# What Is The Point Of Sprechstimme?



## suntower

What was Schoenberg trying to achieve? I've seen a bunch of articles on how he intended it to be performed but what I don't seem to understand is the -why-?

Did he ever write about what the point was? What he was trying to express?


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## Mahlerian

Melodrama, or spoken word over musical accompaniment, was a popular genre in the 19th century, most examples of which have completely fallen by the wayside as tastes changed. You can still find a number of 20th century examples by composers such as Stravinsky and Copland.

_Sprechgesang_, or speech-song, is not quite the same thing, in that pitches are notated which the performer must hit and then fall away from, like the decay of vocal inflection.

Pierrot lunaire was written for a cabaret performer, not a classically-trained singer, and so the style of performance should be taken as something like a classicized cabaret number.

As for his other uses of the technique, scholars have noted that they are either closely related to the chanting he heard as a child in Synagogue (Moses und Aron, Kol Nidre, Psalm 130) or to more traditional melodrama (Ode to Napoleon).


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## isorhythm

Pierrot is about insanity; the sprechstimme, like a lot of other things about it, heightens the feeling of the uncanny.


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## brotagonist

I think Weill used a similar technique in Die Dreigroschenoper-at least, how his wife, Lotte Lenya realized it. Here, it is more zany than insane.

[Is Pierrot really insane? I guess I should read the texts more closely, but I find it very deep and insightful in a-I know it sounds corny and cliché to say it-Zen sort of way.]


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## Mahlerian

brotagonist said:


> [Is Pierrot really insane? I guess I should read the texts more closely, but I find it very deep and insightful in a-I know it sounds corny and cliché to say it-Zen sort of way.]


Yes?

I would say that the whole work is intentionally dream-like, presenting distortions of reality and non-sequiturs in a heightened, semi-grotesque way. This is not to say it's always ugly, of course, but it is intentionally very weird (or uncanny, as Isorhythm says above).


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## millionrainbows

"What is the point" seems like a flip way of posing the question, as if the possibility existed that "there is no point."

I never questioned Schoenberg, in anything he did, and always assumed that he was a true master. I approached John Cage the same way. After all, who the hell am I?


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## suntower

Not flip at all. I can't think of a way to say it that is more concise.

The point is 'expression', right? The guy must've felt a need to use that technique in order express something that could not be expressed via conventional recitative or aria. So I want to know if he ever discussed -why- he used this technique.

Two reasons make me especially curious:
1. There are ENDLESS discussions of exactly -what- the technique is... or rather, how Schoenberg meant the performance to sound. Which seems odd given how detailed are his notations in spots. I'd think there would be a 'standard' agreement on what he intended.

2. As a musician, I have found this technique to be THE single most off-putting 'technique' in 'modern' classical music for listeners--regardless of their background. MOST listeners, regardless of sophistication, simply dislike it and shut down in a way they don't with other 'modern' techniques. Some people dislike 12 tone. Some dislike minimalism. Some can't stand Conlon Nancarrow or Stockhausen or various 'soundscapes'. But -most- people seem to react -viscerally- to sprechstimme/sprechgesang. They find it uniquely unpleasant. And they don't get -why- it's being used. What feelings or ideas it is supposed to be conveying that can't be done otherwise. They don't get 'the point'.

It is -rare- that I've run across someone who hears it and says, 'Wow, that's interesting.' The usual reactions are either: a) laughter or b) TURN THAT OFF IT'S CREEPING ME OUT.

I too struggle with the above in spite of 35 years playing the stuff. So I figured I'd try to research the -why- of it.



millionrainbows said:


> "What is the point" seems like a flip way of posing the question, as if the possibility existed that "there is no point."
> 
> I never questioned Schoenberg, in anything he did, and always assumed that he was a true master. I approached John Cage the same way. After all, who the hell am I?


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## isorhythm

suntower said:


> It is -rare- that I've run across someone who hears it and says, 'Wow, that's interesting.' The usual reactions are either: a) laughter or b) TURN THAT OFF IT'S CREEPING ME OUT.


Yes, I think b) is in fact the reaction desired by Schoenberg.


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## Weston

I react pretty violently to it, but then I also react negatively to musical theater when the speaking starts to get slightly rhythmic and you just know the characters are about to break into a tedious song. It has the same stomach churning effect.


