repeated equally the last two lines of the second stanza (7,8), and line one additionally repeated (thirteen) to close the third stanza and the poem. The outset poem is shown beneath.

1. Mondestrunken (Drunk with Moonlight)
Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt, Giesst Nachts der Mond in Wogen nieder, Und eine Springflut überschwemmt Den stillen Horizont. Gelüste schauerlich und süss, Durchschwimmen ohne Zahl die Fluten! Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt, Giesst Nachts der Mond in Wogen nieder. Der Dichter, den die Andacht treibt, Berauscht sich an dem heilgen Tranke, Gen Himmel wendet er verzückt Das Haupt und taumelnd saugt und schlürft er Den Wein, den homo mit Augen trinkt.		The wine that one drinks with one'south eyes Is poured downwards in waves by the moon at night, And a spring tide overflows The silent horizon. Lusts, thrilling and sugariness Float numberless through the waters! The wine that one drinks with ane'due south eyes Is poured downwardly in waves past the moon at nighttime. The poet, urged on by his devotions, Becomes intoxicated with the sacred beverage; Enraptured, he turns toward heaven His head, and, staggering, sucks and sips The wine that one drinks with one's optics.[ix]

Sprechstimme / Sprechgesang [edit]

The atonal, expressionistic settings of the text, with their echoes of High german cabaret, bring the poems vividly to life. Sprechstimme ^[10] is a style in which the vocaliser uses the specified rhythms and pitches only does non sustain the pitches, allowing them to driblet or rising, in the manner of oral communication. Schoenberg describes the technique in a foreword to the score:

The melody given in notation in the song part (with a few peculiarly indicated exceptions) is non intended to be sung. The performer has the chore of transforming it into a speech melody [Sprechmelodie], taking the prescribed pitches advisedly into account. He accomplishes this by:

1. adhering to the rhythm as precisely as if he were singing; that is, with no more freedom than he would permit himself if it were sung melody;
2. existence precisely aware of the departure between a sung tone and a spoken tone: the sung tone maintains the pitch unaltered; the spoken tone does bespeak it, just immediately abandons it again by falling or rising. Just the performer must have great care not to lapse into a singsong speech blueprint. That is absolutely non intended. The goal is certainly not at all realistic, natural spoken language. On the opposite, the difference betwixt ordinary speech communication and voice communication that collaborates in a musical form must exist made manifestly. Merely it should not phone call singing to mind, either.

Furthermore, the following should exist said about the performance:

The performer's task here is at no time to derive the mood and character or the private pieces from the meaning of the words, but ever solely from the music. To the extent that the tonepainterly representation [tonmalerische Darstellung] of the events and feelings in the text were of importance to the composer, it volition be found in the music anyway. Wherever the performer fails to find it, he must resist adding something that the composer did non intend. If he did so, he would not be adding, simply subtracting.

—Arnold Schoenberg [English translation by Stanley Appelbaum] ^[eleven]

In the score, Sprechstimme is indicated with pocket-size x's through the stems of notes. Though Sprechstimme is used throughout the slice, Schoenberg also occasionally indicates that certain passages are to be sung (gesungen).

Notable recordings [edit]

Notable recordings of this limerick include:

Voice	Ensemble	Conductor	Tape company	Year of recording	Format
Erika Stiedry-Wagner		Arnold Schoenberg	Columbia Records	1940	LP[12]
Helga Pilarczyk	Members of the Conservatory Club Concert Orchestra	Pierre Boulez	Ades	1961	LP, CD
Bethany Beardslee	Columbia Chamber Ensemble	Robert Craft	Columbia / CBS	1963	LP
Jan DeGaetani	Gimmicky Chamber Ensemble	Arthur Weisberg	Nonesuch	1970	LP, CD
Cleo Laine	Nash Ensemble	Elgar Howarth	RCA Red Seal Records	1974	LP
Yvonne Minton	Ensemble InterContemporain	Pierre Boulez	Sony Music	1977	LP, CD
Barbara Sukowa	Schoenberg Ensemble	Reinbert de Leeuw	Koch Schwann	1988	CD
Maria Höglind	Sonanza Ensemble	Jan Risberg	Caprice records	1990	CD
Jane Manning	Nash Ensemble	Simon Rattle	Chandos	1991	CD
Phyllis Bryn-Julson	New York New Music Ensemble	Robert Black	GM Recordings	1992	CD
Phyllis Bryn-Julson	Ensemble Modernistic	Peter Eötvös	BMG	1993	CD
Karin Ott	Cremona Musica Insieme	Pietro Antonini	Nuova Era	1994	CD
Christine Schäfer	Ensemble InterContemporain	Pierre Boulez	Deutsche Grammophon	1997	CD
Anja Silja	Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble	Robert Arts and crafts	Naxos	1999	CD

