Pierrot Lunaire (Arnold Schönberg)
is one of a handful of brilliant works that changed the face of Western music before the First World War. In 1912 Schoenberg was thirty-seven and living in Berlin. Between March and May he set all the poems – some settings were completed in a single day – save one, Die Kreuze (No. 14), finished on 9th July. On 9th October, after some forty rehearsals, the work was given a public dress rehearsal; and a series of per formances followed throughout the winter (Stravinsky heard one of them). From its successful première onwards, Pierrot was to be the luckiest of Schoenberg’s works: in the post-war years its fame went round the world (even to England) and during his lifetime Schoenberg was perhaps most widely known as the composer of Pierrot. Its artistic consequences were more delayed. Though it left its mark at the time on Ravel’s Mallarmé songs and Stravinsky’s Japanese Lyrics, and deeply affected the young Dallapiccola in 1924, it was not until 1954, with Boulez’s Le marteau sans maître, that its extreme originality of conception found a worthy successor. Peter Maxwell Davies’ Trakl setting, Revelation and Fall, is a further heir of Pierrot.
The twenty-one poems, all with a similarly intricate rhyming scheme, were arranged in three parts of seven poems each by Schoenberg himself from an original set of fifty Rondels by the Belgian poet Albert Giraud, which had been translated into German by Otto Erich Hartleben. They set the characters of the old Italian commedia dell’artein a fantastic moonlit world of jewels, wine, and blood-stained madonnas, whose strongly fin-de-siècle atmosphere will remind English readers most readily of our own poets of the 1890s and of Aubrey Beardsley. The lines “Holy crosses are the verses / Where poets bleed in silences“ (from Die Kreuze), are set in such a way as to suggest that Schoenberg interpreted the poems at least partially as a sort of allegory: the Artist as Pierrot. The innovation of Sprechstimme – a manner of formalized but dramatically heightened speech, controlled by exact musical notation, but nevertheless capable of much variation in interpretation – was Schoenberg’s own, although he may have been influenced by his early experiences with the Überbrettl cabaret in Berlin. The music is always through-composed, but falls into two main categories: the first, non-developmental, aphoristic, Expressionistic in tone; the second, contrapuntal in form and content, using the strictest canonic devices. The mood is comprehensively wide, ranging from moments of high drama, terror and exaltation, to the nostalgia of Italianate serenade, and prominently featuring “that light, ironical, satirical tone“ of which the composer spoke, but which is so often ignored in critical consideration – and sometimes even in performances – of the work.
But the chief glory of Pierrot is that it is, in Stravinsky’s words, “an instrumental masterpiece“. A miraculous degree of musical resource draws from a handful of players with a wealth of different timbres, which, with the aid of doubling, are constantly rearranged in varied ensembles, always of different dimensions and combinations, but always fascinatingly beautiful.
Hugh Wood (1974)
Schoenberg composed Pierrot lunaire, one of the benchmarks of modern music, in Berlin in 1912. The work was commissioned by Albertine Zehme, an elocutionist, after the concert promoter Emil Gutmann had arranged contact for her with the composer. A singer, dramatic speaker, voice-trainer and a former pupil of Cosima Wagner, she suggested Pierrot to Schoenberg, who noted his initial impressions in his diary on 25th January, 1912: “I’ve looked at the poems; I’m very keen. Terrific idea, just what I’m after ”.
