Pierrot Lunaire

About the Event

Schoenberg's groundbreaking composition, "Pierrot lunaire," was written in Berlin in 1912. It consists of twenty‐one short melodramas for voice and five instruments, based on poems by Albert Giraud. This work marked a revolution in performance practice by introducing the use of sprechgesang for the first time. At the time of its composition, Schoenberg had not yet embraced a dodecaphonic style, but the atonal nature of the piece foreshadowed his later tonal idiom.

Notably, renowned violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja had long harbored a desire to perform this exceptional work while also reciting the text. However, she could only bring this vision to life when a bout of tendonitis impeded her ability to play the violin, temporarily reducing her role to that of a narrator. Since then, she has resumed playing, but she has embarked on a special project that combines "Pierrot lunaire" with compositions by C. P. E. Bach, Bartók, Milhaud, Ravel, and others. In this project, she joins a select ensemble to bring these works to life in a unique and captivating way.