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and Music: ... ” in this chapter). Schoenberg created an intimate chamber work for small ensemble and female singer, who declaims twenty-one poems by Al- bert Giraud. Here we meet Pierrot, a sad clown from the world of traditional Italian pantomime and puppet shows—always in love, never successful. In this Expressionist poetry, the clown has fallen under the sway of the moon and changed into an alienated modern artist. Pierrot projects his inner anxiety by means of Sprechstimme (“speech-voice”; indicated by an “x” in Example 15.9), a technique that requires the vocalist to declaim the text more than to sing it. The voice must execute the rhythmic values exactly; but once it hits a pitch, it should quit the tone immediately, sliding away in either a downward or an upward di- rection. This creates exaggerated, sometimes hysterical declamation of the sort one might hear from a lunatic, which is appropriate for Pierrot, given the lunar spell cast upon him.
Example 15.9 > voice of pierrot (Sprechstimme — “speech-voice”)
¿¿jjj cÓŒjj¿j¿j¿‰
& #œ#œ¿¿¿jjjj¿bœ¿j ¿j œ#œ¿¿¿¿nœœ bœ¿nœn˙¿ nœ#œnœœœ bœnœ
Steig, O Mut - ter al - ler Schmerzen, auf den Al - tar mei- ner Ver - se!
Poem 6 of Pierrot lunaire depicts the clown’s tormented, hallucinatory vi- sion of the suffering Madonna (Mother of Christ) at the cross (see Listening Cue). Note that the poet builds a refrain (boldface) into the text: O Mutter aller Schmerzen (“O Mother of all sorrows”).
Steig, O Mutter aller Schmerzen Auf den Altar meiner Verse!
Blut aus deinen magern Brüsten
Hat des Schwertes Wut vergossen. Deine ewig frischen Wunden Gleichen Augen, rot und offen,
Steig, O Mutter aller Schmerzen Auf den Altar meiner Verse!
(1:15) In den abgezehrten Händen Hältst du deines Sohnes Leiche
Ihn zu zeigen aller Menschheit, Doch der Blick der Menschen meidet Dich, O Mutter aller Schmerzen.
Arise, O Mother of all sorrows On the altar of my verse!
Blood from your thin breast
Has spilled the rage of the sword. Your eternally fresh wounds Like eyes, red and open,
Arise, O Mother of all sorrows On the altar of my verse!
In your thin and wasted hands You hold the body of your Son To show him to all mankind, Yet the look of men avoids You, O Mother of all sorrows.
Traditionally, composers had taken the appearance of a textual refrain as a cue to repeat the melody as well, thereby creating musical unity over the course of the work. However, Schoenberg, ever the iconoclast, avoids any and all rep- etition. Instead, his music unfolds in a continuum of ever-new sounds. For the listener, this creates a difficulty: The human psyche finds an unending series of new things—sounds or otherwise—very unsettling. Thus, your first reaction to the dissonant continuum of pitches in Pierrot lunaire may be decidedly nega- tive. Yet with repeated hearings, the force of the jarring elements of the atonal style begins to lessen, and a bizarre, eerie sort of beauty emerges, especially if you are sensitive to the meaning of the text.
242 chapter fifteen european impressionism and modernism
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