Freely rendered from Albert Giraud’s compilation Pierrot lunaire. Rondels bergamasques (published in 1884), the German poet Otto Erich Hartleben’s adaptation deserves to be ranked as a poetical work in its own right. First published in 1892, it soon went through several more editions; by the time the material concerning the old commedia dell’arte figure of Pierrot attracted Schoenberg’s attention, other composers had already set it. After reading the poems for the first time, Anton Webern reported to Alban Berg in February 1912: “They are very gentle and beautiful”. For his part, Schoenberg found them “very stimulating” (diary entry, March 1912). With Zehme’s accord, he reordered the sequence of the poems, rearranging them into a thematically related series of 21 (from the original 50); this he initially called a “melodrama cycle“, in view of its genre (letter to his publisher Emil Hertzka at Universal Edition, 20th June 1912). This implies that textual and musical aspects of the poems’ ordering now had a cyclical basis, as opposed to the associative sequential principle governing the imagery of Giraud / Hartleben; the textual architecture and its counterpart, a “specifically musically realized formal idea” revolve upon an “allegory, a parable about artists and artistry”. Schoenberg transformed his fascination with the poems into a “colourful middle-realm of singing and speaking” (Reinhold Brinkmann). Their enormous creative impact fired him to compose the cycle very quickly; he noted that he finished up to two pieces in a single day, and the entire workshop assemblage – from the initial drafts to the full score, corrections and final fair copy – was completed between March and July 1912. The cyclical layout is based on the interpretation of 21 as 3 × 7, which would later give the piece its title (“three times seven poems…“) and which has a possible numerological parallel in its opus number.
Albertine Zehme’s recitations were marked by a highly individual aesthetic, aiming to “recapture the ear ’s prerogative in life”: “I am not calling for freedom of ideas – I demand freedom of tone. […] We need both – sung tone and spoken tone – to propound our poets, our composers. Ceaseless work to find the ultimate expressive possibilities for «artistic experiences in tones» has taught me that this is a necessity” (program booklet for a recital featuring the Pierrot lunaire poems, 1911).
This search for “unlimited freedom of tone“ logically led her to Schoenberg, the congenial freedom-fighter of sounds: “I did not have to work out a tonic note, nor any other note from it; I was able to use all of the twelve tones, I did not have to force myself into the Procrustean bed of motivic phrasing, I did not have to observe any closes, sections, phrase beginnings or endings” (Schoenberg’s marginal note in his copy of Ferruccio Busoni’s Draft of a New Aesthetic of Music,1916). Zehme called on the composer to venture “as far as possible”, where she would follow, “understanding, empathizing, recreating” (letter of 13th February 1912).
In terms of its genre, Pierrot lunaire was historically unique at the time Schoenberg composed it. The piece brings together several peculiarities of sonority; it is scored for a speaking voice and five instrumentalists, some of them doubling (the flute doubling on the piccolo, the clarinet doubling on the bass clarinet, the violin doubling on the viola), which Schoenberg variously used in solos, duos, trios, quartets and quintets, a palette forging new sonic constellations around the speaking voice.
Zehme deliberately refused to categorize the melodramas; in view of the high artifice in the manner in which the speaking voice is treated, she initially preferred the terms “spoken words set to music“ or “spoken songs“ (Emil Gutmann to Schoenberg, 24th February 1912). For his part, the composer expressly rejected the notion of subordinating the instruments, emphasizing his standpoint later on after he had conducted Pierrot many times with various interpreters: “I don’t know if you are familiar with the recordings I made of it. In some ways, they are very good – excellent, even – regarding tempo, mood and presentation – and especially the musicians’ playing. They are not so good in relation to the speaker. I was a little annoyed by the cheek of bringing out the speaker too much – of course she never sings the themes, she just speaks along with them at most, while the themes and everything musically important happen in the instruments. […] Well, it’s somewhat simpler in the concert hall; you can place her closer to the audience or position the instrumentalists somewhat farther away. That will help make the speaking voice much more distinct and will let the players really play out, as they naturally want to” (letter to the conductor Hans Rosbaud, 15th February 1949).
