Pierrot Lunaire

This article is about the Schoenberg composition. For the cycle of poems by Albert Giraud, see Pierrot lunaire (book). For the Italian band, see Pierrot Lunaire (band).

Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds 'Pierrot lunaire' ("Three times Seven 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 twenty-one selected poems from Otto Erich Hartleben's German translation of Albert Giraud's cycle of French poems of the same name. The première of the work, which is between 35 and 40 minutes in length, was at the Berlin Choralion-Saal on October 16, 1912, with Albertine Zehme as the vocalist.

The narrator (voice-type unspecified in the score, but traditionally performed by a soprano) delivers the poems in the Sprechstimme style. Schoenberg had previously used a combination of spoken text with instrumental accompaniment, called "melodrama", in the summer-wind narrative of the Gurre-Lieder, and it was a genre much in vogue at the end of the nineteenth century. The work is atonal but does not use the twelve-tone technique that Schoenberg would devise eight years later.

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 mixed, with Anton Webern reporting at the première whistling and laughing, but in the end "it was an unqualified success". 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". The show took to the road throughout Germany and Austria later in 1912.

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.

Part One Mondestrunken (Moondrunk) Columbine Der Dandy (The Dandy) Eine blasse Wäscherin (An Ethereal Washerwoman) Valse de Chopin (Chopin Waltz) Madonna Der kranke Mond (The Sick Moon)

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

Part Three Heimweh (Homesickness) Gemeinheit! (Vulgarity) Parodie (Parody) Der Mondfleck (The Moonspot) Serenade Heimfahrt (Barcarole) (Homeward Bound) O Alter Duft (O Ancient Fragrance)

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).

Music

Pierrot Lunaire uses a variety of classical forms and techniques, 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 instrumental combinations (including doublings) vary between most movements. The entire ensemble plays together only in the 11th, 14th and final 4 settings.

The atonal, expressionistic settings of the text, with their echoes of German cabaret, bring the poems vividly to life. Sprechgesang, literally "speech-singing" in German, 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.

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.

It is also a work which can be interpreted through the sixth song "Madonna". In this song the only person who could save Pierrot, Jesus, is presented as dead. After a brief period of sorrow in "Der kranke Mond" Pierrot in Part II of the song cycle becomes more depraved in his exploits and by the end is crucified for his sins in "Die Kreuze". Hoping to redeem himself in Part III, Pierrot tries to go back to previous persona as the "old pantomime from Italy" but utimately fails without much hope of redemption by the end of the work.

Notable recordings

Notable recordings of this composition include:

Sprechstimme	Ensemble	Conductor	Record Company	Year of Recording	Format
Erika Stiedry-Wagner		Arnold Schoenberg	Columbia Records	1940	n/a
Helga Pilarczyk	Members of the Conservatory Society Concert Orchestra	Pierre Boulez	Ades	1961	CD
Bethany Beardslee	Columbia Chamber Ensemble	Robert Craft	Columbia / CBS	1963	CD
Jan DeGaetani	Contemporary Chamber Ensemble	Arthur Weisberg	Nonesuch	1970	CD
Yvonne Minton	Ensemble InterContemporain	Pierre Boulez	Sony Music	1977	CD
Barbara Sukowa	Schoenberg Ensemble	Reinbert de Leeuw	Koch Schwann	1988	CD
Jane Manning	Nash Ensemble	Simon Rattle	Chandos	1991	CD
Phyllis Bryn-Julson	Ensemble Modern	n/a	BMG	1991	CD
Phyllis Bryn-Julson	New York New Music Ensemble	Robert Black	GM Recordings	1992	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 Craft	Naxos	1999	CD

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

The avant-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.

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

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 transgender Pierrot.[5]

Legacy as a standard ensemble

Main article: Pierrot ensemble

The quintet of instruments used in Pierrot Lunaire became the core ensemble for The Fires of London, who formed in 1965 as "The Pierrot Players" to perform Pierrot Lunaire, and continued to concertize with a varied classical and contemporary repertory. This group performed works arranged for these instruments and commissioned new works especially to take advantage of this ensemble's instrumental colors, up until it disbanded in 1987.

Over the years, other groups have continued to use this instrumentation professionally (current groups include Da Capo Chamber Players, eighth blackbird ) and the Finnish contemporary group Uusinta Lunaire, and have built a large repertoire for the ensemble.

References

• Bryn-Julson, Phyllis, and Paul Mathews. 2009. Inside Pierrot lunaire: Performing the Sprechstimme in Schoenberg's Masterpiece. Lanham, MD: 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 Broadcast: Sprechstimme, Tempo and Character". Journal of the Society of Musicology in Ireland 2:69–91. (accessed October 29, 2008).
• Dunsby, Jonathan. 1992. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire. Cambridge University Press.
• Goodwin, Noël. " Fires of London", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed November 11 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
• Hazlewood, Charles. 2006. Discovering Music. BBC Radio 3 (June 24).
• Neighbour, Oliver W. 2001. "Schoenberg, Arnold (Franz Walter)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Winiarz, John. Schoenberg - Pierrot Lunaire: an Atonal Landmark April 1, 2000 accessed July 23, 2006.

External links

• Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Manuscript of the score at the Arnold Schönberg center
• Luna Nova New Music Ensemble: Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire A Study Guide featuring a complete performance
• Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien Austrian ensemble for contemporary music
• [2] The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive Created and maintained by Emily Ezust: the original text and translations in English and other languages.