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## suntower

brotagonist said:


> I think Weill used a similar technique in Die Dreigroschenoper-at least, how his wife, Lotte Lenya realized it. Here, it is more zany than insane.
> 
> [Is Pierrot really insane? I guess I should read the texts more closely, but I find it very deep and insightful in a-I know it sounds corny and cliché to say it-Zen sort of way.]


I've played 3p opera and the singer(s) -really- toned it down vs other productions I've heard. I think 'zany' is a good way to put it and it seemed appropriate... their world was like a fun house mirror and the sprechstimme reflected that.

Back on topic. I really wanna know if there are any texts where Schoenberg discusses his 'motivation' for using it.

Pierrot was always presented to me in music school as something that I -should- like. A work of 'greatness' that I needed to learn to appreciate... like stinky cheese, I guess.

USUALLY when challenged thus, I've been able to 'get it'. But not wrt Pierrot (although I very much enjoy Wozzeck--perhaps the accompanying visuals help.)


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## Mahlerian

suntower said:


> USUALLY when challenged thus, I've been able to 'get it'. But not wrt Pierrot (although I very much enjoy Wozzeck--perhaps the accompanying visuals help.)


When Pierrot was first performed, the musicians were behind a screen, and the performer was dressed up in clown garb. The work is in a sense a theater piece as much as it is chamber music. I think there has been at least one DVD that interprets the work as a film, but I can't vouch for its quality.


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## suntower

What I -don't- get is that, from what I've read, the thing was apparently well-reviewed. I'm just stunned. What I mean is, take something like Rite Of Spring. OK, it was a 'scandal', but over time, people have grown accustomed to it (I daresay even inured) to the dissonance. In general, I find sprechstimme just as grating -today- as they must have in 191-whatever.

The cognitive disconnect between its (for me) genuinely unpleasant sound and the high regard makes me curious.

For example, I've heard westerners complain about Chinese Opera in similar terms (sorry Chinese Opera fans). But that's a -cultural- thing. And after you watch it a few times, it grows on you (personal experience.)

But there is a truly -disturbing- quality to sprechstimme that I have never been able to get past. I always conjure images of like an 80's horror movie (Hellraiser comes to mind.  )

So again, I wonder if Schoenberg heard it that way. Or if, to him, it meant something else... like Chinese Opera.



Mahlerian said:


> When Pierrot was first performed, the musicians were behind a screen, and the performer was dressed up in clown garb. The work is in a sense a theater piece as much as it is chamber music. I think there has been at least one DVD that interprets the work as a film, but I can't vouch for its quality.


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## Mahlerian

Well, saying it was well-received might be going a bit far. Critics savaged the work and there was plenty of hissing at early performances.

Fellow composers such as Stravinsky, Puccini, and Ravel, however, responded very favorably, and at least parts of the audience were enthusiastic about it. Schoenberg told an anecdote about a doorman at a hotel who had attended an early performance and excitedly told him how much the part about "Rote, fürstliche Rubine," had stuck with him all those years.

As for why it might have sounded less off-putting to contemporary audiences than listeners today, I suggest looking at the 19th century genre of melodrama, which was very popular.


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## brotagonist

Stravinsky used it, too, in Histoire du Soldat. The narrators—at least in the interpretations I am familiar with—sing-speak their parts with great rhythm and exaggerated feeling that follow the music.

Contrary to many others, I find the technique to be most enjoyable. It literally invites me to participate, to sing-speak the texts. Imagine a cabaret. Imagine karaoke  But these aren't pop songs, but wild and often outlandish productions. It's marvellous. It's anything but creepy to me; it's tongue-in-cheek humour, burlesque.


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## suntower

I was vaguely familiar with the concept of 19th century melodrama but I hadn't heard that Schumann piece so, cheers for that.

But to me, the sound of sprechstimme is frankly more like this: 




There's a line crossed from what I'd call 'preaching' or 'oration' (as Dieter is doing) to actual pitches (and of course the gliss thing). It's very much (for me) the sonic equivalent of eye-rolling--completely UN-natural. Whereas Dieter's hyper-dramatic speech just sounds like over-acting (or great storytelling--your choice) to my ear, sprechstimme crosses into another whole territory of weird. I could simply chalk it up as a creative way to depict mental illness but my understanding is that it is also meant as a more generalised form of expression and THAT's the part I don't get. It truly has a -pathological- quality and I use that word intentionally. I want to know if that's what Schoenberg (and Berg) meant... to be truly -pictorial- of that inner state.



