Schoenberg - Pierrot lunaire ~ Herzgewächse ~ Ode to Napoleon / Schäfer, Pittman-Jennings, Ensemble InterContempolain, Boulez

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential recording
Arnold Schoenberg claimed he had never set out to be a revolutionary. Yet the song cycle he wrote in 1912 based on proto- expressionist poems and featuring a grotesque harlequin figure, Pierrot Lunaire, still reverberates with its haunting, startling originality. This work introduced the world to a hitherto unthought-of musical landscape; to call it innovative would be an absurd understatement. What's particularly exciting about the undertaking here (Boulez's third recorded take on this music) is how utterly fresh the music sounds, its novelty unblunted and yet strangely beautiful--a far cry from the forbidding Schoenberg of stereotype. Soprano Christine Schäfer negotiates the no-man's land between spoken word and sung pitch--the technique known as Sprechstimme which Schoenberg introduced here--with fascinating nuance. She brings a cabaret-savvy sensibility to bear, along with a gripping sense of pathos, alternately sweet and acrid. Boulez treats the songs as miniatures, offering coloristic and multiperspectival--almost Cubistic--portrayals of Pierrot. For all the score's nebulous atmospherics, Boulez distills a keen, sharp clarity of line and timbre. Also included is the extraordinary song "Herzgewächse" (scored for harmonium, celesta, and harp), in which Schäfer matches her voice like a "crystal sigh" to the instrumentation. The album is filled out with Schoenberg's setting, during his exile from the Nazi horror, of Byron's bitterly ironic "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte" for a baritone reciter. --Thomas May

Schoenberg - Pierrot lunaire ~ Herzgewächse ~ Ode to Napoleon / Schäfer, Pittman-Jennings, Ensemble InterContempolain, Boulez, Music, Arnold Schoenberg, Pierre Boulez, Christine Schäfer, David Pittman-Jennings, Ensemble InterContempolain, Florent Boffard, Jeannne Marie Conquer, Christophe Desjardins, Hae Sun Kang, Sophie Cherrier, Alain Damiens, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Classical Vocals, Miscellaneous, Music with Spoken Words, Solo Voice(s) and Small Ensemble, Vocal
Schoenberg - Pierrot lunaire ~ Herzgewächse ~ Ode to Napoleon / Schäfer, Pittman-Jennings, Ensemble InterContempolain, Boulez
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Sprechstimme???
  • Lovely, but not a first choice.
  • One of the Best Schoenberg Discs Available...
  • atonal vs. twelve-tone
  • How the soul recovers itself in the midnight of pain
 Schoenberg - Pierrot lunaire ~ Herzgewächse ~ Ode to Napoleon / Schäfer, Pittman-Jennings, Ensemble InterContempolain, Boulez
Arnold Schoenberg , Pierre Boulez , Christine Schäfer , David Pittman-Jennings , Ensemble InterContempolain , Florent Boffard , Jeannne Marie Conquer , Christophe Desjardins , Hae Sun Kang , Sophie Cherrier , and Alain Damiens
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00000DBV6
Release Date: 1998-10-20

Tracks:

  1. Pierrot Lunaire - Part I: 1. Mondestrunken
  2. Pierrot Lunaire - Part I: 2. Colombine
  3. Pierrot Lunaire - Part I: 3. Der Dandy
  4. Pierrot Lunaire - Part I: 4. Eine blasse Wascherin
  5. Pierrot Lunaire - Part I: 5. Valse de Chopin
  6. Pierrot Lunaire - Part I: 6. Madonna
  7. Pierrot Lunaire - Part I: 7. Der kranke Mond
  8. Pierrot Lunaire - Part II: 8. Nacht
  9. Pierrot Lunaire - Part II: 9. Gebet an Pierrot
  10. Pierrot Lunaire - Part II: Raub
  11. Pierrot Lunaire - Part II: 11. Rote Messe
  12. Pierrot Lunaire - Part II: 12. Galgenlied
  13. Pierrot Lunaire - Part II: 13. Enthauptung
  14. Pierrot Lunaire - Part II: 14. Die Kreuze
  15. Pierrot Lunaire - Part III: 15. Heimweh
  16. Pierrot Lunaire - Part III: 16. Gemeinheit!
  17. Pierrot Lunaire - Part III: 17. Parodie
  18. Pierrot Lunaire - Part III: 18. Der Mondfleck
  19. Pierrot Lunaire - Part III: 19. Serenade
  20. Pierrot Lunaire - Part III: 20. Heimfahrt
  21. Pierrot Lunaire - Part III: 21. O alter Duft
  22. Herzgewasche
  23. Ode To Napoleon Buonaparte

Amazon.com essential recording

Arnold Schoenberg claimed he had never set out to be a revolutionary. Yet the song cycle he wrote in 1912 based on proto- expressionist poems and featuring a grotesque harlequin figure, Pierrot Lunaire, still reverberates with its haunting, startling originality. This work introduced the world to a hitherto unthought-of musical landscape; to call it innovative would be an absurd understatement. What's particularly exciting about the undertaking here (Boulez's third recorded take on this music) is how utterly fresh the music sounds, its novelty unblunted and yet strangely beautiful--a far cry from the forbidding Schoenberg of stereotype. Soprano Christine Schäfer negotiates the no-man's land between spoken word and sung pitch--the technique known as Sprechstimme which Schoenberg introduced here--with fascinating nuance. She brings a cabaret-savvy sensibility to bear, along with a gripping sense of pathos, alternately sweet and acrid. Boulez treats the songs as miniatures, offering coloristic and multiperspectival--almost Cubistic--portrayals of Pierrot. For all the score's nebulous atmospherics, Boulez distills a keen, sharp clarity of line and timbre. Also included is the extraordinary song "Herzgewächse" (scored for harmonium, celesta, and harp), in which Schäfer matches her voice like a "crystal sigh" to the instrumentation. The album is filled out with Schoenberg's setting, during his exile from the Nazi horror, of Byron's bitterly ironic "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte" for a baritone reciter. --Thomas May

