Arnold Schoenberg: 02–05.01.2017; 09–13.09.2024

[oddoneout]

As always, when it comes to the new, it's all a matter of finding entry points that are right for you. The Violin Concerto would not have been my first port of call - I was first drawn to Pierrot Lunaire and the Five Orchestral Pieces Op 16 - but as with much of the post 1921 12-tone work I have eventually come to treasure it. Boulez was initially scathing, arguing that Schoenberg did not follow through on the implications of breaking with tonality, though he later retracted considerably on that viewpoint; but for me the most important change came about by virtue of how atonality forces a totally different way of listening, being no longer dependent on harmonic tension release in harmonic "consonance", thereby pre-empting musical predictability and listener expectations, while opening up a whole new realms of feeling and experience.

Lacking technical knowledge and insights my reaction to any unfamiliar piece tends to be whether it interests me in any way - that may be the sounds, it may be the feelings it elicits, it may be other music it reminds me of.

[smittims]

Heldenleben's remark about Facade reminds me of a friend's reaction to Pierrot Lunaire: 'It would have been all right without that caterwauling woman all the time.' And I admit that when I came to know Schoenberg's work this was the most difficult piece to get to like. Hans Keller once mounted a broadcast without the speaker , to encourage people to listen to the music.

[Serial_Apologist]

Heldenleben's remark about Facade reminds me of a friend's reaction to Pierrot Lunaire: 'It would have been all right without that caterwauling woman all the time.' And I admit that when I came to know Schoenberg's work this was the most difficult piece to get to like. Hans Keller once mounted a broadcast without the speaker , to encourage people to listen to the music.

To many recent recordings and performances of late I find err too much on the side of singing the Sprechstimme part, as opposed to touching on the stated pitches and immediately quitting them in the, I think, intended manner of heightened speech. I think I was lucky in having first heard Pierrot Lunaire on the cheap mid-60s Saga recording; unfortunately I can't now recall the vocalist.

[Ein Heldenleben]

To many recent recordings and performances of late I find err too much on the side of singing the Sprechstimme part, as opposed to touching on the stated pitches and immediately quitting them in the, I think, intended manner of heightened speech. I think I was lucky in having first heard Pierrot Lunaire on the cheap mid-60s Saga recording; unfortunately I can't now recall the vocalist.

I think the Sprechstimme works in PL and not in Facade because it’s a smaller and spoken/ quasi pitched by a trained singer with excellent diction …..rather than with Facade where you often have Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

[smittims]

Yes, I think it's a mistake to choose a 'famous actor' to do Facade . The classic recording is the old Decca 78s with a younger Edith Sitwell and the inimitable Constant Lambert, though the Decca LP with an older Sitwell and Peter Pears is also excellent . I liked the English Pierrot with Cleo Laine , conducted I think, by Elgar Howarth; there were hopes that would find a new audience for the work.

The soloist on the Saga recording was Alice Howland, with an American ensemble coducted by someon called 'Zipper' (a surname, presumably!). The Penguin Guide gave it a good review.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, I think it's a mistake to choose a 'famous actor' to do Facade . The classic recording is the old Decca 78s with a younger Edith Sitwell and the inimitable Constant Lambert, though the Decca LP with an older Sitwell and Peter Pears is also excellent . I liked the English Pierrot with Cleo Laine , conducted I think, by Elgar Howarth; there were hopes that would find a new audience for the work.

The soloist on the Saga recording was Alice Howland, with an American ensemble coducted by someon called 'Zipper' (a surname, presumably!). The Penguin Guide gave it a good review.

Thanks, smittims.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Is there a forumite expert who can opine on whether Giraud’s poetry is better than the Sitwells’? Edith is of course not taken that seriously as a poet in academia though she seems to have had a Betjeman style popularity once.

[oliver sudden]

Yes, I think it's a mistake to choose a 'famous actor' to do Facade . The classic recording is the old Decca 78s with a younger Edith Sitwell and the inimitable Constant Lambert, though the Decca LP with an older Sitwell and Peter Pears is also excellent . I liked the English Pierrot with Cleo Laine , conducted I think, by Elgar Howarth; there were hopes that would find a new audience for the work.

I heartily agree with all of this. Sitwell is fine on the later recording but audibly getting on a bit. One might get the impression that her relatively neutral delivery in the later recording is somehow the desired effect but the earlier Long Steel Grass, for example, is much more nuanced and brilliantly effective. And Lambert is irreplaceable.

The Laine Pierrot is magnificent. My German is pretty decent after twenty years here but I have to admit that hearing the things in English brings them much closer to home.

[oliver sudden]

Is there a forumite expert who can opine on whether Giraud’s poetry is better than the Sitwells’? Edith is of course not taken that seriously as a poet in academia though she seems to have had a Betjeman style popularity once.

Expert I am not but since when did that ever stop anyone opining?

There's already a bit of a difference between Giraud's poetry (which is nice and elegant in a very strict rondel form) and Hartleben's translation (which is a bit more expressionistically free-floating and the rhymes fall by the wayside).

I was practically addicted to Façade as a lad but nowadays it seems to me that neither the words nor the music completely stand up on their own (although I do enjoy the poems' experiments in sonority up to a point), and yet in combination they manage to get frustratingly in each other's way.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Expert I am not but since when did that ever stop anyone opining?

There's already a bit of a difference between Giraud's poetry (which is nice and elegant in a very strict rondel form) and Hartleben's translation (which is a bit more expressionistically free-floating and the rhymes fall by the wayside).

I was practically addicted to Façade as a lad but nowadays it seems to me that neither the words nor the music completely stand up on their own (although I do enjoy the poems' experiments in sonority up to a point), and yet in combination they manage to get frustratingly in each other's way.

Thanks. I had a look on Google for the French poems but to little luck. My German isn’t up to the translation nit it seems like fairly simple fare.

[Serial_Apologist]

I heartily agree with all of this. Sitwell is fine on the later recording but audibly getting on a bit. One might get the impression that her relatively neutral delivery in the later recording is somehow the desired effect but the earlier Long Steel Grass, for example, is much more nuanced and brilliantly effective. And Lambert is irreplaceable.

The Laine Pierrot is magnificent. My German is pretty decent after twenty years here but I have to admit that hearing the things in English brings them much closer to home.

I think it's instructive that it takes a nominal jazz singer - and a non-American one at that - to give such a brilliant rendition; and the English translation is remarkably good, given that the poems have already been subjected to two. Cleo also delivers three Ives songs, and with great gusto, on the end of that particular recording.

[oliver sudden]

Thanks. I had a look on Google for the French poems but to little luck. My German isn’t up to the translation nit it seems like fairly simple fare.

Rien n’est plus simple…

https://fr.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierrot_lunaire

…although of course Schönberg (as he then was) didn’t set them all or keep the original order.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Rien n’est plus simple…

https://fr.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierrot_lunaire

…although of course Schönberg (as he then was) didn’t set them all or keep the original order.

This is a useful parallel triple translation

https://yellowbarn.org/sites/default/files/pierrot_lunaire_translation.pdf