Pierrot Lunaire

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Pierrot Lunaire “Who is this ‘moonstruck’ Pierrot, about whom Albert Giraud wrote 50 poems? Why was Schoenberg so engaged by the German translation that he felt driven to set 21 of them, in a 45-minute melodrama which has become his ‘signature’ piece? One clue is the texts, which seem to present a parentless child or waif, with adolescent yearnings, intense emotions, rich fantasies, torturous fears, and a need to be recognized, comforted and protected. Can it be that the music, at some level, is autobiographical? Pierrot, a character from the ‘Commedia dell’ Arte’ is known in other cultures as Petrouchka or Pinocchio. Perhaps Schoenberg is trying to tell us about the frailty of the human condition in pre-war 1912 (as did Stravinsky, Bartok and Ives in their major works from this same period). In any event, Pierrot Lunaire is a miracle of innovation, expressive depth, vivid orchestration, precision of form – absolutely unique and stunningly original. It is said that the composer Alban Berg cried throughout the premiere, stating, ‘I never imagined that there could be anything this beautiful.’ Stravinsky greatly admired the instrumentation, while also condemning the ‘cult of the bizarre,’ saying during the premiere, ‘I wish that woman would stop talking so I could hear the music!’ (Stravinsky did some bizarre things himself in The Rite of Spring one year later.) Consider the achievements: (1) the use of sound-alliteration and word-painting at a new level of concentration and urgency; (2) the development of Sprechstimme (‘speech-song’) as a powerful narrative device, with the specification of exact vocal rhythm and approximation of pitch, but precise indication of contour; (3) the establishment of a vibrant chamber music grouping (flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, with instrumental doublings) known today as a ‘Pierrot ensemble’ and widely used; (4) the presentation of so varied an instrumentation that no two songs sound alike; (5) the use of a coherent large form (Part I: impressionist, Part II: expressionist, Part III: a reconciliation), wherein each individual poem is a rondeau with lines 1-2 being repeated as lines 7-8 and line 1 returning again on line 13 (follow the myriad ways in which the music reflects this structure); (6) the development of a new musical language, free-atonality, which is rich in new harmonic, rhythmic, timbral and contrapuntal possibilities (bear in mind that Schoenberg preferred the term pantonality, meaning ‘inclusive of all tonalities’); (7) the continuing influence that Pierrot has held for the past 99 years (Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, Bartok, Messiaen, Ligeti, Lutoslawski and Schuller, to name but a few). Schoenberg once wrote, ‘My music isn’t modern, it’s just badly played.’ I hope you will find that, tonight, it is well-played. And without a conductor! This was first suggested to me by a dear friend and mentor, Rudolf Kolisch, Schoenberg’s brother-in-law, violinist, and distinguished NEC faculty member from 1971 to 1981. Time has proven Rudi to have been right, though this was never even tried until his students attempted it at NEC in 1975. When there is no conductor, the gain in rhythmic freedom enables a real chamber music to spring forth, based on intimate communication among the performers, who cue each other using their detailed knowledge of the entire score” - John Heiss .

