Pierrot Lunaire
Three times seven poems from Albert Giraud's Pierrot lunaire , op. 21, - commonly known as Pierrot lunaire - is a melodrama by Arnold Schönberg .
Work history
At the beginning of 1912, the composer Schönberg was asked by the Diseuse Albertine Zehme, married to a lawyer from Leipzig, to set a lecture text to music. Schönberg, who was completely free to choose the poems, the musical arrangement and the rehearsal for this commission, created the composition between March 2 and June 6, 1912. For his work, Schönberg chose the French cycle of poems by Albert Giraud of the same name from 1884 in the free German translation by Otto Erich Hartleben , which appeared in a private print in Berlin in 1892. In 1911 the Munich publisher Georg Müller issued a new edition limited to 400 copies.
Work description
The work Pierrot lunaire consists of 21 selected poems for speaking voice and chamber ensemble (piano, flute [also piccolo], clarinet [also bass clarinet], violin [also viola] and violoncello).
The 21 poems are divided into three groups and have the following titles:
- Part 1: Moon drunk, Colombine, The Dandy, A pale laundress, Valse de Chopin, Madonna, The sick moon
- Part 2: Night, prayer to Pierrot, robbery, red mass, gallows song, beheading, the crosses
- Part 3: Homesickness, meanness, parody, the moon spot, serenade, drive home, O old scent .
The composition is atonal , but not yet notated in the twelve-tone technique . Schönberg developed this technique in later years.
Hermann Scherchen , who also conducted some of the performances on the tour through eleven German and Austrian cities, was involved in the rehearsal . After 25 rehearsals, the dress rehearsal in front of an invited audience was scheduled for October 9, 1912. The world premiere of Pierrot lunaire took place on October 16, 1912 in the Berlin Choralion Hall, under the direction of the composer and with Albertine Zehme as reciter, to whom Schönberg dedicated the work “in cordial friendship”. Eduard Steuermann played the piano part .
The performance on February 24, 1913 in the Rudolfinum in Prague ended in a concert scandal , which became one of the terribly traumatic experiences Schönberg had in his life and which prompted him to later demand guarantees for trouble-free music making at further Pierrot concerts.
The upper and lower case of the "lunaire" in the title is handled differently in sheet music editions and on sound carriers. Both the Arnold Schönberg Center Vienna and the Universal Edition list the work with a minuscule .
reception
In Anton Webern's impression, the world premiere was a great success for the performers and for Schönberg. The work met with critical rejection, while some of the listeners, fascinated by the new sounds, reacted with applause. Salka Viertel , Eduard Steuermann's sister, describes this concert in her memoir The Unpredictable Heart : “Since the flautist was bald, Ms. Zehme pleaded with Schönberg that no one but her should be seen by the audience. Schönberg then designed an ingenious system of wall screens, which hid the musicians, but allowed Mrs. Zehme to see his baton. The audience greeted Pierrot - in a huge ruff under the painted, fearful face and coquettishly presented legs - with ominous murmurs. I admired the way Mrs. Zehme controlled her nervousness and, without paying attention to the hissing and boos , courageously recited one poem after the other. Of course there was also fanatical applause from the younger audience, but the majority of the audience was outraged. "
In Herwarth Walden's art magazine Der Sturm described Alfred Doblin the premiere: "The concert of Schoenberg in Choralion last week has been used by some, the majority of Berlin music critics gross excesses of Witzlosigkeit. And you can't say that those who didn't write made a better joke with it. The gentlemen fail at the smallest task. As soon as you force them to make an independent judgment, they fail; what is not in the rut of the conservatory literature, which some of them have certainly learned excellently, remains misunderstood. Subaltern intelligences; with the sole ability to qualify for a pension. In theory this music is invulnerable. Schoenberg stays. I heard him for the first time. Listening in forty minutes to wonderful texts by Albert Giraud. It is extremely captivating, this music; there are sounds and movements in it that I have never heard before; with some songs I had the impression that they could only be composed that way. "
Igor Stravinsky had attended the fourth performance and in 1936 thought he remembered that the piece seemed to him a relapse into the Beardsley cult, which was believed to have been overcome , but at the time he had immediately recommended it to St. Petersburg to take over. Schönberg received praise from Giacomo Puccini , while the American critic James Huneker, also at the fourth event, suffered.
