Pierrot Lunaire

I - Mondestrunken
Moondrunk
Arnold Schonberg

How is this organized?

Overall Form
PC Sets were not easy to choose because:
The instrumentation is hard to hear
Parts were lost in everything going on
The voice is triumphant over all the parts
All I could hear when she sung was her voice. I heard no instruments.
Voice dictates the new sections and phrases
A lot of Horizontal PC Sets

Measures 1-11

Mm 1-6
Dream Like
Somewhat Tonal
Repeated Set Class
This PC set (01234789T) comes
back once more during this
movement
Piano and Violin moving together

The wine that through the eyes is drunk, at night the moon
pours down in torrents...
The female singer I
marked as being her
own individual part.
Throughout this
movement
First line: 9ET80
Second line adds: 73215
Almost 12 Tone

 until a spring-flood overflows

the silent far horizon.
This is when the texture
of the piece
changes.
Things become more
tense when talking
about the flood but
then go back to
normal when it talks
about the Horizon
again

Measure 8
I feel like all of the 16th
note progressions in
this piece give the
feeling of flowing
water.
This gives the piece
texture.

Measures 11-18
Some type of connecting
material
Sets up for the next
phrase
Measure 13 and 14 in
Flute was the same
as the piano in 7-10,
just more condensed

Measures 18-28

Flute
By itself - only part with
trills in measures 1823
Measures 26-28 looks a
lot like the sixteenth
notes the piano has
been playing in
earlier measures.

Vertical Sets
Vertical sets start
popping up during
these measures and
continue on until the
end of the movement
They have almost the
same rhythm or look
a lot like the first
measure.

Measures 25-27
By glancing at these
three without
analyzing, I thought
they would've all
been the same PC
Set because of how
they are written, but
the last one is a little
bit different

Measures 29-39

Texture Change
The first thing I noticed
while listening to this
was the huge texture
change that sounds a lot
like the beginning of the
piece but it lasts much
longer
leading up to the end
Measure 28-34

The poet, whom devotion

drives,
grows tipsy on the sacred
liquor,
to heaven turning his
enraptured gaze

Voice and Violin

One example where
the voice has
another part
added to its pitch
class.
Measure 32-35

Measure 39
This brings back the dream
like rhythm, the 16th
notes one after another
It connects the beginning to
the end
The vocal line does not
sound like it ends which
makes this piece feel
unfinished

Too many colors

Conclusion
How does it feel?

Do they connect to other

movements in this wong
Wrong groupings?

I have found a love and

appreciation for this
style.