Although the composer himself probably would have denied it strenuously, this music really is great fun. The poetry in “Pierrot Lunaire” is simply the last word in late Romantic decadence. Here’s a sample: “Sinister black giant butterflies kill the radiance of the sun. The horizon, a sealed book of magic, sleeps silently.” Isn’t that great? Schoenberg’s atonal accompaniments and spooky, half-sung, half-spoken delivery fit the text like a hand in a glove. Okay, it isn’t an easy listen, but then again you don’t watch “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” every night either, do you? “Erwartung” is similarly over the top: a woman is waiting alone in a forest for her lover, who she may (or may not) have killed. Conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli is just the guy for this sort of thing, and he secures some stupendous playing from Germany’s greatest orchestra (forget the Berlin Philharmonic folks, this is the real thing). Alessandra Marc tears into the tortured vocal writing of “Erwartung” with 100 percent commitment–she’s fantastic, and Lisa Castellani is no slouch either in “Pierrot’s” almost impossible demands. If you actually sit down with this disc and follow the words, you’ll have such a good time that you’ll never notice that the music is supposed to be “difficult”.