During negotiations on the scope and instrumentation of the piece, Zehme had contractually ensured her sole performing right to Pierrot for three years. Schoen berg’s pupil Eduard Steuermann, a pianist, was the coach during the rehearsal period prior to the premiere performance and subsequent tour. “I shall never forget those weeks and months when every few days the eight o’clock mail would bring me manuscript pages of a new piece of the work. I would feverishly try it out on the piano and rush to the studio of Mrs. Zehme with the rather difficult task of studying it with her ” (“Juilliard News Bulletin”, February 1963.) The main ensemble had 25 rehearsals before Schoenberg conducted the work for the first time in the Choralion Hall in Berlin with an invited audience, a week before the official premiere (on 16th October 1912). Eduard Steuermann wrote of that occasion: “Mrs. Zehme insisted on appearing in the costume of Pierrot and on being alone on the stage. The instrumentalists and the conductor, Schoenberg, were behind a rather complicated screen – complicated because on a small stage it was not quite simple to build the screen so that the speaker should see the conductor but the audience not. […] And the success? There was, of course, a «scandal» […], but also an intense ovation” (“Juilliard News Bulletin”).
Many sources are available which document aspects of performing the “Sprechstimme“, including Schoenberg’s own foreword to the score, a number of authorized instructions in letters and other writings, a live recording of him conducting the piece in New York and his 1940 studio recording for Columbia shortly thereafter. His correspondence prior to forthcoming performances is of particular value: “The pitches in Pierrot are geared to the vocal range. They must be observed «carefully» but need not be «adhered to strictly». A vocal range can be divided into many parts, used as semitones; but then every interval is perhaps only a ¾-tone. But that need not be carried out so pedantically since, of course, the pitches have no harmonic correlation. Spoken range is not sufficient – therefore the lady must learn to speak in «head voice»; every voice has one […]. The most important thing is to achieve the «spoken melody»” (Schoenberg to his pupil Josef Rufer, 8th December 1923). Later he wrote to his pupil Alexander Jemnitz: “There is something I have to say at once and most emphatically; Pierrot lunaire is not to be sung! Sung melodies must be balanced and shaped in a way altogether different from spoken melodies. You would completely mutilate the work if you let it be sung – and everyone would be right to say: That is not how to write something for singing!” (letter of 15th April 1931).
Pierrot lunaire marks the high point of Schoenberg’s expressionistic period, the essence of which he described as renouncing tonal centers and systematic relationships, replacing them with the twelve-tone method he was later to develop, with its dodecaphonic principles. Dethroning tonality and “emancipating the dissonance“ led to a radical change in his understanding of form and the intensity of musical expression beginning in 1907/1908: “And I am unconditionally approaching a new kind of expression – I can sense it. The sounds now are virtually becoming a bestially direct expression of sensual and intellectual feelings – almost as if everything had been directly propagated” (diary entry, March 1912).
Even if Schoenberg, the musical trendsetter, founded a new tradition for subsequent generations of composers with his newly formulated sonic discourse, he always composed with his own tradition of German music in view, as he understood himself to be a part in its development. As the editor, Reinhold Brinkmann, emphasizes in his critical edition of this study score, the “historically interpretative dimension“ of Schoenberg’s choice of old forms (e.g. passacaglia, fugue, canon, polka, waltz), structural models and characterizing linguistic aspects reflect a “representation in traditional guise of the problems of modern art”.
Therese Muxeneder, Arnold Schönberg Center,
Vienna, August 2010 (translated by Grant Chorley)
Pierrot lunaire
1. Mondestrunken
Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt,
Gießt nachts der Mond in Wogen nieder, U
nd eine Springflut überschwemmt
Den stillen Horizont.
Gelüste, schauerlich und süß,
Durchschwimmen ohne Zahl die Fluten!
Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt,
Gießt nachts der Mond in Wogen nieder.
Der Dichter, den die Andacht treibt,
Berauscht sich an dem heilgen Tranke,
Gen Himmel wendet er verzückt
Das Haupt und taumelnd saugt und schlürft er
Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt.
2. Colombine
Des Mondlichts bleiche Blüten,
Die weißen Wunderrosen,
Blühn in den Julinächten –
O, bräch ich eine nur!
Mein banges Leid zu lindern,
Such ich am dunklen Strome
Des Mondlichts bleiche Blüten,
Die weißen Wunderrosen.
Gestillt wär all mein Sehnen,
Dürft ich so märchenheimlich,
So selig leis – entblättern
Auf deine braunen Haare
Des Mondlichts bleiche Blüten!
