Pierrot Lunaire, Op.

21
Music: Arnold Schoenberg
Text: Albert Giraud
eighth blackbird
Lucy Shelton, soprano
Elyssa Dole, dancer
Production conceived and directed by Mark DeChiazza

In Pierrot Lunaire ("Moonstruck Pierrot") the sad, naïve, clown-like character from
Commedia dell'Arte takes a darkly comic journey through a strange world. Haunted by the
"death-sick," "intoxicating" moon, Pierrot is preyed upon by giant black moths, steals from
blood-drenched graveyards, smokes tobacco from a skull, and is decapitated by the moon.

Written in 1912, the fevered intensity, gallows humor and touching pathos of Pierrot is
drenched in the music of smoke-filled Berlin cabaret clubs and the bizarre world of the
German melodrama.

This new production continues eighth blackbird's commitment to performances that blur the
boundaries between music and theater. Directed by renowned New York choreographer Mark
DeChiazza, it features soprano Lucy Shelton, dancer Elyssa Dole, and eighth blackbird
percussionist Matthew Duvall in the title role. The musicians of eighth blackbird perform the
challenging work entirely from memory, so the players can take important roles in the drama.

Director Mark DeChiazza writes: "Pierrot has no conventional narrative. Instead of telling a
"story" I will use dance to highlight the sometimes dramatic, sometimes satirical nature of the
relationship between text and music. Movement and gesture will connect to the human core of
this amazing work, and expand - rather than circumscribe - its meaning."

Pierrot Lunaire was premiered at the Ojai Festival in June 2009, where eighth blackbird was
Music Director.

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
("Moonstruck Pierrot" or "Pierrot in the Moonlight"), Op. 21, 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,[1] and it was a genre much in vogue at the end of the nineteenth
century.[2] The work is atonal, but does not use the twelve-tone technique that Schoenberg
would devise eight years later.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 History
• 2 Structure
• 3 Music
• 4 Analysis
• 5 Recordings
• 6 Legacy as a standard ensemble
• 7 Notes
• 8 References

• 9 External links

[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 mixed, with Anton Webern reporting at the première whistling and laughing,
but in the end "it was an unqualified success".[3] 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".[4] 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 (Waltz of 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 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. 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. [1] Other
distinguished artists to record the cycle include Bethany Beardslee (Columbia Masterworks
M2S 679), Phyllis Bryn-Julson (in 1991, Robert Black conducting; and again in 1992), Jan
DeGaetani (1970), Cleo Laine (1974, in English), Yvonne Minton (1977), Pierre Boulez
conducting; Karin Ott (1990–94), Helga Pilarczyk (1961), Christine Schäfer (1997) Pierre
Boulez conducting; Jane Manning (with Simon Rattle conducting, 1999); Anja Silja (with
Robert Craft conducting, 1999) and the actress Barbara Sukowa (1994).

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."[2] 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.

[edit] 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 commission new works especially to
take advantage of this ensemble's instrumental colors, up until it disbanded in 1987.[5]

Over the years, other groups have continued to use this instrumentation professionally
(current groups include Da Capo Chamber Players [6], eighth blackbird [7]) and the Finnish
contemporary group Uusinta Lunaire[8], and have built a large repertoire for the ensemble.