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Pierrot Lunaire Translation
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) Pierrot Lunaire, Op.21 (1912) Poems in French by Albert Giraud (1860–1929) German text by Otto Erich Hartleben (1864-1905) English translation of the French by Brian Cohen Mondestrunken Ivresse de Lune Moondrunk Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt, Le vin que l'on boit par les yeux The wine we drink with our eyes Gießt Nachts der Mond in Wogen nieder, A flots verts de la Lune coule, Flows nightly from the Moon in torrents, Und eine Springflut überschwemmt Et submerge comme une houle And as the tide overflows Den stillen Horizont. Les horizons silencieux. The quiet distant land. Gelüste schauerlich und süß, De doux conseils pernicieux In sweet and terrible words Durchschwimmen ohne Zahl die Fluten! Dans le philtre yagent en foule: This potent liquor floods: Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt, Le vin que l'on boit par les yeux The wine we drink with our eyes Gießt Nachts der Mond in Wogen nieder. A flots verts de la Lune coule. Flows from the moon in raw torrents. Der Dichter, den die Andacht treibt, Le Poète religieux The poet, ecstatic, Berauscht sich an dem heilgen Tranke, De l'étrange absinthe se soûle, Reeling from this strange drink, Gen Himmel wendet er verzückt Aspirant, - jusqu'à ce qu'il roule, Lifts up his entranced, Das Haupt und taumelnd saugt und schlürit er Le geste fou, la tête aux cieux,— Head to the sky, and drains,— Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt. Le vin que l'on boit par les yeux! The wine we drink with our eyes! Columbine A Colombine Colombine Des Mondlichts bleiche Bluten, Les fleurs
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Narrative Structure and Purpose in Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Clown: Narrative Structure and Purpose in Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire Mike Fabio Introduction In September of 1912, a 37-year-old Arnold Schoenberg sat in a Berlin concert hall awaiting the premier of his 21st opus, Pierrot Lunaire. A frail man, as rash in his temperament as he was docile when listening to his music, Schoenberg watched as the lights dimmed and a fully costumed Pierrot took to the stage, a spotlight illuminating him against a semitransparent black screen through which a small instrumental ensemble could be seen. But as Pierrot began singing, the audience quickly grew uneasy, noting that Pierrot was in fact a woman singing in the most awkward of styles against a backdrop of pointillist atonal brilliance. Certainly this was not Beethoven. In a review of the concert, music critic James Huneker wrote: The very ecstasy of the hideous!…Schoenberg is…the cruelest of all composers, for he mingles with his music sharp daggers at white heat, with which he pares away tiny slices of his victim’s flesh. Anon he twists the knife in the fresh wound and you receive another thrill…. There is no melodic or harmonic line, only a series of points, dots, dashes or phrases that sob and scream, despair, explode, exalt and blaspheme.1 Schoenberg was no stranger to criticism of this nature. He had grown increasingly contemptuous of critics, many of whom dismissed his music outright, even in his early years. When Schoenberg entered his atonal period after 1908, the criticism became far more outrageous, and audiences were noted to have rioted and left the theater in the middle of pieces.
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Theodor ADORNO (1903-1969). German Poet and Philosopher, Also a Composer
Theodor ADORNO (1903-1969). German poet and philosopher, also a composer. He was a pupil of Alban Berg and a member of Schoenberg’s circle in Vienna. He emigrated to the USA in 1934 but returned to Germany later to teach. His writings about composers include the influential Die Philosophie der neuen Musik (1949), mainly about Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Gilbert AMY (b.1936). French composer and conductor, and pupil of Olivier Messiaen. He attended Stockhausen’s Darmstadt courses and met Pierre Boulez in 1957. He was appointed by Jean-Marie Barrault ( q.v.) as Music Director of the Odéon Theatre, and later succeeded Pierre Boulez as Director of the Domaine Musical, and, still later, became Director of the Conservatoire in Lyon. Hedli ANDERSON (Antoinette Millicent Hedley Anderson). (1907-1990). English singer and actress. She studied in Germany and, on her return, appeared in cabaret and plays by Auden, Isherwood and Louis MacNeice ( to whom she was married from 1942-60).Composers who wrote for her included Benjamin Britten, Elisabeth Lutyens (q.v.) and William Alwyn. Auden’s famous poem Funeral Blues was written for her and set to music by Britten. In later life she ran a seafood restaurant in Co. Cork. Jean-Louis BARRAULT (1910-1994). French actor, director and mime artist. He portrayed Jean-Gaspard Deburau ( q.v.) in Marcel Carné’s 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis. He was a member of the Comédie Française from 1940-46 where he directed famous productions of works by Claudel (q.v.) and Racine. He also acted in around 50 films.