Mahlerian said:


> Well, saying it was well-received might be going a bit far. Critics savaged the work and there was plenty of hissing at early performances.
> 
> Fellow composers such as Stravinsky, Puccini, and Ravel, however, responded very favorably, and at least parts of the audience were enthusiastic about it. Schoenberg told an anecdote about a doorman at a hotel who had attended an early performance and excitedly told him how much the part about "Rote, fürstliche Rubine," had stuck with him all those years.
> 
> As for why it might have sounded less off-putting to contemporary audiences than listeners today, I suggest looking at the 19th century genre of melodrama, which was very popular.


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## Mahlerian

suntower said:


> I was vaguely familiar with the concept of 19th century melodrama but I hadn't heard that Schumann piece so, cheers for that.
> 
> But to me, the sound of sprechstimme is frankly more like this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There's a line crossed from what I'd call 'preaching' or 'oration' (as Dieter is doing) to actual pitches (and of course the gliss thing). It's very much (for me) the sonic equivalent of eye-rolling--completely UN-natural. Whereas Dieter's hyper-dramatic speech just sounds like over-acting (or great storytelling--your choice) to my ear, sprechstimme crosses into another whole territory of weird. I could simply chalk it up as a creative way to depict mental illness but my understanding is that it is also meant as a more generalised form of expression and THAT's the part I don't get. It truly has a -pathological- quality and I use that word intentionally. I want to know if that's what Schoenberg (and Berg) meant... to be truly -pictorial- of that inner state.


Judging from all of the contexts in which they used it, emphatically not.

Berg uses it for the "deranged" characters of Wozzeck (the doctor, the protagonist, the madman in the tavern), but also for the "normal" characters (such as Andres).

Moses in Schoenberg's opera is not insane, nor is the reciter in Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte. In Pierrot, as I said, the effect was there to be uncanny and match the talents of a performer who was a cabaret singer rather than a classically trained soprano.

Performances of the work can differ greatly and thus affect one's perception; which one(s) are you referring to?


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## brotagonist

Pathological is so clinical  I think it's supposed to be fun. Pierrot is wearing a clown suit. Lotte Lenya sings with irony and satire. I am confused  that many listeners find the technique so perplexing.


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## Mahlerian

brotagonist said:


> Pathological is so clinical  I think it's supposed to be fun. Pierrot is wearing a clown suit. Lotte Lenya sings with irony and satire. I am confused  that many listeners find the technique so perplexing.


There are certainly elements of play in Pierrot lunaire (the canonic and contrapuntal games, the waltz and other dance-themed movements), but irony and a dark satire underlie the whole work, I feel.

Here's the Wiki article on Giraud's poems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot_lunaire_(book)


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## suntower

I'm gonna go all unPC here and wonder if perhaps sprechstimme isn't a very -German- concept. There are certain customs and gags in German that just don't translate into English. IOW: perhaps it may feel more 'normal' to the German musician. All I can tell ya is that to the average Irish (or American) person... that's my frame of reference... it is hard to understand. Again, back to the original question... seriously: what's the point? If you ask the average person from my frame of reference---regardless of education in music--it doesn't feel comical/ironic in any way. It feels like it is meant to shock more than anything else... as with what we would now call performance art... where getting a reaction is the most important point. That may not be the point at -all-. I'm just tellin' ya how it comes across to me... hence why I asked the question; to figure out what I'm missing.


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## arpeggio

Atonal rap music? 

Kidding aside I can only speak for myself. I have always preferred _Survivor from Warsaw_ to _Pierrot _. Why? I do not know.


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## Woodduck

suntower said:


> I'm gonna go all unPC here and wonder if perhaps sprechstimme isn't a very -German- concept. There are certain customs and gags in German that just don't translate into English. IOW: perhaps it may feel more 'normal' to the German musician. All I can tell ya is that to the average Irish (or American) person... that's my frame of reference... it is hard to understand. Again, back to the original question... seriously: what's the point? If you ask the average person from my frame of reference---regardless of education in music--it doesn't feel comical/ironic in any way. It feels like it is meant to shock more than anything else... as with what we would now call performance art... where getting a reaction is the most important point. That may not be the point at -all-. I'm just tellin' ya how it comes across to me... hence why I asked the question; to figure out what I'm missing.


