# Pierrot Lunaire



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I don't have a recording of this landmark Schoenberg work. I'm listening to an obscure recording on the Neos label up at YouTube. I like this a lot, but was thinking of getting the Herreweghe version on Harmonia Mundi.

While searching around, I found the complete Schoenberg/Boulez set (11 CDs) that will be released on Sony next month. http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/RCA/88765429572

I'm now listening to a more passionate performance led by Giuseppe Sinopoli on the Warner label. There's some weird noise/distortion, and I'm not sure if this is in the upload or on the recording? Anyway, this is available on an 8 CD set.
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Warner+Classics/2564694140


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

One of my favourite Schönberg works, like the disc with Christine Schafer, Ensemble Intercontemporain and Pierre Boulez (DG) very much. Jane Manning and the Nash Ensemble (Chandos) is quite good to even if Manning is bit less idiomatic in her German. (Did not keep the Herrewegh because I did not like the soloists German at all!, haven't heard the Neos, think I have the earlier Boulez on an LP, but I have not sonic memory of it, but I've always liked what Boulez do with Schoenberg!...)

Have You heard William Walton's *Façade* to Edit Sitwells poems? It is a work very much of the same vain as Pierrot! I believe it is a jolly fun entertainment if You have an urge for a little bit of "sprechgesang", don't we all from time to time? .. I can warmly recommend the Hyperion disc with the complete work with extra numbers spoken and played by Eleanor Bron, Richard Stilgoe, The Nash Ensemble and David Lloyd-Jones! (sorry for this bit of side rail...  )

/ptr


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Thanks for the suggestions!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I like the Herreweghe because the instrumental playing is very well coordinated (no mean feat in this work), and the soloist, in spite of her pronunciation problems, provides a very un-operatic approach to the part. Boulez on DG is, of course, an excellent choice.

While we're on the subject of works inspired by Pierrot Lunaire, you may or may not be aware that certain works by Ravel(!) and Stravinsky (Three Japanese Lyrics) were written for voice and small ensemble shortly after they heard Schoenberg's work for the first time. I'm sure you're aware of Le marteau sans maitre, Boulez's own voice and chamber ensemble work.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Why do these labels always have to tack on one of the chamber symphonies as filler? I don't need another version. Maybe I'll go with the Rattle CD? Too bad the Nonesuch CD is OOP, and too expensive to buy used. It would be great to have Lunaire, and Hanging Gardens on one CD.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

starthrower said:


> Why do these labels always have to tack on one of the chamber symphonies as filler? I don't need another version. Maybe I'll go with the Rattle CD? Too bad the Nonesuch CD is OOP, and too expensive to buy used. It would be great to have Lunaire, and Hanging Gardens on one CD.


The Harmonia Mundi disc has the rarer Webern arrangement of the Chamber Symphony No. 1 for the Pierrot ensemble (flute, clarinet, piano, violin, cello), though, rather than the original chamber version.

Hanging Gardens is a great work, though, and it does make a better pairing for Pierrot Lunaire than the original version of the Chamber Symphony.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

My library has both the Boulez/Schafer CD, and the Robert Craft disc on Naxos. I'm going to check these out first, before I buy something.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Pierrot Lunaire is an amazing work, Stravinsky calling it "the solar plexus of 20th century music," it influenced so many composers of Schoenberg's time and after.

The opening post of this thread I made reflects some of what ptr said above (you took the words right out of my mouth, ptr!).

http://www.talkclassical.com/18902-lineages-classical-music.html

I really like Jane Manning's one with Simon Rattle conducting, I like its gusty, raw and intense quality. I also like Boulez's one done with Christine Schaeffer, its more kind of lyrical and refined - which may sound almost oxymoronic regarding the nature of this piece, but they do do it justice, I think.

I have not heard the other recordings mentioned here, but I went to a performance of this which included a theatrical element - as this piece draws heavily on influences from cabaret - and that concert really made me appreciate it on a whole new dimension.

Its one of the works which, when I first heard it about 15 years ago, I was shocked and repelled. But it took me over a decade to come back to it and basically love it. The way Schoenberg illustrates Giraud's surreal and disturbing imagery, translates the poetry into music, is amazing.

As an aside, Schoenberg never did this again, his foray into expressionism was brief. But earlier, about a decade before Pierrot, he worked in a cabaret in Berlin as a conductor. There, he composed a set of cabaret songs (also called Brettl-lieder, after the name of the cabaret) and they are kind of interesting if seen as precursor to Pierrot. There is that sardonic humour and that contrast of high morality with low life, the mundane. It is of course very different, making one think that if he'd stayed in Berlin, he may well have been commissioned to write something along the lines of the Threepenny Opera. Who knows? But it never happened, he went back to Vienna shortly after and as they say, the rest is history.

Re the Cabaret Songs, I have the recording by Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman, on the same cd are cabaret songs of William Bolcom and Erik Satie. A great album, one of my favs. But the Schoenberg songs where also recorded by Jessye Norman, another fine performance.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Thanks, Sid! I'm leaning towards the more gutsy version by Rattle. The YouTube version I posted above also sounds pretty intense.

Some good info in that lineages thread from Jeremy and yourself. 

I love Rattle's recording of the Five Orchestral pieces. I have Boulez's CBS recording too, so I know what you mean by his more refined approach.

Presto Classical is selling Rattle's 2nd Viennese School box set (5 CD) for the ridiculous price of 9 dollars. But no Pierrot Lunaire on this set.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

starthrower said:


> But no Pierrot Lunaire on this set.


Manning and Rattle was released by *Chandos* at a cheap £5!

/ptr


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

^^^
Yeah, I'll probably grab that Chandos CD.


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## Classicallystrained (Feb 27, 2013)

If you want to see a fun Schoenberg parody video :


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I have a version by Boulez which I bought second hand. I think it is a bit more tunefully done. But I can't say I like this music.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

For _some_ reason, I like the recording by The Fires Of London.


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