Page 247 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

MODERN 1900–1950 245

is highly structured. Hartleben’s
translation is in a German rondel Sprechstimme
form: each poem has 13 lines split
into three stanzas. Line one is Although the vocal line in
repeated at lines seven and 13, and Pierrot lunaire is usually
performed by a soprano,
line two is repeated at line eight. Schoenberg did not intend it
Schoenberg’s settings employ a to be sung but rather recited,
variety of similarly strict formal like the cabaret songs and
techniques. Schoenberg uses small melodramas that were popular
motif “cells” of notes as the basis at the time, in a style he called
for forms such as passacaglias and sprechstimme (“speaking
canons, presenting them in various voice”). He first used the
guises: transposed up or down, technique in his cantata
in retrograde (played backward), Gurre-Lieder but realized
and inversion (upside down). its full potential in Pierrot
The piece is written for a lunaire. Here, the vocal line
Audience and orchestra fight in a quintet playing seven instruments: is notated conventionally,
1913 cartoon from the newspaper Die with precise indications of
Zeit titled “The upcoming Schoenberg piano, violin (also playing viola), both rhythm and pitch, but
concert,” satirizing the anger that the cello, clarinet, and flute (also sprechstimme is indicated by
composer’s new music could provoke. playing piccolo). The combination small crosses on the stems of
of this pared-down ensemble and the notes. Later, Schoenberg
Schoenberg’s stark scoring and abandoned specific pitch
unsettling atmosphere, and the atonality provided a sharp contrast indications for sprechstimme,
dissonance of the harmonies suits to the Romanticism of the 19th replacing the five-line staff
the strange and sometimes violent century and proved that there was with a single line and no clef.
imagery. Like the poems, the music a viable alternative to tonality. ■

Tonality Atonality

Gravitates around Origin Freely composed
a home key

Based on Can use
major or minor scales Melody all notes of the
of the home key chromatic scale

Based on Not
major or minor chords Harmony restricted to major or
of the home key minor chords

Resolves Does not
into consonant major Dissonance resolve into consonant
or minor chords chords

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