I can empathize with your feelings about sprechstimme. I've always found it weird and unpleasant, and the sight of someone doing it a bit comical. But I just take it as a characteristic expression of a certain cultural milieu, the whole Expressionist movement in the arts. This movement originated in Germany, and among its chief traits were exaggerated gestures and a fascination with the dark emotions, the abnormal, the strange and the morbid. Here are some images of German Expressionist painting:

https://www.google.com/search?q=ger...ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIvNqfsaSRxwIVQymICh2mfwzC

Then there's German Expressionist film:

https://www.google.com/search?q=ger...ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIt8Xd2KeRxwIVQ5WICh3TGAYg

In music, many of the works of Schoenberg and Berg are strongly Expressionistic, and I'd call _Pierrot_ a classic Expressionist work (Schoenberg was also an Expressionist painter, by the way). Sprechstimme is exaggerated speech - I don't consider it singing, though it can hover between the two - and it seems perfect for expressing abnormal states of mind in a stylized way. It can also be humorous, in an ironic or grotesque way. I'm not sure what else can be done with it.


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## isorhythm

Woodduck said:


> I can empathize with your feelings about sprechstimme. I've always found it weird and unpleasant, and the sight of someone doing it a bit comical. But I just take it as a characteristic expression of a certain cultural milieu, the whole Expressionist movement in the arts. This movement originated in Germany, and among its chief traits were exaggerated gestures and a fascination with the dark emotions, the abnormal, the strange and the morbid. Here are some images of German Expressionist painting:
> 
> https://www.google.com/search?q=ger...ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIvNqfsaSRxwIVQymICh2mfwzC
> 
> Then there's German Expressionist film:
> 
> https://www.google.com/search?q=ger...ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIt8Xd2KeRxwIVQ5WICh3TGAYg
> 
> In music, many of the works of Schoenberg and Berg are strongly Expressionistic, and I'd call _Pierrot_ a classic Expressionist work (Schoenberg was also an Expressionist painter, by the way). Sprechstimme is exaggerated speech - I don't consider it singing, though it can hover between the two - and it seems perfect for expressing abnormal states of mind in a stylized way. It can also be humorous, in an ironic or grotesque way. I'm not sure what else can be done with it.


Aw man. I was about to make basically this exact post.

The whole reason to like all that Second Viennese School stuff (if you do like it) is related to this cultural/intellectual mileu, which for some reason doesn't get discussed too much on this site connection with it. think Freud, Klimt, Schiele, Brecht, Fritz Lang, Marlene Dietrich. The endpoint of the disintegration of Enlightment rationalism that began in the mid-19th century. Of course now, we know that an unimaginable darkness lay just ahead. You get the sense they felt that already.

_Pierrot _was actually fairly _popular_ with audiences at the time.

A lot of can seem almost kitschy now, if you're not willing to suspend some modern prejudices and go with it.


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## Mahlerian

For the last time, there is no reason to believe, based on all of the times Schoenberg and Berg used the technique, that it was meant to represent madness in itself.

It's used for the narrator in the last part of Gurrelieder, for crying out loud!

When Schoenberg spoke about Pierrot, he put the work in the genre of melodrama. Sprechstimme was from his perspective merely a way of notating the way of speaking used in melodrama more precisely.

I haven't been able to answer your question "What is it trying to express?" simply because there is no one answer. Pierrot lunaire contains a wide range of expression; so does Moses und Aron or Der Jakobsleiter. It's like asking "What is the use of soprano trying to express?"


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## suntower

If I've gotten up yer nose, I'm sorry. As -I- wrote, the reason for -my- perplexion (hey, I can invent a word if -I- want to!  ) is that it -is- so frankly alien to me.

I am no 2nd Viennese expert for sure. I only asked about the 'madness' thing as a way of explanation. It went against the small amount of listening I've done (frankly all I can stomach of the technique in small doses).

What intrigues me is how the people who 'get it' find it simply 'evolutionary'... in the way I view early 'atonality' as no big leap from late romanticism. But there is something about -voice- that makes this not at all evolutionary to -me-. Despite repeated listenings it is not life 'coffee' where one learns to like it.

I -love- expressionist painting (I'm looking at a Kandinsky print right now.) But it doesn't creep my out on a -visceral- level like sprechstimme does.

