Pierrot Lunaire

Name: Pierrot Lunaire
Start: Sat, November 2, 2024 – 8:00 pm
End: Sat, November 2, 2024 – 9:30 pm
Location: Episcopal Church of the Ascension

Sat, November 2, 2024 – 8:00 pm

On the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg’s birth, his work Pierrot Lunaire, which explores the emotional journey of the “sad clown” Pierrot, is performed in the Sprechstimme style, blending speech and song.

Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, along with Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, transformed early 20th-century music. Igor Stravinsky called it “the solar plexus as well as the mind of early 20th-century music.”

Schoenberg’s eerie and hyper-expressive Pierrot Lunaire (translated as Moonstruck Pierrot) is performed in the otherworldly Sprechstimme style, which blends speech and song. The performer sings precisely notated rhythms and pitches while also incorporating exaggerated speech and whispers. At the center of this melodrama is Pierrot, the “sad clown” character from Renaissance theater. The three sets of seven lush poems by Albert Giraud depict Pierrot’s emotional journey from love to crime and back home.

We celebrate the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg’s birth in 2024. This concert is part of the Origins Concert Series.