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Inside Pierrot lunaire: Performing the Sprechstimme in Schoenberg's Masterpiece. By Phyllis Bryn-Julson and Paul Mathews. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009. [xvii, 235 p. ISBN 9780810862050. $50.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index.
The issue of how to handle the Sprechstimme in Pierrot lunaire is primary for any performer of this masterpiece, myself included. The number of variables present, from striking a balance of vocal color somewhere between speech and song, deciding how specific to be with pitch, expressing something immediate to an audience, not to mention finding a place of comfort in Schoenberg's sound world can overwhelm even the most adventurous performer. The widely divergent approaches taken in the distinguished discography of this masterpiece hardly make the decisions any easier. And why should the decisions be easy? Schoen berg himself vacillated wildly throughout his life in what he wanted in the Sprechstimme and in his opinions of performances of the work. The curious and dedicated performer must explore as many resources as possible regarding text, musical style, history, theory, and technique in order to make her own decisions. Inside Pierrot Lunaire: Performing the Sprechstimme in Schoenberg's Masterpiece by Phyllis Bryn-Julson and Paul Mathews presents the perspectives of both a performer and a theorist and makes some enlightening conclusions based on both new and old information.
At this point it is appropriate to define the term "Sprechstimme," as the authors do in the introduction. In the score of Pierrot, Schoenberg named the part of the reciter a Sprechstimme, or speech part, as one would refer to the part played by a flutist as a Flötenstimme, or flute part. It refers to the voice in terms of its role in the instrumentation, rather than as a vocal technique. From the introduction:
Among English writers, Sprechstimme is commonly used to mean a technique of vocal production. German and French authors tend to preserve the original meaning of Sprechstimme-a part in the texture-and use Sprechgesang or Sprech-melodie for the sound and technique. . . . We have elected to sidestep this quandary by using Sprechstimme to mean only the part of the texture: the Sprechstimme. We believe it is best not to generalize the technique of vocal production, because the technique for Pierrot is quite distinct from the technique for...