Press reports from the Prague performance on February 24, 1913:
“Yesterday, Mr. Arnold Schönberg, the controversial innovator, also announced his teachings here. Whether with success or not is difficult to say, considering that enthusiastic applause rang out on one side, while on the other hissing and whistling, means of expression previously unknown in the Chamber Music Association, appeared. "
“The Chamber Music Association - otherwise the place for beautiful skills and indulgence - yesterday became the place of ugly high-pitched arguments. Such a disharmony has never been experienced in the halls of the Rudolfinum, which are dedicated to harmony. Arnold Schönberg appeared on the square as Kleinroland and challenged the audience with his lance ... Last Sunday in Vienna Schönberg had another work, his Gurrelieder , performed with the approval of the entire audience; if he comes to us with these, his better things, nobody will resent him here. "
The musicologist HH Stuckenschmidt describes Pierrot Lunaire as "one of the most representative works of the twentieth century".
One night. One life
In 1999 a film adaptation was released with the soprano Christine Schäfer , directed by Oliver Herrmann , in which elements of pop culture are not only in the foreground in the visuals . The recording was directed by Pierre Boulez . Boulez's recordings with Christine Schäfer and Yvonne Minton are among the most recognized interpretations today.
Cinematic remake of Bruce LaBruce 2014
-> Main article Pierrot Lunaire (2014)
In 2014 the filmmaker Bruce LaBruce released a film version of Pierrot Lunaire (51 min), which transfers the material into a contemporary context. The film Pierrot Lunaire is based on the theater adaptation of Schönberg's work, which LaBruce staged in 2011 at the Hebbel am Ufer theater in Berlin . Schönberg's piece was interpreted by the Construction Site New Music Ensemble under the conductor Premil Petrovic and by Susanne Sachsse, the latter also embodies Pierrot in the film. In addition, techno can be heard in the nightclub scenes in the film , which, like Schönberg's music, represented a revolution in music.
Pierrot is a trans man in LaBruce's film who is rejected as such by Columbine's father. The story LaBruce weaves into the fabric is based on real events that took place in Toronto in the late 1970s. A trans man (or a biological woman who dresses and feels like a man) falls in love with a young woman who has no idea of his transsexuality . When the young woman introduces her boyfriend to her father, he unmasked him as “non-male” and forbids his daughter to have any further contact with him. Full of anger and rage, the trans man then proves his “true” masculinity to his father and loved one.
The film was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival and received the Teddy Award there.
DVD
- Arnold Schönberg: Pierrot lunaire , with a documentation by Matthias Leutzendorff and Christian Meyer. Harmonia mundi, BelAir DVD THE 10130, 2012
literature
- Eberhard Friday: Schönberg. 12th edition, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-50202-X
- Markus Lüpertz : Pierrot Lunaire. Catalog of the exhibition June 7th - July 12th 1986. With ten poems from the cycle “Pierrot Lunaire” by Albert Giraud. Reinhard Onnasch Gallery, Berlin 1986
Web links
- Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Poetry texts and audio samples at the Arnold Schönberg Center
- Pierrot lunaire poems by Albert Giraud in selection. Transfer from Otto Erich Hartleben. Setting by Arnold Schönberg
Individual evidence
- ^ Eberhard Friday: Schönberg. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, p. 79.
- ^ Eberhard Friday: Schönberg. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, p. 80.
- ↑ Cast on the poster of the world premiere at Eberhard Freitag: Schönberg . P. 83
- ^ Arnold Schönberg: Complete Works, Section VI, Series B, Volume 24, 1. Pierrot lunaire, op. 21, Schott Musik International, 1995. P. 279
- ^ Josef Rufer: Schönberg in Berlin . In: Academy of the Arts Berlin: Arnold Schönberg . 1974 Congress, p. 7
- ↑ James Huneker in the English Wikipedia en: James Huneker
- ^ Eberhard Friday: Schönberg . P. 83f
- ^ Arnold Schönberg: Complete Works, Section VI, Series B, Volume 24, 1. Pierrot lunaire, op. 21, Schott Musik International, 1995. P. 279.
- ^ Arnold Schönberg: Complete Works, Section VI, Series B, Volume 24, 1. Pierrot lunaire, op. 21, Schott Musik International, 1995. pp. 280–281.
- ↑ Aspects Festival Salzburg 2008 ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ One night. One life. After Pierrot Lunaire, opus 21 by Arnold Schönberg. With Christine Schäfer (soprano) and others. (Script, director, camera, editor: Oliver Herrmann.) Eins54 film with ZDF and Arte. Germany 1999.
- ^ Arnold Whittall - Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire & Ode to Napoleon [1] at grammophone.co.uk
- ↑ a b Pierrot Lunaire, in: Film File, Program 2014, Forum Expanded, Berlinale website
- ↑ Interview Bruce LaBruce 'Pierrot Lunaire', in: Youtubekanal des Teddy Award, upload of February 11, 2014
- ^ Pierrot Lunaire, in: Website of the Teddy Award