Arnold Schoenberg himself made test recordings of the music with a grouping of Los Angeles musicians from September 24 to 26, 1940. These recordings were eventually released on LP past Columbia Records in 1949, and reissued in 1974 on the Odyssey label.^[12]

The jazz vocaliser Cleo Laine recorded Pierrot lunaire in 1974. Her version was nominated for a classical Grammy Award. Another jazz vocalizer who has performed the piece is Sofia Jernberg, who sang information technology with Norrbotten NEO.^{[ citation needed ]}

The avant-popular star Björk, known for her involvement in avant-garde music, performed Pierrot lunaire at the 1996 Verbier Festival with Kent Nagano conducting. Co-ordinate to the vocalizer in a 2004 interview, "Kent Nagano wanted to brand a recording of it, but I really felt that I would exist invading the territory of people who sing this for a lifetime [sic]."^{[xiii] [14]} Only small recorded excerpts (possibly bootlegs) of her performance accept go available.

The American mezzo-soprano Mary Nessinger has performed Pierrot lunaire extensively with organizations such as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Heart, Sleeping room Music Northwest, and Sequitur at venues including Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.^{[15] [xvi] [17]}

In March 2011, Bruce LaBruce directed a performance at the Hebbel am Ufer Theatre in Berlin. This interpretation of the work included gender diversity, castration scenes and dildos, as well as a female to male person transgender Pierrot. LaBruce subsequently filmed this adaptation equally the 2014 theatrical flick Pierrot lunaire.^[18]

Legacy as a standard ensemble [edit]

The quintet of instruments used in Pierrot lunaire became the core ensemble for The Fires of London, who formed in 1965 every bit "The Pierrot Players" to perform Pierrot lunaire, and connected to concertize with a varied classical and contemporary repertory. This grouping performed works arranged for these instruments and commissioned new works especially to have reward of this ensemble'south instrumental colors, upwards until it disbanded in 1987.^[19]

Over the years, other groups take continued to use this instrumentation professionally (current groups include Da Capo Chamber Players,^[xx] 8th blackbird^[21] and the Finnish contemporary group Uusinta Lunaire^[22]) and accept built a large repertoire for the ensemble.

Notes [edit]

1. ^ Neighbor 2001.
2. ^ Dunsby 1992, two.
3. ^ Lott, R. Allen (1983). "'New Music for New Ears': The International Composers' Guild". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 36 (ii): 266–286. doi:10.2307/831066. ISSN 0003-0139. JSTOR 831066.
4. ^ Dunsby 1992, 22.
5. ^ Quoted in Winiarz.
6. ^ Quoted in Hazlewood.
7. ^ Dunsby 1992, 23.
8. ^ Dunsby 1992, 24.
9. ^ Schoenberg 1994, 56.
10. ^ literally "speeking phonation" or "spoken voice" in German, often used for vocal functioning even closer to voice communication than Sprechgesang, literally "spoken song" or "spoken singing"
11. ^ Schoenberg 1994, 54.
12. ^ ^{a b} Byron, Avior (February 2006). "The Test Pressings of Schoenberg Conducting Pierrot lunaire: Sprechstimme Reconsidered". Music Theory Online. Society for Music Theory. Retrieved Baronial 16, 2011.
13. ^ Björk is Icelandic. "For a lifetime" is probably a second-language mistake for "all their lives."
14. ^ unknown, Björk (September 8, 2004). "About Pierre lunaire". Bjorkish. Archived from the original on March 31, 2016. Retrieved 30 January 2019 – via The New Yorker.
15. ^ Griffiths, Paul (January 16, 1998). "Music Review; Stravinsky and Schoenberg: A Gulf". The New York Times . Retrieved August 2, 2018.
16. ^ McQuillen, James (Feb 2012). "Tried and still brilliant: Mary Nessinger sings "Pierrot lunaire"". Oregon ArtsWatch . Retrieved August 2, 2018.
17. ^ "Classical Music". Goings On About Town. The New Yorker. October 2007. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
18. ^ Pierrot lunaire at the Berlin International Film Festival.
19. ^ Goodwin 2001. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGoodwin2001 (help)
20. ^ Kozinn, Allan. "Globe Premieres, Sure, but Room for Older New Music As well," The New York Times, Nov 23, 2006.
21. ^ Riley, Paul. "High-flying Quality," BBC Magazine, September i, 2007.
22. ^ "Uusinta Publishing Company Ltd". www.uusinta.com. Archived from the original on 2004-10-16.

