Lunar Pierrot

Lunar Pierrot is a work of vocal music of Arnold Schönberg whose words consist of 21 poems of the Belgian poet Albert Giraud (1884), that Schönberg read in their German translation by Otto Erich Hartleben (1893). The poems, whose French form is rather traditional (rondos in octosyllabic worms with rhyme), and more modern allemande (worms with meter varied without rhyme), bathe in an at the same time fairy-like atmosphere, by their sublime vision of the artistic and declining design, by the provocative and macabre images which they evoke.

Composed in 1912, this work is remarkable by its singular instrumentation: spoken voice ( Sprechgesang ), Piano, Flute (and piccolo), Clarinet (and low clarinet), Violin (and viola), Violoncello. This instrumentation will affect great the composition of the chamber orchestras in the music of the XXe century. Moreover, certain musicologists like Rene Leibowitz, see in Lunar Pierrot a precursor of dodecaphonic works of Schönberg, in particular by the use of the 12 sounds of the chromatic range in an order much more than random (as some can suppose). However, the harmony of this work is related to the Atonalité and marks, in the evolution of the language of Schönberg, a clear rupture with a similar language, partly, with that of post-romantic type-setters such as Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and Richard Wagner.

The interpretation of Lunar Pierrot poses a real problem with reciting. Indeed, the use of the sprechgesang is always a question of perception and it is not rare that reciting do nothing but speak. Conversely, other interpreters do nothing but sing. It is thus notable that the synthesis between spoken and sung is difficult to obtain. Another characteristic of the Lunar Pierrot is that there is no register imposed on the vocal partite, with the result that reciting it can be a man or a woman. However, all the versions available on disc are recited by women.

Suggestions of listenings

Marianne Pusher (reciting), Philippe Herreweghe (direction) with the Oblique Music Unit, Harmonia Mundi.

Christine Schäffer (reciting), Pierre Boulez (direction) with the Unit InterContemporain, Sony.

External bonds

Lunar Pierrot Unit Wien

Random links: