Pierrot Lunaire
Three times seven poems from Albert Giraud's Pierrot lunaire, op 21, - commonly known under the name of Pierrot lunaire - is a melodrama of Arnold Schoenberg.
Work history
The composer Schoenberg was at the beginning of the year in 1912 by the actress Albertine Zehme, married to a Leipzig lawyer, asked a setting of a speech text. Schoenberg, who was completely free in this order in the selection of poems, the musical editing and rehearsing, the composition created within the period from March 2 to June 6, 1912. Schoenberg chose for his work the same French cycle of poems by Albert Giraud from 1884 in the free transfer of Otto Erich hard life, which appeared in a privately printed in Berlin in 1892. 1911 was the Munich publishing house Georg Müller published a limited edition of 400 copies edition.
Description of the work
The work Pierrot Lunaire consists of 21 selected poems for speaking voice and chamber ensemble (piano, flute [ piccolo ], Clarinet [ bass clarinet ], Violin [ also viola ] and cello).
The 21 poems are divided into three groups and bear the following titles:
- Part 1: Mondestrunken, Colombine, The Dandy, A pale laundress, Valse de Chopin, Madonna, The Sick Moon
- Part 2: Night Prayer to Pierrot, robbery, Red Mass, gallows song, decapitation, The crosses
- Part 3: homesickness, vulgarity, parody, The moon spot, Serenade, drive home, O ancient scent.
The composition is indeed atonal, but not yet recorded in the twelve-tone technique. This technique developed Schoenberg in later years.
At the rehearsal Hermann Scherchen was involved, who also conducted on the tour of eleven German and Austrian cities some of the performances. After 25 samples, the dress rehearsal was scheduled before an invited audience on October 9, 1912. The first performance of Pierrot Lunaire took place on October 16, 1912 held in Berlin Choralion Hall, under the baton of the composer and with the client Albertine Zehme as reciter, Schoenberg 's work " in a cordial friendship" devoted. The piano part played Eduard helmsman.
The performance on 24 February 1913 at the Rudolfinum in Prague ended in a concert scandal, one of the jumpy - traumatic experiences Schoenberg was that life kept the composer in mind and caused him to later guarantee requirements for trouble-free music making with other Pierrot concerts.
The upper-or lowercase the " Lunaire " in the title is handled differently in the scores and sound recordings. Both the Arnold Schönberg Center Vienna and the Universal Edition lists the plant with minuscule.
Reception
According to Anton Webern's impression of the premiere was a great success for the performers and for Schoenberg. The work was met with criticism with rejection, while part of the listener, fascinated by the new sounds reacted with applause. Salka Viertel, the sister of Edward helmsman, describes this concert in her memoir The erratic heart: " Since the flutist was bald, woman pleaded Zehme Schoenberg, nobody but she should be seen by the audience. Schönberg then designed an ingenious system of folding screens, which hid the musicians woman Zehme, however, allowed to see his baton. The audience welcomed the Pierrot - in huge ruff under the painted anxious face and coquettish presented legs - with ominous murmur. I admired it, as Mrs Zehme dominated her nervousness and pay attention to the hissing and booing without, brave one poem after another recited. Of course there were also fanatical applause of the younger audience, but the majority of the audience was outraged. "
In Herwarth Walden's art journal Der Sturm Alfred Döblin described the performance: " The concert of Schoenberg in Choralion last week has been used by some, the majority of Berlin music critic coarse excesses of Witzlosigkeit. And you can not say that those who do not write, so have a better joke made . The Lords fail just at the smallest task. As soon as they are forced into an independent judgment, they fail; which is not in the rut Conservatory literature that some of them have certainly learned exquisite, remains poorly understood. Subaltern intelligences; with the sole ability to retirement eligibility. Theoretically, this music is unassailable. If Schoenberg. I heard him for the first time. Listening time forty minutes to wonderful texts of Albert Giraud. She ties up tremendously, this music; there are sounds, movements in it, as I have not heard it; in some songs, I had the impression that they can only be so composed. "
Igor Stravinsky had visited the fourth performance and meant to remember in 1936 that the piece as a relapse to overcome believed Beardsley cult it had occurred, however he had it at the time recommended immediately to St. Petersburg to take over. Schoenberg received by Giacomo Puccini praise, while the American critic James Huneker, had suffered also in the fourth event.
Press reports of the Prague performance of 24 February 1913:
" Yesterday, Mr. Arnold Schoenberg, the much controversial innovator, his teachings also announced here. Whether successful or not, is hard to say, considering that sounded enthusiastic applause on one side, while on the other hissing and whistling, the Chamber Music Club hitherto unknown -been a means of expression, made their appearance. "
" The Chamber Music Club - otherwise the place for beautiful skill and Treat - was yesterday to the site ugly shrill dispute. It has been in the sacred halls of the harmony of the Rudolfinum never experienced such disharmony. As a small Roland Arnold Schoenberg appeared on the spot and challenged the audience with his lance ... In Vienna Schoenberg on the last Sunday s other work, his Gurrelieder, it performed under the approval of the entire audience; He also comes to us with these its better things, no one will resent him here. "
The musicologist HH Stuckenschmidt Pierrot Lunaire referred to as "one of the most representative works of the twentieth century."
DVD
- Arnold Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire, with documentation of Matthias Leutzendorff and Christian Meyer. Harmonia mundi, BelAir DVD THE 10130, 2012