Pierrot Lunaire is one of Arnold Schoenberg's most celebrated vocal works, and his use of Sprechgesang (an approximation between speech and singing) was its most innovative and controversial feature. Yet he was not alone in setting to music the symbolist poems of Albert Giraud, in German translations by Otto Erich Hartleben. Max Kowalski, a lawyer, composer, and friend of Schoenberg, also took an interest in these bizarre vignettes of the dandy Pierrot, a stock character from the Commedia dell'arte who languishes in his ...
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Pierrot Lunaire is one of Arnold Schoenberg's most celebrated vocal works, and his use of Sprechgesang (an approximation between speech and singing) was its most innovative and controversial feature. Yet he was not alone in setting to music the symbolist poems of Albert Giraud, in German translations by Otto Erich Hartleben. Max Kowalski, a lawyer, composer, and friend of Schoenberg, also took an interest in these bizarre vignettes of the dandy Pierrot, a stock character from the Commedia dell'arte who languishes in his obsession with the moon and his love for Colombine. While Schoenberg's haunting, atonal setting for Sprechstimme and chamber ensemble emphasizes the strangeness of the poems, Kowalski's 12 songs are composed for voice with piano accompaniment and are more conventionally tonal and expressive. Soprano Ingrid Schmithüsen presents both composers' works side by side on this 2016 release from ATMA Classique, and her control and accuracy are admirable. Having performed Pierrot...
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