3. Der Dandy
Mit einem phantastischen Lichtstrahl
Erleuchtet der Mond die krystallnen Flakons
Auf dem schwarzen, hochheiligen Waschtisch
Des schweigenden Dandys von Bergamo.
In tönender, bronzener Schale
Lacht hell die Fontäne, metallischen Klangs.
Mit einem phantastischen Lichtstrahl
Erleuchtet der Mond die krystallnen Flakons.
Pierrot mit wächsernem Antlitz
Steht sinnend und denkt: wie er heute sich
schminkt?
Fort schiebt er das Rot und des Orients Grün
Und bemalt sein Gesicht in erhabenem Stil
Mit einem phantastischen Mondstrahl.
4. Eine blasse Wäscherin
Eine blasse Wäscherin
Wäscht zur Nachtzeit bleiche Tücher;
Nackte, silberweiße Arme
Streckt sie nieder in die Flut.
Durch die Lichtung schleichen Winde,
Leis bewegen sie den Strom.
Eine blasse Wäscherin
Wäscht zur Nachtzeit bleiche Tücher.
Und die sanfte Magd des Himmels,
Von den Zweigen zart umschmeichelt,
Breitet auf die dunklen Wiesen
Ihre lichtgewobenen Linnen –
Eine blasse Wäscherin.
5. Valse de Chopin
Wie ein blasser Tropfen Bluts
Färbt die Lippen einer Kranken,
Also ruht auf diesen Tönen
Ein vernichtungsücht‘ger Reiz.
Wilder Lust Akkorde stören
Der Verzweiflung eisgen Traum
Wie ein blasser Tropfen Bluts
Färbt die Lippen einer Kranken.
Heiß und jauchzend, süß und schmachtend,
Melancholisch düstrer Walzer,
Kommst mir nimmer aus den Sinnen,
Haftest mir an den Gedanken
Wie ein blasser Tropfen Bluts!
6. Madonna
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!
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!
7. Der kranke Mond
Du nächtig todeskranker Mond
Dort auf des Himmels schwarzem Pfühl,
Dein Blick, so fiebernd übergroß,
Bannt mich, wie fremde Melodie.
An unstillbarem Liebesleid
Stirbst du, an Sehnsucht, tief erstickt,
Du nächtig todeskranker Mond,
Dort auf des Himmels schwarzem Pfühl.
Den Liebsten, der im Sinnenrausch
Gedankenlos zur Liebsten geht,
Belustigt deiner Strahlen Spiel, –
Dein bleiches, qualgebornes Blut,
Du nächtig todeskranker Mond!
8. Nacht
Finstre, schwarze Riesenfalter
Töteten der Sonne Glanz.
Ein geschloßnes Zauberbuch,
Ruht der Horizont – verschwiegen.
Aus dem Qualm verlorner Tiefen
Steigt ein Duft, Erinnrung mordend!
Finstre, schwarze Riesenfalter Töteten der Sonne Glanz.
Und vom Himmel erdenwärts
Senken sich mit schweren Schwingen
Unsichtbar die Ungetüme
Auf die Menschenherzen nieder...
Finstre, schwarze Riesenfalter.
9. Gebet an Pierrot
Pierrot! mein Lachen
Hab ich verlernt!
Das Bild des Glanzes Zerfloß –
Zerfloß!
Schwarz weht die Flagge
Mir nun vom Mast.
Pierrot! mein Lachen
Hab ich verlernt!
O gib mir wieder,
Roßarzt der Seele,
Schneemann der Lyrik,
Durchlaucht vom Monde,
Pierrot – mein Lachen!
10. Raub
Rote, fürstliche Rubine,
Blutge Tropfen alten Ruhmes
Schlummern in den Totenschreinen,
Drunten in den Grabgewölben.
Nachts, mit seinen Zechkumpanen,
Steigt Pierrot hinab, zu rauben
Rote, fürstliche Rubine,
Blutge Tropfen alten Ruhmes.
