I really love the character(s) Ms. Duffy brings out. It's sad when it needs to be sad, funny when it needs to be funny, etc. Few sopranos I've heard really nail that aspect of this work at her level. Brava!
I had the honor of being her student. She is a modern day genius! One of the most musical people one can ever come across. She makes me like this piece.
It is ABSOLUTE ESSENTIAL to listen to this with the text in front of you. Thank you for the subtitles! I heard this over 40 years ago and was fascinated. I am even more enamored of it today.♥
I don't have the music history/theory chops or historical context to completely understand what the hell is going on here, but this is some great stuff.
Schoenberg mostly met derision from "sophisticated" listeners when the piece was premiered in 1912, but was heartened by the honest reaction of an elevator operator who told Schoenberg that the setting of "rubies" haunted him.
4 года назад
When I listened to this piece for the first time I instantly fell in love with Shoenberg.
@@gustavoflorio5383 I still don't like, and the feeling of don't liking this piece is what makes me undertand and comprehend the piece. In another words, I like this piece!
+JayPee Vee There you go with your prejudicial views again. How do you know what I do or do not listen to, comrade? Cannot your liberalism-addled mind comprehend the possibility that I simply take delight in making observations about the bizarre insanity that liberalism has become? Liberalism started out be declaring war on God and Church, called secular humanism. Then liberalism declared war on society and its morality, called political correctness. Now, in its final, terminal phase, liberalism has declared war on reality itself, called postmodernism. You and the other Schoenberg listeners have attained the bottom.
+Matthew Dunnyveg What "prejudicial views again"? I just said if you don't like something -and there's nothing wrong with not liking something- then just don't watch/listen to/read it. BTW, your obsession with liberalism, a word you manage to put in practically each of your comments (in your last paranoid message only, 5 times!), is a clear sign of mental unbalance. These threads are about a piece of music composed more than a hundred years ago. No one is forcing you to listen to Pierrot lunaire. If you don't like this piece of music, just go elsewhere. That's all. Oh, and you obviously have no idea what postmodernism is. But, then again, you have no idea about a lot of things... Hence the need to bring everything down to "liberalism is bad". Care to tell us what Pierrot lunaire has to do with "gawd", "church", moraliy", "political correctness"? You know what? Don't. Just get the mental help you obviously need before you hurt someone.
Not only the voice is 'Sprechgesang' - i.e. somewhere between singing and speaking - but also the instruments. The gestures are still all musical and derived from tradition, but the lines spill over the boundaries all the time, like something in the process of disintegration. This piece is the very edge between music and sonic art (sound art, without music and without the 'inner space' that is offered by tonality). It is wonderful in its ironic tragedy.
Pierrot’s transformations (the numbers refer to verses) 5. Fatally ill. 6-9. Dies. 10. Resurrected but as a darker self. 10-11. No longer a dandified lover of verses (1-3) but a prince of darkness. He is therefore executed, twice. 12. Executed by hanging. 13. Executed by beheading . 14. He is resurrected by holy verses. 15. No longer a prince of darkness but "modern sentimental." Sentimental but not sensitive: 16. He uses Cassander's head as a tobacco pipe. 19. He uses Cassander's bald spot as a viola. 21. He Finally achieves peace and reconciliation: • Returns home to Bergamo (cf. verse 3) • Reunited with his childhood (O alter Duft aus Märchenzeit, "O ancient scent from fairy tale days"). The way Pierrot's transformations take him through opposite conditions only to return home, suggests the proverb, "The longest way round is the shortest way home". As T.S. Eliot says in "Little Gidding": We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
By listening to this wonderful Sprechgesang I have finally understood Thomas Mann's Doctor Faust when he said that the word should have preminence in music. The book is full of references and transgressions on Schönberg's dodecaphonic music which led me to discover this masterpiece!
Excellent performance. It is wonderful when the singer does the sprechstimme instead of operatic singing! Thanks for sharing this, Menon. Happy New (Y)Ears!
So beautiful, first heard this in the 70s as a teenager, the wine through which our eyes drink, a line forever embedded in my mind! I have to try and find my LP.Thank you for posting.
You know, I've always been captivated by nutty atonal writings, even when I was a kid I've always liked making uncanny properties on my instruments. But I understand how some would find this an absolute wreck of a piece, it's not for everyone. People looking for something a little bit outside of the box find this to open doors, while others who like to stick to their roots and such consider this to be...well, I saw a comment saying "Horse shit". It's all about taste guys, so if you see any rude comments, just take consideration you probably have a completely different musical palate from them. Weather or not you find that said palate to be more mature or not, is completely up to you.
James Wilson I don't know. I'm personally quite educated on the atonal and contemporary repertoire. I really liked Eight Songs for a Mad King by Maxwell Davies, which is also a Pierrot Ensemble btw. But I really can't get myself to like Pierrot Lunaire. I've always just thought that it's an incompetent and very boring piece. Schönberg has much much better works.
I hate "the box", I specifically find the European classical tradition to be antimusical, yet for me THIS is a step in the wrong direction. It's somehow managed to be MORE antimusical than that.