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Pierrot Lunaire.Indb
Cover-Abbildung: Pierrot lunaire op. 21, Nacht. Skizze | Sketch © Universal Edition A. G., Wien; Arnold Schönberg, 1924 Diese Publikation erscheint anlässlich der Sonderausstellung »Pierrot lunaire = 100« am Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien 5. Oktober 2012 – 4. Januar 2013 Impressum Medieninhaber: Herausgeber und für den Inhalt verantwortlich: Arnold Schönberg Center Privatstiftung Christian Meyer Schwarzenbergplatz 6 A-1030 Wien Gestaltungskonzept und Satz: www.schoenberg.at Forte OG, Thomas Stark Cover: Christoph Edtmayr Texte, Zusammenstellung und Redaktion: Druck: Grasl Druck & Neue Medien GmbH, Eike Feß | Therese Muxeneder Bad Vöslau Universal Edition, Wien UE 26 313 ISMN 979-0-008-08505-5 UPC 8-03452-06885-3 ISBN 978-3-7024-7174-3 www.universaledition.com Distributed in North America, Canada and Mexico by Belmont Music Publishers BEL-1090 www.schoenbergmusic.com © Arnold Schönberg Center Privatstiftung, Wien 2012 ISBN 978-3-902012-13-7 Inhalt I Contents Seite I Page Vorwort | Preface. 5 Preface to the score of Pierrot lunaire Vorwort zur Partitur des Pierrot lunaire . 6 Pierrot lunaire | Dramatis personae | Synopsis . 10 Uneingeschränkte Tonfreiheit! Unrestricted freedom of tone! . 20 Pierrot lunaire ist nicht zu singen! Pierrot lunaire should not be sung! . 28 Ich gehe unbedingt … einem neuen Ausdruck entgegen I am definitely approaching … a new form of expression . 36 Nacht – eine Kontrapunktstudie Night – a study on counterpoint . 46 Pierrot aufführen Performing Pierrot . 54 Arnold Schönberg: Begleittext zur Schallplatte Arnold Schönberg: Recording notes . 62 Gravitationszentrum Pierrot Gravitational center Pierrot . 66 Conrad Felixmüller: Pierrot lunaire, 1913. 70 Pierrot lunaire Ensemble, Berlin 1912 (v. l. n. r.: Karl Essberger, Emil Telmányi, Arnold Schönberg, Albertine Zehme, Eduard Steuermann, Hans Kindler, Hans W.
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Arnold Schoenberg, David Bowie, and the Mask of Pierrot Alexander Carpenter
Document generated on 09/25/2021 9:05 p.m. Intersections Canadian Journal of Music Revue canadienne de musique “Give a man a mask and he’ll tell the truth”: Arnold Schoenberg, David Bowie, and the Mask of Pierrot Alexander Carpenter Volume 30, Number 2, 2010 Article abstract There are striking parallels between Arnold Schoenberg’s treatment of the URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1006375ar Pierrot character in 1912 and David Bowie’s adoption of Pierrot as an alter ego DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1006375ar in 1980. For both musicians, Pierrot is a necessary mask, and each uses the “insolent clown” in his own way, but in the service of the same delicate See table of contents negotiations between past and future, and between artifice and truth in art and self. In Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Bowie’s song “Ashes to Ashes,” we see and hear the music of the past alongside “a nostalgia for the future”: Publisher(s) Pierrot provides the means—the mask—behind which musical reflection, self-examination, and psychological purgation can occur. Canadian University Music Society / Société de musique des universités canadiennes ISSN 1911-0146 (print) 1918-512X (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Carpenter, A. (2010). “Give a man a mask and he’ll tell the truth”: Arnold Schoenberg, David Bowie, and the Mask of Pierrot. Intersections, 30(2), 5–24. https://doi.org/10.7202/1006375ar All Rights Reserved © Canadian University Music Society / Société de musique This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit des universités canadiennes, 2011 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online.
