Item #24955 [Op. 21]. Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds Pierrot Lunaire [Piano-vocal score]. Arnold SCHOENBERG.

[Op. 21]. Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds Pierrot Lunaire [Piano-vocal score]

(Deutsch von Erich Otto Hartleben) Für eine Sprechstimme, Klavier, Flöte (auch Piccolo), Klarinette (auch Baß-Klarinette), Geige (auch Bratsche) und Violoncell (Melodramen). Klavierauszug mit Text von Erwin Stein

Wien–Leipzig: Universal-Edition [PN U.E. 7144], ©1923.

Quarto. Original publisher's printed wrappers. 1f. (title), 67 pp.
Texts and Foreword by Schoenberg in German.
Printed dedication to head of title: "Der ersten Interpretin Frau Albertine Zehme in herzlicher Freundschaft"

Copyright 1923 to upper wrapper and title; copyright 1922 to first page of music.
Plate numbers 5334.5336 to pages of text, corresponding to the full and study score editions.

Upper wrapper browned, detached, stained at inner margin and frayed with slight loss; lower lacking. Light dampstaining to lower inner corners of first and last leaves.

First Edition of the piano-vocal score, either first or second issue. Rufer (E), pp. 38-40. GA B/24/1, p. 39.

"Parody assumes a very important role in Pierrot lunaire. This work, composed in 1912, before the framing choral scenes of Die glückliche Hand, consists of 21 poems set for speaker and chamber ensemble. Schoenberg had employed melodrama before in the summer wind narrative of the Gurre-Lieder. His highly stylized use of the speaking voice, for which he notated relative pitches as well as exact rhythms, proved an ideal vehicle for the Pierrot settings, which were conceived in what he described as a light, ironic–satirical tone. The rather modish verses, by turns grotesque, macabre or consciously sentimental, provide the occasion for presenting, with the detachment that the protagonist in Die glückliche Hand failed to achieve, human activity as a shadow play in which menace and absurdity are on a level. The focus shifts at random, as in a dream, between the lunatic activities of the clown, impersonal scenes, the poet in the first person and the self-absorbed artist, who is not spared. Within his new style Schoenberg parodies the characteristics of a great range of genre pieces, very often retaining the ghost of their formal layout as well. In music the lines dividing ironic from direct reference are often hard to detect. The peculiar fascination of Pierrot lunaire lies in this ambiguity. The nightmare imagery of some of the poems might scarcely be admissible without ironic distancing, yet the music often strikes with authentic horror. Mockery constantly shades into good humour, exaggerated pathos into the genuinely touching." O.W. Neighbour in Grove Music Online.

Albertine Zehme (1857-1946), an actress born in Vienna and later active in Berlin, is now exclusively remembered as the person who commissioned and first performed Pierrot Lunaire. "Read the preface, looked at the poems. I am enthusiastic. A brilliant idea, entirely in my spirit. I would do it even without a fee." Schoenberg in his diary.

Item #24955

Price: $750.00  other currencies

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