Customer Reviews:

1 out of 5 stars Sprechstimme???.......2006-03-24

I have a Boulez recording of the Pierrot Lunaire that I recorded on tape from a friend's Lp in 1979. I don't know anything about this lp, except that it is a Boulez's direction, but I think that it is an earlier version of the 1978 recording. The "sprechstimme" is realized better than the De Gaetani recording, obviously better than the '78 Boulez recording (here the reciter sing, and the Pierrot sould absolutely not be sung) and much better than the 1997 recording with Christine Schafer, who sing and often seems, I don't know how to say, almost like a "strangled hen"!... If anybody knows if this recording (my earlier Boulez recording on tape) is available on cd please tell us!!!

4 out of 5 stars Lovely, but not a first choice........2005-02-16

The Pierrot is the major work on this CD. Schafer sings it beautifully and sensitively. But is this enough? Compare (even via the audio snippets on Amazon) this performance with Jan DeGaetani's (with no Boulez). One reviewer says that Schafer "smooths out" the sprechstimme. Well yes, but I prefer it unsmoothed. Otherwise, it becomes, essentially, singing, and that is precisely not what we want to hear. At every moment in the DeGaetani performance, she is precisely between singing and speaking; at every moment, the performance has an unpredictability that I really don't think Schafer/Boulez can offer. Unlike almost every sprechstimmer (and really, I think was artistic folly for Shoenberg to focus on this technique so much), there is high drama in DeGaetani's work.

So, yes, 4 stars for the Schaefer performance. It is a fine, artistic, and honorable performance. But for the performance God and Arnold would prefer, I'd start with the DeGaetani.

5 out of 5 stars One of the Best Schoenberg Discs Available..........2005-01-31

This is a superb disc in many ways: it features three of Schoenberg's great pieces, one of which (Herzgewächse) is virtually unavailable anywhere else. Since the death of von Karajan, Boulez is now the greatest conductor in the world now working; and his understanding of Second Viennese School oeuvre is as insightful as Karajan's was. Christine Schäfer--for my money and to my ear--is the greatest soprano now working: her voice is exquisite: not shrill nor brittle, but rich, moist, and pure, and oh-so-effortless: she's absolutely wonderful, and she, too, has a deep insight into Modern music: for example, she sings the part of Lulu in Berg's eponymous opera.

As for the works: Herzgewächse is an exquisite song of about 4 min duration. It contains a hair-raising Expressionistic leap of the voice at climax, which Webern called, "the summit of music." The text is by Symbolist Belgian Maeterlinck.

Byron's Ode to Napoleon is about 20 mins of excoriating sarcasm and bitter irony on the capitulation of the Corsican. Schoenberg, to whom the sentiments of sarcasm and irony came naturally--set Byron's Ode in English as a protest against Hitler, Stalin, totalitarianism, and autocracy. Set for piano quintet, it's too, too wonderful. It's a 12-tone work, but the tones chosen have tonal ambiguities which also hint at Beethoven's Eroica.

Pierrot Lunaire is of course Schoenberg's most infamous piece. Here it is made most approachable by Boulez and Schafer. The problematic "speech-song" which Schoenberg calls for is smoothed-out by Schafer.

Outstanding performances of exquisite works, well recorded.

5 out of 5 stars atonal vs. twelve-tone.......2004-10-04

I would just like to point out (in contrast to what a few reviews have implied) that while Pierrot Lunaire is "atonal" (not in a conventional key) it is not twelve-tone. Schoenberg did not begin using the twelve-tone system until later in his life.

These songs are incredibly beautiful, and not particularly "hard to listen to". Even if you generally disliked Schoenberg keep in mind that Pierrot is quite different from some of his later works. And don't be put off if you think you don't understand it. Just keep an open mind and enjoy the extraordinary sound Schoenberg has created.

5 out of 5 stars How the soul recovers itself in the midnight of pain.......2004-09-09

Pierrot Lunaire is not an idiosyncratic piece of music - it is absolutely classical and central to the human experience and imagination. There is something in us that simultaneously desires to forget and remember our midnights - when too much cigarette smoke fills the air and all of the coffee we drink does nothing for us yet we keep drinking it anyway. We have had too much wine in our yesterdays but all we got from it is a massive hangover in this midnight that fills us with a terrifying lucidity through which we contemplate our failed romances, (what is worse) our successful romances, the terror of being and the laughter we use to cover it, and the antics of a perfectly white clown. That is the greatness of Arnold Schoenberg, that he communicates through his music that supreme subliminity that crept into Western conciousness in the nineteenth century and reached its final, monstrous fruition in the plays of Samuel Beckett. There is something more scary than a haunted house - Pierrot Lunaire.

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