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PIERROT LUNAIRE Music Arnold Schoenberg Text Otto Erich
PIERROT LUNAIRE music Arnold Schoenberg text Otto Erich Hartleben from the original poems by Albert Giraud concept and staging Controluce Teatro d'Ombre staging colaboration Rosa Mogliasso, original silhouettes Cora De Maria with Cora De Maria, Alberto Jona, Jenaro Meléndrez Chas, Marco Intraia Project Trio Debussy-Controluce Teatro d'Ombre (2008) Alessandro Maria Carnelli-Controluce Teatro d'Ombre (2018) live music performance Premiere, 31st may 2008, at the Festival Tra Futuro e Passato, with Trio Debussy The pale laundress, the smell of old fairy tales, the gallows and the moon hanging bloody... Controluce faces a fundamental work of twentieth-century music: Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg. Written for the actress and cabaret Zehme Albertina in 1912, the Pierrot Lunaire is a turning point in the history of music of the last century. The “atonal absolute freedom”, as well as the invention of Sprechgesang (that enigmatic point between singing and recitation originated from the cabaret of the time) are the main characteristics marking the composition and making it a dreamlike journey among canons, fugues and passacaglia. The amazed symbolism of Albert Giraud's poems, through the music of Schoenberg and the German translation of the texts, opens to a sick and morbid expressionism in which the figure of Bergamo’s mask stands grotesque and terrible. Controluce follows ideally the threefold division imagined by Schoenberg, in a tour around themes as love, sex and religion in the first group, violence, crime and blasphemy in the second, or the ideas of returning to the past and nostalgia in the third group. The relationship between shadows and music was marked by the idea of evoking and suggesting an imaginary world that, without imposing a particular thread, let the eyes following the escape routes proposed by the music.
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Le Nuove Musiche
Illinois State University ISU ReD: Research and eData School of Music Programs Music 4-12-2005 Le Nuove Musiche School of Music Illinois State University Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/somp Part of the Music Performance Commons Recommended Citation School of Music, "Le Nuove Musiche" (2005). School of Music Programs. 2801. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/somp/2801 This Concert Program is brought to you for free and open access by the Music at ISU ReD: Research and eData. It has been accepted for inclusion in School of Music Programs by an authorized administrator of ISU ReD: Research and eData. For more information, please contact [email protected]. I Jllinois State Universit_y I School ot Music I I Charles W. I)olen f acult~ Recital Series I I LE_ NUOVE_ MU51CHE_ Illinois State Llniversit_y f acult_y New Music E_nsemble I Center tor the Fertorming Arts April 12,2005 T uesda_y E_vening I 8 :00 p.m. This is the one hundred and thirt_y-titth program ot the 2004-2005 season. I I I frogram Fart Ill 15 . Heimweh (Homesick) 16. Gemeinheit! (Mean Trick!) Schoenbert - Fierrot Lunaire I I 17. Parodie (Parody) 18. Der Mondfleck (The Moonspot) Round Table - PIERROT LUNAIRE: history, style, commedia d'arte 19. Serenade I I 20. Heimfahrt (Barcarole) (Journey Home) Dr. John Celona, U nive rsit.':J of Victo ri a - (!SU guest com poser/ theorist) 21. 0 alter Duft (0 Old Perfume) Dr. K im f' e reira, /S U School o f Theater D r. f' aul E:iorg, /SU S chool ofMu sic I I Miche lle Vought, sp rechstimme f' a ul E:iorg, piano Cezanne's Doubt *World Fremiere John Celona Kim l\.isinger, flute (also p iccolo) (born 1950) D avid Gresham, clannet (also bass clarfinet) E_ mil.':J Morgan & J ason A shle.':J, vio/,ns I I Sarah Gentr.':J, v,01,n C hristophe r K e lts, viola C hristo pher Kelts, viola E:irian E:iro mberg, cello E:irian E:iromberg, cello J essica f)oese, cfan'ne t I I Kim Fere ira, narrato r Glenn E:ilock, conductor Glenn E:ilock, conductor ~ Intermission ~ I I f' rogram Notes Pierrot Lunaire, Op.
