Pierrot Lunaire

Description

Created in Berlin in 1912, Pierrot lunaire is a set of twenty-one short melodramas for voice and five instruments based on poems by Albert Giraud translated into German. The composer introduces the technique of Sprechstimme, which revolutionizes declamation. Schoenberg wants the piece to be ironic, both tender and grotesque, in the style of cabaret songs. Patricia Kopatchinskaja, a violinist and actress in her spare time, dreamed of performing and reciting this unique work. It was a pain in her arm that prevented her from playing the violin that one day propelled her as a reciter: "All my life I felt that I was Pierrot. Every time I played this piece on the violin when I was a student, I said the words in my head." She has embodied and performed Pierrot on numerous stages around the world, including the Philharmonie in Berlin, several cities in the United States, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden... She gathered high-profile musician friends and decided to record it for posterity. Schoenberg's Fantasie Op. 47 and Six Little Pieces for Piano, Op. 19 complete this program, along with works by Webern (Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7) and Johann Strauss's Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437, in an arrangement by Schoenberg.