References [edit]

• Bryn-Julson, Phyllis, and Paul Mathews. 2009. Within Pierrot lunaire: Performing the Sprechstimme in Schoenberg'southward Masterpiece. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6205-0 (pbk); ISBN 978-0-8108-6225-8 (ebook).
• Byron, Avior. "The Test Pressings of Schoenberg Conducting Pierrot lunaire". accessed May 1, 2008.
• Byron, Avior. 2006–07. "Pierrot lunaire in Studio and in Circulate: Sprechstimme, Tempo and Character". Periodical of the Society of Musicology in Ireland two:69–91. (accessed October 29, 2008).
• Dunsby, Jonathan. 1992. Schoenberg: Pierrot lunaire. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521387159.
• Goodwin, Noël (2001). "Fires of London". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Lexicon of Music and Musicians (second ed.). London: Macmillan. ‎
• Hazlewood, Charles. 2006. Discovering Music. BBC Radio 3 (June 24).
• Neighbor, Oliver West. 2001. "Schoenberg, Arnold (Franz Walter)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
• Puffett, Kathryn. 2006. "Structural Imagery: Pierrot lunaire Revisited". Tempo 60, no. 237 (July): 2–22.
• Rosen, Charles. 1996. Arnold Schoenberg, with a new preface. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-72643-4.
• Schoenberg, Arnold. 1994. Verklärte Nacht and Pierrot lunaire. Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-27885-9
• Winiarz, John. Schoenberg – Pierrot lunaire: an Atonal Landmark April i, 2000 accessed July 23, 2006.

Farther reading [edit]

• Argentino, Joe. 2012. "Serialism and Neo-Riemannian Theory: Transformations and Hexatonic Cycles in Schoenberg's Modern Psalm Op. 50c". Intégral 26:123–58.
• Gillespie, Jeffrey L. 1992. "Motivic Transformations and Networks in Schoenberg's 'Nacht' from Pierrot lunaire". Intégral 6:34–65.
• Gingerich, Katrina (2012). "The Journey of the Song Bicycle: From 'The Iliad' to 'American Idiot'", Musical Offerings: Vol. ane: No. two, Article three.
• Lambert, Philip. 2000. "On Contextual Transformations". Perspectives of New Music 38, no. 1 (Winter): 45–76.
• Lessem, Alan. 1979. Music and Text in the Works of Arnold Schoenberg: The Critical Years, 1908–22. ISBN 0835709949.
• Metzer, David. 1994. "The New York Reception of Pierrot lunaire: The 1923 Premiere and Its Aftermath". The Musical Quarterly 78, no. iv (Winter): 669–99.
• Roig-Francolí, Miguel A. 2001. "A Theory of Pitch-Class-Set Extension in Atonal Music". College Music Symposium 41:57–90.
• Weytjens, Stephan. 2004. "Text as a Crutch in Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire?". Pierrot lunaire: Albert Giraud, Otto Erich Hartleben, Arnold Schoenberg: a drove of musicological and literary studies. Delaere, Marker, Jan Herman editors. Leuven, Kingdom of belgium: Éditions Peeters: 109-24.

External links [edit]

External video
2 Clowns: Pierrot Meets Petrushka, 3:50, IsraeliChambrProject, Morgan Library

• Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Manuscript of the score at the Arnold Schönberg center
• Luna Nova New Music Ensemble: Arnold Schoenberg'south Pierrot lunaire, study guide featuring a consummate operation
• Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien, Austrian ensemble for gimmicky music
• "Pierrot lunaire", LiederNet Annal

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot_lunaire

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