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The Musical Idea and the Basic Image in an Atonal Song and Recitation of Arnold Schoenberg
Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic Volume 2 Issue 1 Article 8 July 2009 The Musical Idea and the Basic Image in an Atonal Song and Recitation of Arnold Schoenberg Jack Boss University of Oregon, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/gamut Part of the Music Commons Recommended Citation Boss, Jack (2009) "The Musical Idea and the Basic Image in an Atonal Song and Recitation of Arnold Schoenberg," Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic: Vol. 2 : Iss. 1 , Article 8. Available at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/gamut/vol2/iss1/8 This A Music-Theoretical Matrix: Essays in Honor of Allen Forte (Part I), edited by David Carson Berry is brought to you for free and open access by Volunteer, Open Access, Library Journals (VOL Journals), published in partnership with The University of Tennessee (UT) University Libraries. This article has been accepted for inclusion in Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic by an authorized editor. For more information, please visit https://trace.tennessee.edu/gamut. THE MUSICAL IDEA AND THE BASIC IMAGE IN AN ATONAL SONG AND RECITATION OF ARNOLD SCHOENBERG JACK BOSS he purpose of this article is to demonstrate global coherence in an atonal song and an T atonal recitation of Arnold Schoenberg—specifically, the eleventh song of Gedichte aus das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Op. 15 (1908–09), and the eighth recitation, “Nacht,” from Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 (1912). But before I begin, it is essential to define precisely what I mean by “coherence,” for the term is understood in a number of different ways in our present music- scholarly culture, and the meaning I intend may be different from what the reader might expect.
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Teaching Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire
UDC 439.78; 443.784 Вестник СПбГУ. Искусствоведение. 2017. Т. 7. Вып. 1 Esti Sheinberg TEACHING SCHOENBERG’S PIERROT LUNAIRE Glenn Korff School of Music, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA The article offers a fresh methodology for teaching Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire to college students. Relying on the character of Pierrot’s historical development, rooted in 16th-century Commedia dell’Arte traditions, but enriched during the following three centuries, this approach chooses elements that are relevant to the target audience, with the aim to instigate motivation and emotional involve- ment toward Schoenberg’s masterpiece. Refs 14. Keywords: teaching methodologies, college students, Schoenberg, Pierrot, Pierrot Lunaire, Molière, Commedia dell’Arte, 16th–20th centuries. DOI: 10.21638/11701/spbu15.2017.102 Introduction: the problem Gemeinheit Atrocity [1] In den blanken Kopf Cassanders, Through the bald pate of Cassander, Dessen Schrein die Luft durchzetert, As he rends the air with screeches Bohrt Pierrot mit Heuchlermienen Bores Pierrot in feigning tender Zärtlich — einen Schädelbohrer. Fashion with a cranium driller. Darauf stopft er mit dem Daumen He then presses with his finger Seinen echten turkschen̈ Tabak Rare tobacco grown in Turkey In den blanken Kopf Cassanders, In the bald pate of Cassander, Dessen Schrein die Luft durchzetert. As he rends the air with screeches. Dann dreht er ein Rohr von Weichsel Then screwing a cherry pipe stem Hinten in die glatte Glatze Right in through the polished surface, Und behaglich schmaucht und pafft er Sits at ease and smokes and puffs the Seinen echten turkschen̈ Tabak Rare tobacco grown in Turkey Aus dem blanken Kopf Cassanders! From the bald pate of Cassander.