Doch da sträuben sich die Haare,
Bleiche Furcht bannt sie am Platze:
Durch die Finsternis, wie Augen! –
Stieren aus den Totenschreinen
Rote, fürstliche Rubine.
11. Rote Messe
Zu grausem Abendmahle
Beim Blendeglanz des Goldes,
Beim Flackerschein der Kerzen,
Naht dem Altar – Pierrot!
Die Hand, die gottgeweihte,
Zerreißt die Priesterkleider
Zu grausem Abendmahle
Beim Blendeglanz des Goldes.
Mit segnender Gebärde
Zeigt er den bangen Seelen
Die triefend rote Hostie:
Sein Herz in blutgen Fingern
Zu grausem Abendmahle
12. Galgenlied
Die dürre Dirne
Mit langem Halse
Wird seine letzte
Geliebte sein.
In seinem Hirne
Steckt wie ein Nagel
Die dürre Dirne
Mit langem Halse.
Schlank wie die Pinie,
Am Hals ein Zöpfchen,
Wollüstig wird sie
Den Schelm umhalsen
Die dürre Dirne!
13. Enthauptung
Der Mond, ein blankes Türkenschwert
Auf einem schwarzen Seidenkissen,
Gespenstisch groß – dräut er hinab
Durch schmerzensdunkle Nacht.
Pierrot irrt ohne Rast umher
Und starrt empor in Todesängsten
Zum Mond, dem blanken Türkenschwert
Auf einem schwarzen Seidenkissen.
Es schlottern unter ihm die Knie,
Ohnmächtig bricht er jäh zusammen.
Er wähnt: es sause strafend schon
Auf seinen Sündenhals hernieder
Der Mond, das blanke Türkenschwert.
14. Die Kreuze
Heilge Kreuze sind die Verse,
Dran die Dichter stumm verbluten,
Blindgeschlagen von der Geier
Flatterndem Gespensterschwarme.
In den Leibern schwelgten Schwerter,
Prunkend in des Blutes Scharlach!
Heilge Kreuze sind die Verse,
Dran die Dichter stumm verbluten.
Tot das Haupt, erstarrt die Locken –
Fern verweht der Lärm des Pöbels.
Langsam sinkt die Sonne nieder,
eine rote Königskrone.
Heilge Kreuze sind die Verse.
15. Heimweh
Lieblich klagend – ein krystallnes Seufzen
Aus Italiens alter Pantomime,
Klingt‘s herüber: wie Pierrot so hölzern,
So modern sentimental geworden.
Und es tönt durch seines Herzens Wüste,
Tönt gedämpft durch alle Sinne wieder,
Lieblich klagend – ein krystallnes Seufzen
Aus Italiens alter Pantomime.
Da vergißt Pierrot die Trauermienen!
Durch den bleichen Feuerschein des Mondes,
Durch des Lichtmeers Fluten schweift die
Sehnsucht
Kühn hinauf, empor zum Heimathimmel,
Lieblich klagend ein krystallnes Seufzen.
16. Gemeinheit
In den blanken Kopf Cassanders,
Dessen Schrein die Luft durchzetert,
Bohrt Pierrot mit Heuchlermienen
Zärtlich – einen Schädelbohrer.
Darauf stopft er mit dem Daumen
Seinen echten türkschen Tabak
In den blanken Kopf Cassanders,
Dessen Schrein die Luft durchzetert.
Dann dreht er ein Rohr von Weichsel
Hinten in die glatte Glatze
Und behaglich schmaucht und pafft er
Seinen echten türkschen Tabak
Aus dem blanken Kopf Cassanders!
17. Parodie
Stricknadeln, blank und blinkend,
In ihrem grauen Haar,
Sitzt die Duenna murmelnd,
Im roten Röckchen da.
Sie wartet in der Laube,
Sie liebt Pierrot mit Schmerzen,
Stricknadeln, blank und blinkend,
In ihrem grauen Haar.
Da plötzlich – horch – ein Wispern!
Ein Windhauch kichert leise:
Der Mond, der böse Spötter,
Äfft nach mit seinen Strahlen
Stricknadeln, blink und blank.
