I’ve been listening to this on and off for the last week, trying to pluck up the courage to write a ‘review’ of it. How does one do that for one of the most seminal, celebrated and experimental pieces of the early 20th Century? That’s not something I feel qualified to do. But I can tell you what I think of it. A piece of music not so much to be ‘listened’ to, but to be embodied. Schoenberg manages to do a great deal with very few instruments: the work is scored for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano (with standard doublings) and the vocalist of course. This grouping is now known as the Pierrot Ensemble, and has been used since by composers such as John Cage, Morton Feldman, Steve Reich, Stravinsky and many others. It has a particular quality to it, and with the Sprechstimme vocal technique (essentially ‘spoken singing’) it almost sounds like cabaret. Albeit, hysterical, satirical cabaret with, at times, dark undertones of melodrama. Very European. Composed and later premiered in 1912, this was before Schoenberg embraced twelve-tone serialism, but the music is atonal, something he had in common with the work of Alban Berg and Anton Webern at the time. The text is from the Belgian poet Albert Giraud, who was part of the Symbolist movement. He wrote of the moonsick Pierrot a story of love and sex and religion and violence and decapitation. Who wouldn’t want to put that to music? #arnoldschoenberg #schoenberg #pierrotlunaire #atonalmusic #secondvienneseschool #classicalmusic #vinyl #recordcollection #nowlistening #randomrecordreview https://www.instagram.com/p/CNqO-ePs9VV/?igshid=c5syl1bjwl47