The Classical Music Book

MODERN 1900 –1950 245

unsettling atmosphere, and the

dissonance of the harmonies suits

the strange and sometimes violent

imagery. Like the poems, the music

Audience and orchestra fight in a

1913 cartoon from the newspaper Die

Zeit titled “The upcoming Schoenberg

concert,” satirizing the anger that the

composer’s new music could provoke.

Sprechstimme

Although the vocal line in

Pierrot lunaire is usually

performed by a soprano,

Schoenberg did not intend it

to be sung but rather recited,

like the cabaret songs and

melodramas that were popular

at the time, in a style he called

sprechstimme (“speaking

voice”). He first used the

technique in his cantata

Gurre-Lieder but realized

its full potential in Pierrot

lunaire. Here, the vocal line

is notated conventionally,

with precise indications of

both rhythm and pitch, but

sprechstimme is indicated by

small crosses on the stems of

the notes. Later, Schoenberg

abandoned specific pitch

indications for sprechstimme,

replacing the five-line staff

with a single line and no clef.

is highly structured. Hartleben’s

translation is in a German rondel

form: each poem has 13 lines split

into three stanzas. Line one is

repeated at lines seven and 13, and

line two is repeated at line eight.

Schoenberg’s settings employ a

variety of similarly strict formal

techniques. Schoenberg uses small

motif “cells” of notes as the basis

for forms such as passacaglias and

canons, presenting them in various

guises: transposed up or down,

in retrograde (played backward),

and inversion (upside down).

The piece is written for a

quintet playing seven instruments:

piano, violin (also playing viola),

cello, clarinet, and flute (also

playing piccolo). The combination

of this pared-down ensemble and

Schoenberg’s stark scoring and

atonality provided a sharp contrast

to the Romanticism of the 19th

century and proved that there was

a viable alternative to tonality. ■

Tonality Atonality

Resolves

into consonant major

or minor chords

Does not

resolve into consonant

chords

Based on

major or minor chords

of the home key

Not

restricted to major or

minor chords

Based on

major or minor scales

of the home key

Can use

all notes of the

chromatic scale

Gravitates around

a home key

Origin Freely composed

Melody

Harmony

Dissonance

US_240-245_Schoenberg.indd 245 26/03/18 1:01 PM