18. Der Mondfleck
Einen weißen Fleck des hellen Mondes
Auf dem Rücken seines schwarzen Rockes,
So spaziert Pierrot im lauen Abend,
Aufzusuchen Glück und Abenteuer.
Plötzlich stört ihn was an seinem Anzug,
Er besieht sich rings und findet richtig –
Einen weißen Fleck des hellen Mondes
Auf dem Rücken seines schwarzen Rockes.
Warte! denkt er: das ist so ein Gipsfleck!
Wischt und wischt, doch bringt ihn nicht
herunter!
Und so geht er giftgeschwollen weiter,
Reibt und reibt bis an den frühen Morgen
Einen weißen Fleck des hellen Mondes.
19. Serenade
Mit groteskem Riesenbogen
Kratzt Pierrot auf seiner Bratsche.
Wie der Storch auf einem Beine
Knipst er trüb ein Pizzicato.
Plötzlich naht Cassander, wütend
Ob des nächtigen Virtuosen.
Mit groteskem Riesenbogen
Kratzt Pierrot auf seiner Bratsche.
Von sich wirft er jetzt die Bratsche:
Mit der delikaten Linken
Fasst er den Kahlkopf am Kragen –
Träumend spielt er auf der Glatze
Mit groteskem Riesenbogen.
20. Heimfahrt
Der Mondstrahl ist das Ruder,
Seerose dient als Boot,
Drauf fährt Pierrot gen Süden
Mit gutem Reisewind.
Der Strom summt tiefe Skalen
Und wiegt den leichten Kahn.
Der Mondstrahl ist das Ruder,
Seerose dient als Boot.
Nach Bergamo, zur Heimat,
Kehrt nun Pierrot zurück;
Schwach dämmert schon im Osten
Der grüne Horizont.
Der Mondstrahl ist das Ruder.
21. O alter Duft
O alter Duft aus Märchenzeit,
Berauschest wieder meine Sinne!
Ein närrisch Heer von Schelmerein
Durchschwirrt die leichte Luft.
Ein glückhaft Wünschen macht mich froh
Nach Freuden, die ich lang verachtet.
O alter Duft aus Märchenzeit,
Berauschest wieder mich.
All meinen Unmut geb ich preis;
Aus meinem sonnumrahmten Fenster
Beschau ich frei die liebe Welt
Und träum hinaus in selge Weiten...
O alter Duft aus Märchenzeit!
1. Moondrunk
The wine which through the eyes we drink
Flows nightly from the moon in torrents,
And as a spring-tide overflows
The far and distant land.
Desires terrible and sweet
Unnumbered drift in floods abounding.
The wine which through the eyes we drink
Flows nightly from the moon in torrents.
The poet, in an ecstasy,
Drinks deeply from the holy chalice,
To heaven lifts up his entranced
Head, and reeling quaffs and drains down
The wine which through the eyes we drink.
2. Colombine
The pallid buds of moonlight
Those pale and wondrous roses
Bloom in the nights of summer—
O could I pluck but one!
My heavy heart to lighten,
I search in darkling river
The pallid buds of moonlight,
Those pale white wondrous roses.
Fulfilled would be my longing
If I could softly gather,
With gentle care besprinkle
Upon your dark brown tresses
The moonlight’s pallid blossoms.
3. The Dandy
A phantasmagorial light ray
Illumines tonight all the crystalline flasks
On the holy, sacred, ebony wash-stand
Of the taciturn dandy of Bergamo.
In sonorous bronze-enwrought chalice
Laughs brightly the fountain’s metallic sound,
A phantasmagorial light ray
Illumines tonight all the crystalline flasks.
Pierrot with countenance waxen
Stands musing and thinks
How he tonight will paint.
Rejecting the red and the green of the east
He bedaubs all his face in the latest of styles
With a phantasmagorial moonbeam.
4. A Chlorotic Laundry Maid
A Chlorotic laundry maid
Washes nightly white silk garments;
Naked, snow-white silvery forearms
Stretching downward to the flood.