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Pierrot: a Silent Witness of Changing Times
Matteo Sansone | Pierrot: A Silent Witness of Changing Times Abstract. In nineteenth-century France, Pierrot journeyed through Romantic, Decadent and Symbolist literature in the traditional medium of the pantomime with musical accompaniment. Prestigious patrons such as Huysmans and Paul Margueritte provided the age-old character with fresh costumes and makeup. Towards the end of the century, composers developed more sophisticated techniques to integrate wordless actions with appropriate music. Two pantomimes, L’Enfant Prodigue with music by André Wormser and L’Histoire d’un Pierrot set by Mario Costa, were particularly successful in Europe and even reached the United States. In the early twentieth century, they were turned into silent films with synchronized musical accompaniment and again reached American audiences at a time of growing interest in the dawning art of moving pictures. A minor genre of musical theatre developed in France in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century as a consequence of renewed interest in Parisian pantomimes centred on the mask of Pierrot. The revival of what had once been a popular form of entertainment was promoted by a large group of major literary figures, musicians and journalists such as Jean Richepin, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Paul Margueritte, Arthur Pougin, Jules Lemaître, Jules Massenet, Francis Thomé. In 1888, they founded the Cercle Funambulesque, stating their aim in the very name they adopted: reviving the “classical pantomime” as performed at the old Théâtre des Funambules. One of the founding members, Paul Hugounet, who would also be the historian of the Cercle, listed as the second point in their programme “the promotion of the modern pantomime, by providing authors and composers with the opportunity to produce in public their works in this genre, whatever the artistic tendencies of those works may be.”[1] Special attention was to be given to the musical accompaniment of the new pieces.
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Popular Music and the Myth of Englishness in British Poetry by Brian Allen East A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Auburn University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Auburn, Alabama May 9, 2011 Keywords: Englishness, popular music, British poetry, poetics, national identity Copyright 2011 by Brian Allen East Approved by Jeremy Downes, Chair, Professor of English Jonathan Bolton, Professor of English Virginia M. Kouidis, Associate Professor Ruth C. Crocker, Professor of History Abstract This dissertation deconstructs the myth of Englishness through a comparative analysis of intersections between popular music and the poetry of the British Isles. In particular, my project explores intersections where popular music and poetry critics attempt to define Englishness, intersections where poetry and music combine to perform Englishness, and intersections where poetry and music combine to resist Englishness. In the wake of centuries of colonialism, British cultural expressions comprise a hybrid discourse that reflects global influences. I argue that attempts by critics to preserve the myth of Englishness result in the exclusion of a diversity of voices. Such exclusionary tactics potentially promote the alienation of future readers from British poetry. A comparative analysis of intersections between poetry and popular music expands the current critical discourse on British poetry to incorporate the hybridity of British popular music. Although for comparative purposes I consider music as a literature, I do not focus on song lyrics as the exclusive, or primary “text” of popular music. Instead, I am much more interested in the social forces that transform popular music into an expression of Englishness.
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Modernist Meanings in the European Renovation of Commedia
MODERNIST MEANINGS IN THE EUROPEAN RENOVATION OF COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE DRAMA Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Anita Jean Saha, B.A., M.A. Graduate Program in Spanish and Portuguese The Ohio State University 2014 Dissertation Committee: Eugenia Romero, Advisor Stephen Summerhill, Co-advisor Rebecca Haidt Copyright by Anita Jean Saha 2014 Abstract This dissertation explores the rediscovery of commedia dell’arte theatre in Europe during the Modernist era (approximately 1890-1930) by dramatists and theatre directors, which led to its usage as a tool for individual experimentation and general escape from the anxieties associated with the changing political environment. The appropriation of commedia dell’arte theatre was, for many theatre practitioners, the perfect structure with which to counteract the dominant realist aesthetic that was prevalent throughout Europe at the time. Although these Modernist commedia-based plays and productions were generally created as art-for-art’s sake, this is not the case everywhere, as evidenced by some of the themes, both overt and masked, in the works of a few Spanish dramatists. Using literary history as the theoretical framework, this dissertation contends that Modernist commedia-based dramas serve as an appropriate point of departure for comprehending literary reactions to, and reproductions of, the revolutions in technology, politics, and social practices that contributed to the modern order. While representations of cynical clowns, such as Harlequin, were mostly apolitical, the pessimism that dominates the farces, the pantomimes and the puppet plays can be viewed in response to the radically changing social and political environment.
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