Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Beyond the Score Performance of Schoenberg's PIERROT LUNAIRE is Released Online

Modernist composer Arnold Schoenberg's landmark work, Pierrot lunaire, was recently the focus of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's award-winning Beyond the Score® series. That performance has been added to a selection of other Beyond the Score® presentations which can be streamed at no cost at the CSO's online magazine, Sounds & Stories (www.cso.org/sas).

An invention of the CSO, Beyond the Score® is a multimedia exploration that combines live theater, visual projections and the performance of musical excerpts by musicians of the CSO. After the multimedia presentation, the CSO performs the explored work in its entirety in a live concert setting.

This Beyond the Score® production of Pierrot lunaire was staged in 2012-the 100th anniversary of the piece-with four actors and six musicians. In 1912 and the years leading up to the First World War, Vienna was one of the most intellectually and artistically daring cities in Europe-the birthplace of Freud's psychoanalysis, the symphonies of Mahler and the paintings of Klimt. Also in 1912, the young Arnold Schoenberg, who was already at the center of this ferment, composed his extraordinary Pierrot lunaire over the course of just a few months. Consisting of 21 movements of poetry against an instrumental background, each setting varies in instrumentation; only in the final movement do all five musicians perform together. Each poem, drawn from the eponymous cycle of Albert Giraud and performed in a novel hybrid of speaking and singing (Sprechstimme), closely dictates the mood of its setting, resulting in a work of wide emotional range.

Beyond the Score Creative Director Gerard McBurney remarks, "I am thrilled that this astonishing work, and my colleagues' astonishing performance of it, can now be enjoyed and better understood by anyone with an internet connection. Pierrot lunaire has moved and fascinated the world of music for a century, and I hope viewers of our production come away knowing that it, like all great works of music, belongs to them."

This presentation, made with the generous help and support of Anne and Larry Schoenberg and of the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, aims to immerse concertgoers in the drama and emotions of that time and of Schoenberg's groundbreaking work. Projected surfaces evoke the streets and cafés of 1912 Vienna and Berlin, where the piece was premiered. The presentation was conceived by Gerard McBurney, the creative director for Beyond the Score®, with lighting by veteran designer Peter Mumford and featuring Chicago-based actor Kevin Gudahl as Schoenberg. Gudahl is joined by actors William Dick, Kate Fry, and Demetrios Troy.

Cristian Macelaru conducts; the ensemble is soprano Kiera Duffy, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and CSO members Robert Chen (concertmaster), Mathieu Dufour (principal flute), J.Lawrie Bloom (clarinet) and John Sharp (principal cello).

Following the exploration, the performance of the piece can be viewed in its entirety.

The video of the multimedia exploration of Pierrot lunaire is here: http://csosoundsandstories.org/bts-pierrot-lunaire/.
The video of the complete performance of Pierrot lunaire is here: http://csosoundsandstories.org/schoenberg-pierrot-lunaire-complete-performance/.

Given the subject matter, the work is appropriate for fans of classical music as well as music teachers and history, literature and other teachers addressing the years leading up to the First World War.

Videos of other Beyond the Score® explorations are available for free viewing, including classroom use, at http://csosoundsandstories.org/category/beyond-the-score/ and currently include:

Bartók's Miraculous Mandarin
Dvo?ák's New World Symphony
Holst's The Planets
Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27
Mussorgsky's Pictures form an Exhibition
Sibelius' Fifth Symphony
Stravinsky's Rite of Spring
Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony
Vivaldi's Four Seasons

In April of this year the CSO plans to release on video a Beyond the Score® presentation of "The Tristan Effect," an exploration of Richard Wagner's life and his monumental opera Tristan and Isolde.

About the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (cso.org)
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is consistently hailed as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. Its music director since 2010 is Riccardo Muti, one of the preeminent conductors of our day. The venerable Pierre Boulez is the CSO's Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus; celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma is the CSO's Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant. Composers Mason Bates and Anna Clyne are the CSO's Mead Composers-in-Residence.

The renowned musicians of the CSO annually perform more than 150 concerts, most at Symphony Center in downtown Chicago and, in the summer, at the suburban Ravinia Festival. The CSO also appears in other U.S. cities, and frequently tours internationally. Since its founding in 1891, the Orchestra has made 56 international tours, visiting 28 countries on five continents. At home and on tour, tickets are always in high demand and frequently sold out; occasional performances and rehearsals are free.

People around the globe enjoy the extraordinary sounds of the Orchestra and the Chorus through CSO Radio broadcasts and webcasts worldwide and through CSO Resound, a best-selling record label. Recordings by the CSO have won 62 Grammy Awards®. Through its Institute for Learning, Access, and Training, the CSO offers a variety of youth, community and education programs, all of which are based on the concept of Citizen Musicianship, using and promoting the power of music to contribute to our culture, our communities, and the lives of others.

The parent organization for the CSO is the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association (CSOA). It also includes the acclaimed Chicago Symphony Chorus, conducted by Duain Wolfe, and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a training ensemble conducted by Cliff Colnot. Under the banner of a series entitled Symphony Center Presents, the CSOA also presents prestigious guest artists and ensembles from a variety of musical genres-classical, jazz, pop, world, and contemporary. Deborah F. Rutter, a highly regarded arts executive, is president of the CSOA.