Through the glade steal gentle brezes.
Softly playing o’er the stream.
A chlorotic laundry maid
Washes nightly white silk garments.
And the gentle maid of heaven.
By the branches softly fondled.
Spreads on the dusky meadows
All her moonlight-bewoven linen
A chlorotic laundry maid.
5. Valse de Chopin
As a lingering drop of blood
Stains the lip of a consumptive,
So this music is pervaded
By a morbid deathly charm.
Wild ecstatic harmonies
Disguise the icy touch of doom,
As a lingering drop of blood
Stains the lip of a consumptive.
Ardent, joyful, sweet and yearning,
Melancholic sombre waltzes,
Coursing ever through my senses
Like a lingering drop of blood!
6. Madonna
Rise, O mother of all sorrows,
From the alter of my verses!
Blood pours forth from thy lean bosom
Where the sword of frenzy pierced it.
Thy forever gaping gashes
Are like eyelids, red and open.
Rise, O mother of all sorrows,
From the alter of my verses.
In the lacerated arms
Holdst thou thy Son’s holy body,
Manifesting Him to mankind—
Yet the eyes of men avert themselves,
O mother of all sorrows!
7. The Ailing Moon
You ailing, death-awaiting moon,
High upon heaven’s dusty couch,
Your glance, so feverish overlarge,
Lures me, like strange enchanting song.
With unrequited pain of love
You die, your longing deep concealed,
You ailing, death-awaiting moon,
High upon heaven’s dusty couch.
The lover, stirred by sharp desire
Who reckless seeks for love’s embrace
Exults in your bright play of light
Your pale and pain-begotten flood,
You ailing, death-awaiting moon.
8. Night
Heavy, gloomy giant black moths
Massacred the sun’s bright rays;
Like a close-shut magic book
Broods the distant sky in silence.
From the mists in deep recesses
Rise up scents, destroying memory.
Heavy, gloomy giant black moths
Massacred the sun’s bright rays;
And from heaven earthward bound
Downward sink with sombre pinions
Unperceived, great hords of monsters
On the hearts and souls of mankind...
Heavy, gloomy giant black moths.
9. Prayer to Pierrot
Pierrot! my laughter
have I unlearnt!
The picture’s
brightness dissolves.
Black flies the standard
now from my mast,
Pierrot, my laughter
have I unlearnt
O once more give me,
healer of spirits,
Snowman of lyrics,
monarch of moonshine,
Pierrot, my laughter!
10. Loot
Ancient royalty’s red rubies,
Bloody drops of antique glory,
Slumber in the hollow coffins
Buried in the vaulted caverns,
Late at night with boon companions
Pierrot descends to ravish
Ancient royalty’s red rubies.
Bloody drops of antique glory.
But there every hair a-bristle,
Livid fear turns them to statues;
Through the murky gloom, like eyes—
Glaring from the hollow coffins
Ancient royalty’s red rubies.
11. Red Mass
To fearsome grim communion
Where dazzling rays of gold gleam,
And fickering light of candles,
Comes to the alter Pierrot.
His hand, with grace invested,
Rends through the priestly garments,
For fearsome grim communion
Where dazzling rays of gold gleam.
With signs of benediction
He shows to frightened people
The dripping crimson wafer:
His heart—with bloody fingers
In fearsome grim communion.
12. Song of the Gallows
The haggard harlot
with scraggy gizzard
Will be his ultimate
paramour.
Through all his thoughts
there sticks like a gimlet
The haggard harlot
with scraggy gizzard.
Thin as a rake,
round her neck a pigtail,
Joyfully will she embrace
the rascal,
The haggard harlot!
13. Decapitation
The moon, a polished scimitar
Upon a black and silken cushion,
So strangely large hangs menacing
Through sorrow’s gloomy night.
Pierrot wandering restlessly
Stares upon high in anguished fear
Of the moon, the polished scimitar
Upon a black and silken cushion,
Like leaves of aspen are his knees,
Swooning he falters, then collapses.