Anyhoo, I'll close my blather by disagreeing with one thing you wrote. I do NOT see 'what's the point' as an unanswerable question. Schoenberg must have had a reason for using it that was -unique-; something he was trying to convey that could not be gotten using 'conventional' techniques. So I would be very surprised that such a detail-oriented guy (a teacher after all) never held forth on the -why- of using the technique. Specifically: what made it -necessary-. I've read lots of articles with Stravinsky and Debussy discussing why they chose certain techniques and I figured he must've done so as well. So perhaps, in the end, I should've titled this "Are there articles where Schoenberg discusses -why- he used this technique?"

Good discussion. Learned a few things... which is gettin' rarer and rarer on the interwebs.

Cheers.



Mahlerian said:


> For the last time, there is no reason to believe, based on all of the times Schoenberg and Berg used the technique, that it was meant to represent madness in itself.
> 
> It's used for the narrator in the last part of Gurrelieder, for crying out loud!
> 
> When Schoenberg spoke about Pierrot, he put the work in the genre of melodrama. Sprechstimme was from his perspective merely a way of notating the way of speaking used in melodrama more precisely.
> 
> I haven't been able to answer your question "What is it trying to express?" simply because there is no one answer. Pierrot lunaire contains a wide range of expression; so does Moses und Aron or Der Jakobsleiter. It's like asking "What is the use of soprano trying to express?"


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## Mahlerian

suntower said:


> Anyhoo, I'll close my blather by disagreeing with one thing you wrote. I do NOT see 'what's the point' as an unanswerable question. Schoenberg must have had a reason for using it that was -unique-; something he was trying to convey that could not be gotten using 'conventional' techniques. So I would be very surprised that such a detail-oriented guy (a teacher after all) never held forth on the -why- of using the technique. Specifically: what made it -necessary-. I've read lots of articles with Stravinsky and Debussy discussing why they chose certain techniques and I figured he must've done so as well. So perhaps, in the end, I should've titled this "Are there articles where Schoenberg discusses -why- he used this technique?"


He used it in Pierrot lunaire because the work was commissioned by a cabaret performer and suited her abilities and style of performance. Artistically, it also works well with the nocturnal atmosphere and dream-like logic of the work.

The following are my speculative reasons for why he used it in other works.

He used it in Gurrelieder to indicate a different perspective from the characters who sung, earlier in the work, and the chorus that sings at the end.

He used it in Moses und Aron because it helps to make a sharper separation between the seductive, mellifluous Aron and the introspective, slow-tongued Moses (who has exactly one sung line in the entire work).

He used it in A Survivor from Warsaw as in Gurrelieder to separate a narrator from the events he is narrating.

In his settings of Psalm 130 and the Kol Nidre, he used it in imitation of Jewish ritual, with its call and response patterns.


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## suntower

OK, then why did -she- like it? 

Maybe it was a fad like disco? I'm only half kidding. I started listening to Pierrot again today and it strikes me as kinda like Renaissance (maybe that's the wrong term) 'Madrigals' what with the tone-painting (upward scales when I'm walking upstairs. downward as I look at the ground, etc.) Kinda gimmicky in a way. (eg. in the Washerwoman she stttttreeetches her arms!) As I earlier wrote, maybe there's a certain joke in there that only Germans of that era would get.



Mahlerian said:


> He used it in Pierrot lunaire because the work was commissioned by a cabaret performer and suited her abilities and style of performance. Artistically, it also works well with the nocturnal atmosphere and dream-like logic of the work.
> 
> The following are my speculative reasons for why he used it in other works.
> 
> He used it in Gurrelieder to indicate a different perspective from the characters who sung, earlier in the work, and the chorus that sings at the end.
> 
> He used it in Moses und Aron because it helps to make a sharper separation between the seductive, mellifluous Aron and the introspective, slow-tongued Moses (who has exactly one sung line in the entire work).
> 
> He used it in A Survivor from Warsaw as in Gurrelieder to separate a narrator from the events he is narrating.
> 
> In his settings of Psalm 130 and the Kol Nidre, he used it in imitation of Jewish ritual, with its call and response patterns.


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## millionrainbows

Pierot was a dangerous sociopath! Dr. Phil said so! Come to think of it, Schoenberg was a sociopath too! He was out of work most of the time, couldn't support a family...he'd never make it in Dallas!


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