@@romainlettuce118 I don't know if this is what the previous commentor meant, but if "musical" is defined by the freedom and boundlessness of sound, the relatively strict regiment and rules of counterpoint, form, classical ornamentation or 12 tone arrangement, could be seen as quite unmusical and rigid. However, personally the creativity through order(whether it be 12 tone rows, 18th century counterpoint, sonata form, etc.) is all stuff I would consider musical(although I did grow up with a European classical tradition).
Me and a student teacher from my school were talking music, they recommended me this and oh my stars. this is just.. an absolute masterpiece of beautiful organized chaos and I love it 🫡
A great performance of one of the major pieces of 20th century music. Premiered the same year (1913) as Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, it had a similar effect on the musical world. It still has the power to shock, as seen by many of the comments here.
Wiki (quite good this time I think): Pierrot, the famous character from the Italian commedia dell'arte, is set by the composer A. Schoenberg as the moonstruck and fantastical clown, who is a symbol for putting on a mask to hide one's true feelings or opinions.18 Feb 2022
I saw this in person! Amazing performance. And reading along with the lyrics gave me a new appreciation for the piece. Lots of creative word painting, my favorite example is the screams rending the air at 27:43.
While Stravinsky was completing the Rite of Spring, Schoenberg brought him to a rehearsal of Pierrot Lunaire in 1912. Stravinsky was influenced by the delicate instrumentation of this piece, as can be heard in his next piece, the Three Japanese Lyrics of 1912/1913: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ddtzc81iYsk.html
It is so personal, delicate and intricate. The piece is playing with your emotions, it is not leaving you still. The flute is very musical, although some may call it atonal, which is a false interpretation, in my opinion. These poems are so true and relevant, but also secluded, mind you.
God how I love this! Probably the most brilliant performance video of this work that we'll ever experience. Unable to express the depth of my gratitude.
Such a beautiful piece, one that requires such high musical technicality, despite its seemingly abundance of chaos and dissonance, which turns out to be nothing but a very fine piece, one of my personal favourites ever composed by Schoenberg.. Great performance by the ensemble, and I should also mention how exceptionally good Mr. Giraud's poetry themes are to this eccentric piece, adding to it a very adequate lyrical atmosphere overall.
I put this piece on yesterday because I had heard of it and wanted to check it out. I was captured from the first note, and when the end came I realised that half an hour had passed. I have had it on repeat ever since.
This is bazurdly eerie and enchanting in the darkest, grimmest fashion of music / sound art I've ever heard. So visceral. I have much more to say, but mostly want to say this is something thrilling to cap your day off, don't listen to it right after awakening when you're trying to do other things like I did lol
The obsession with blood reminds me of the same obsession in Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle. It's also interesting that they both were composed during 1911-1912 and prefaced a most bloody world war.
Maybe such art could simply not have been written immediately AFTER a major conflict. In "Bluebeard's Castle" as well as in "Pierrot lunaire", blood is not really blood, death is not really death, blood and death are unreal, more like metaphors. Maybe such art is possible only after a long period of peace, when people no longer fear actual bodily harm, actual suffering and death. A bloody conflict is a cruel reminder of the harshness of reality, it has a somewhat sobering effect in the years immediately following it, so it becomes more difficult to use gore in an abstract, symbolic, poetic way, as is the case with "Pierrot lunaire".
Cyril Vereb Interesting take, but blood features prominently in Berg’s Wozzeck, which he finished after World War One. He was actually obsessed with the project throughout the war but was unable to work on it very much because he was serving in the Austrian army.
hi just a quick reminder for uh, everyone apparently, not everyone has the same musical tastes, and its okay if someone likes music you dont like! you dont gotta hound them for that, seriously its not that important of a thing u can put that energy towards literally anything else and it'd be more productive
This is one extremely difficult music to perform and the performance and acting are impeccable. The questions "is it beautiful?" or "was Schoenberg on drugs?" are irrelevant from a 21st-century point of view.
KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK Irrelevante porque os modernos negam a verdade e a beleza. A verdade é que é uma música horrendamente feia, sem técnica nenhuma, aleatória e para imbecis pseudo-letrados que se acham o ápice da intelectualidade
he de admitir que al ser la primera vez que oigo una composicion de este estilo, los primeros minutos me resultaron dificil de digerir, pero despues de un rato, fui capaz de disfrutar de la desnaturalizacion musical que alberga en si. es una obra que apesar de ser algo caotica, es capaz de expresarse correctamente gracias al exelente trabajo de la cantante y los compositores con sus instrumentos. perfectamente recomendado si quieres escuchar una obra con el cerebro, y no con el corazon.
Usted mismo lo ha dicho…música creada para el cerebro como un reto intelectual pero no para el corazón (al menos para el corazón contemporáneo)…toda vanguardia corre el doble riesgo de abrir nuevos caminos o de ser rechazada y absolutamente olvidada. No es el caso de Schoenberg ni de la música atonal, aún no ha sido olvidada pero tampoco aceptada salvo por muy pocos conocedores.