He thinks: the hissing vengeful steel
Upon his neck will fall in judgement,
The moon, a polished scimitar.
14. The Crosses
Holy crosses are the verses
Where the poets bleed in silence,
Blinded by the peck of vultures
Flying round in ghostly rabble.
On their bodies swords have feasted,
Bathing in the scarlet bloodstream.
Holy crosses are the verses
Where the poets bleed in silence.
Death then comes; dispersed the ashes –
Far away the rabble’s clamour,
Slowly sinks the sun’s red splendour,
Like a royal crown of glory.
Holy crosses are the verses.
15. Nostalgia
Sweetly plaintive is the sigh of crystal
That ascends from Italy’s old players,
Sadly mourning that Pierrot so modern
And so sickly sentimental is now.
And it echoes from his heart’s waste desert,
Muted tones which wind through all his senses,
Sweetly plaintive, like a sigh of crystal
That ascends from Italy’s old players.
Now abjures Pierrot the tragic manner,
Through the pallid fires of lunar landscape
Through the foaming light-flood
mounts the longing,
Surging high towards his native heaven.
Sweetly plaintive, like a sigh of crystal.
16. Atrocity
Through the bald pate of Cassander,
As he rends the air with screeches
Bores Pierrot in feigning tender
Fashion with a cranium driller.
He then presses with his finger
Rare tobacco grown in Turkey
In the bald pate of Cassander,
As he rends the air with screeches.
Then screwing a cherry pipe stem
Right in through the polished surface,
Sits at ease and smokes and puffs the
Rare tobacco grown in Turkey
From the bald pate of Cassander.
17. Parody
Knitting needles, bright and polished,
Set in her greying hair,
Sits the Duenna, mumbling,
In crimson costume clad.
She lingers in the arbour,
She loves Pierrot with passion,
Knitting needles, bright and polished,
Set in her greying hair,
But, listen, what a whisper,
A zephyr titters softly;
The moon, the wicked mocker,
Now mimics with light rays
Bright needles, spick and span.
18. The Moonfleck
With a snowy fleck of shining moonlight
On the shoulder of his black silk frock-coat
So walks out Pierrot this languid evening.
Seeking everywhere for love’s adventure.
But what! something wrong with his ap-
pearance?
He looks round and round and then he
finds it—
Just a snowy fleck of shining moonlight
On the shoulder of his black silk frock-coat.
Wait now (thinks he) ’tis a piece of plaster,
Wipes and wipes, yet cannot make it va-
nish.
So he goes on poisoned with his fancy,
Rubs and rubs until the early morning
Just a snowy fleck of shining moonlight.
19. Serenade
With a giant bow grotesquely
Scrapes Pierrot on his viola;
Like a stork on one leg standing
Sadly plucks a pizzicato.
Now here comes Cassander fuming
At this night-time virtuoso.
With a giant bow grotesquely
Scrapes Pierrot on his viola;
Casting then aside the viola,
With his delicate left hand he
Grips the bald pate by the collar—
Dreamily he plays upon him
With a giant bow grotesquely.
20. Journey Home
The moonbeam is the rudder,
Nenuphar serves as boat
On which Pierrot goes southward,
The wind behind his sails,
In deep tones hums the river
And rocks the light canoe,
The moonbeam is the rudder, 
Nenuphar serves as boat.
To Bergamo, his homeland,
Pierrot returns once more.
Soft gleams on the horizon
The orient green of dawn.
The moonbeam is the rudder.
21. O Ancient scent
O ancient scent from far-off days,
Intoxicate once more my senses!
A merry swarm of idle thoughts
Pervades the gentle air.
A happy whim makes me aspire
To joys which I too long neglected.
O ancient scent from far-off days
Intoxicate me again.
Now all my sorrow is dispelled,
And from my sun-encircled casement
I view again the lovely world
And dream beyond the fair horizon.
O ancient scent from far-off days!
English translation of Schoenberg’s
selection by Cecil Gray
