Glenn Gould and Patricia Rideout: Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire

[Rkmajora]

I can understand the use of this music in its exploration, I just think it tends to be played too fast to where I can't really understand the transitions and they all blend together into tumbling grey pebbles. When you hear something as simple as Prokofiev's the fight for instance, it's played very fast and sounds chaotic, though I can actually understand it. So I'm thinking Schoenberg meant for it to not be understood, unless you analyze it and take what you like from it.

[jenko701]

This music haunts me ,I love it ,I cant explain why .

[donaldfiebing]

wow! reine Kunst! ich kannte das Video noch nicht. Danke

[N6NZE]

I read Pierrot Lunaire as a dramati-sation of the Belgian debate about poetry in which Giraud's poems translated by Hartleben demonstrate more sympathy for aspects of the rich and powerful Symbolist aesthetic than he is usually credited with.

Within the cycle there are fifty mini cycles, with a degree of formal ambivalence that perfectly matches that of their substance.ABBA, ABAB ABBA is itself a cyclic pattern, first line becoming the last.

[cinderburster]

Not everything in the world is pleasant, and Schoenberg, as well as other Expressionist artists (Munch, for example) were experimenting with depicting the darker sides of human experience, especially insanity. This piece isn't meant to be pretty or even enjoyable--it's meant to express the degradation of the human mind, and it does that exceedingly well.

[redkeithh]

Just because the sane (and even gifted) are able to portray insanity doesn't mean that insanity loses much of its eerie power. As we observe in this performance.

[musicpiano14]

it is not music really, it is more emotion expressed through sound.

[OAmus]

well, isn't that what music basicly is...?

[musicpiano14]

you know what? if it sounds it does not mean that it is music!

[OAmus]

You are getting into semantics. For me, any type of organized sound expressing or designed to arouse emotion is Music, notwithstanding whether you like it or not.

[gulosian]

Freedom, joy, any feeling, any unpredictable dream ... the limits slightly fixed by the instruments.

[pookiehohn]

I don't understand this. Maybe it is beautiful to sophisticated ears, but I just don't get it.

[synesthetically]

Beauty isn't the point of Pierrot Lunaire - it's more meant to be psychological, more than a little scary, and it falls pretty well in line with expressionism. Look up some translations of the lyrics if you really want to see.

[P1B1U1H1]

@synesthetically It becomes intensely beautiful if you hear it over and over again. Tears you apart actually. In some ways, this is the greatest composition of the twentieth century.

[minastronasse]

You don't understand this joke ? Well man it simply means you are mentally sane. Keep in mind that Zwy Moshe Schoenberg was a fraud, not a composer.

[edcerc]

this is the definition of musicianship

[FredeGF]

no it isn't? you just write something like that to get people to give you thumps up.. but i like the piece though.

[Berlioz13151411]

... a great performance of something that should never have touched human ears.

[tonyinvan]

Berlioz, it does touch a lot of human ears. This is a good performance but most of the video should not enter human eyes. Best listened to with the screen minimised. I love PLunaire.

[Bolinas1971]

Barbara Whiff...

[bybliskaunos]

Splendid.

[Dundsany]

¡Buenísimo!

[CrystalFlames]

Totally doing this for my junior recital.

(JK.)

[falicapte]

@CrystalFlames looolllssssss