Origins Concert Series
A Hub For Adventurous Music Seekers
November 2, 2024
8 p.m.
Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg
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Jennifer Piazza-Pick, voice
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Angel Gil-Ordóñez, conductor
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Elizabeth Hill, piano
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Carrie Rose, flute / piccolo
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Cheryl Hill, clarinet / bass clarinet
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Sandy Choi, violin / viola
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Tobias Werner, cello
150th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg’s birth 1874-2024
Along with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring,
Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire revolutionized music in the early 20th century.
Igor Stravinsky called it "the solar plexus as well as the mind of early 20th-century music."
Schoenberg's eerie, hyper-expressive Pierrot Lunaire (translated as Moonstruck Pierrot) is performed in the other-worldly Sprechstimme style that mixes speech and song. The performer sings precisely notated rhythms and pitches while also swooping and falling in exaggerated speech and whispers.
Pierrot, the Renaissance theater ‘sad clown’ character, is at the center of the melodrama. The three sets of seven lush poems by Albert Giraud outline his emotional trajectory from love to crime to a return home.
Learn about the piece:
Before Pierrot Lunaire is performed, a discussion will present the history of the piece and performances of more familiar classical music that inspired some of the movements.
Those performances include:
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Overture to the Barber of Seville by Rossini
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Passacaglia in c minor by J. S. Bach
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Belle nuit ô nuit d'amour by Offenbach
Jennifer Piazza-Pick, voice
Translation of 1st poem:
1. Mondestrunken (Drunk with Moonlight)
The wine that one drinks with one's eyes
Is poured down in waves by the moon at night,
And a spring tide overflows
The silent horizon.
Lusts, thrilling and sweet
Float numberless through the waters!
The wine that one drinks with one's eyes
Is poured down in waves by the moon at night.
The poet, urged on by his devotions,
Becomes intoxicated with the sacred beverage;
Enraptured, he turns toward heaven
His head, and, staggering, sucks and sips
The wine that one drinks with one's eyes.