The first time I listened to this piece in music history, I absolutely abhorred it. I had no idea what the fascination was. Now, a year later, knowing about how Schoenberg's compositional style was intertwined with his political values & the contemporary European socio-political landscape, I really find it appealing. I feel like this is the kind of work that doesn't allow you to have an immediate emotional connection. It's complicated, and you have to really delve into it from an analytical perspective to reach that point of emotional understanding.
first time i listened to Pierrot it was a live performance was around 1978, when I was a young music student, and it blew my away. It was one of the coolest things I'd ever heard. I don't know about the need for deep analysis. That is, it's surely rewarding, but it's also incredibly gratifying to just _listen_ to it because it _sounds_ so damn tasty!
While Schönberg's serialism remains a bit over-intellectual and emotionally opaque for my tastes, what he does here with the singer's voice has a loony charm. The whole thing is crazy/charming and actually pretty funny.
Jai entendu pour la 1ère fois le Pierrot lunaire lors d'un concert à Bagneux, à l'âge de 57 ans. La suite, toujours aussi fabuleux. Superbe découverte.
+ckreeder Yes. Within its confined realm of voice & instrumentation lies variety of musical forms quite reminiscent of the variety of Bach's B minor mass.
@Dance God It's not that it's better than Beethoven... It's that it's different from Beethoven, and still beautiful (to me, and to many others). Schoenberg was doing something different from Beethoven (who I also love), and that's ok!
The comment section is surprising, going on about how this piece is not meant to be enjoyed and doesn't allow you an emotional connection... Certainly more enjoyable to my ear than most Schoenberg so far.
Those people may have misspoken. Though well-intentioned, i reckon they probably meant that it's not intended to entertain, necessarily. Challenging can certainly be enjoyable.
@dou40006 Wonderful performance, only "boring" for those who are themselves boring. Certainly wasn't boring for either Stravinsky or Ravel (among many others), who were both influenced by it. Ravel's Mallarmé songs would have been impossible without it. Don't know why trollers bother to visit sites like this if they are so easily offended.
this reminds me of possibly michigan 1983 in how it aurally sounds however on a more related note, this is the first time i've heard this work and i'm intrigued by the music and confused by the general idea of it but in general excited to look into more modernist music and the ideas of atonality. this is similar to how i felt when my post romantic russian composer phase started so we'll see what happens
Well, I think I can answer some part of the "why" is this similar to Possibly in Michigan. Both are based. Based upon artistic styles, choices, thoughts founded in the late 19th century and early 20th century. These movements comprehend Symbolism, Imagism, Surrealism, Dadaism and many more avant-garde ways of thinking. The poem recited here is an example of symbolism. Possibly in Michigan has surrealist imagery. The other part of the "why" can only be answered by yourself. I cannot really tell the difference between each movement I named before, and your association is unique because we, humans, are afterall different. Each person is identical to no other, as well as our artistic perceptions. That's why I recommend you to explore modernist music and atonality (check out the book 20th Century Harmony, the pdf is online) but remember that all "music theory" is just an explanation of human choices and therefore art, your art, my art, precedes racionalization. Let yourself go in this adventure. Cheers from Argentina!
I find this work disturbing, on the one hand we have the soft sound of the flute and the warm sound of the piano, and on the other we have the voice (absolutely expressive and sublime) of the singer who follows a completely different melody. This contrast gives an impression of musical disorder and chaos which leads to the listener's anxiety. The performance is so well made by exactly this feeling of unease especially when the soprano rises to the highest notes and the orchestra continues to play a deep accompanying melody. Yes, this work is disturbing, but I do not say it in a derogatory way, indeed I think Shoenberg wrote the piece with the intention of giving this type of feeling to the listener. This could be the perfect soundtrack for reading a horror or otherwise disturbing book.
+Bob Burns Not difficult at all, nobody can tell if they make a mistake. Unless of course it starts to sound coherent. Then they must have gone completely wrong.
+Gowge Bloob " nobody can tell if they make a mistake" Wrong. There's a score. You'd know this if 1- you could read music 2- you weren't afraid of this piece of music 3- were not so full of yourself. Here's a piece of advice: if you don't like Schoenberg's music, just don't listen to it. Easy, no?
Kiera Duffy. She was actually in my German class at Westminster Choir College. One of our great talents. Amazing performer, and this is a perfect piece for her.
This was a commission, and one of the requirements if I remember correctly was that even though eight different instruments are heard, Schoenberg was not allowed to use more than two or three at any given time during the piece.
A most fascinating experience. Also, some of the songs are uproariously funny (thank you Albert Giraud.) If I have a qualm, it is that fifty years ago I owned the recording made by Bethany Beardslee. The singer in this CSO's Schoenberg Beyond the Score performance seems deficient, at least in recalling the Beardslee interpretation. Am I being unfair?
i don't know about unfair, but i think it's pretty subjective. i remember hearing a recording that was supervised by the composer himself and the Sprechstimme on that was my least favorite of any recording i've heard. *shrug*