Patricia Kopatchinskaja & Friends: Pierrot Lunaire by Schoenberg, Arnold, Sun 03 Dec 2023, From (2023/2023), South Bank Centre, London, United Kingdom

Pierrot Lunaire is a work that defies classification. Sometimes it’s described as a cabaret, while The Times called it ‘absurdist dreamscapes’. Technically, it’s a cycle of 21 songs, written for chamber ensemble and a singer or reciter in ‘sprechgesang’: speech-singing, a style that extends both in directions neither could ever normally explore. Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire sets 21 poems in German translation from the fantastical 50-poem cycle of the same name by Albert Giraud about Pierrot the clown and his obsession with the moon. There has been nothing else quite like it, either before or since. Igor Stravinsky referred to the work as the ‘solar plexus... of early 20th-century music’. With Patricia Kopatchinskaja at the helm, nothing can be predicted – except wide-eyed wonder and first-class musicianship. Southbank Centre Resident Artist Kopatchinskaja first learned the vocalisations when she was suffering from tendonitis and temporarily could not play the violin. It proved a resounding success and since 2015 it has been one of her signature works.