PIERROT in the MOONLIGHT
Berlin - May 6th - 8th 2022 @ Kuehlhaus Berlin, Luckenwalder Str 3. 10963
The creative team
Producer and Curator: Chris Lloyd (1781 Collective)
Director: Daniela Kiesewetter (1781 Collective)
Visual Designer: Ulrike Kerber (Viva Designs)
Costume Designer: Silvia Vitali (Ritual Unions)
Videographer: Brett Orgiesen
The Ensemble
Conductor: Thibault Back de Surany
Singer: Corinna Ruba
Violin: Holly Workman
Cello: Moritz Ebert (1781 Collective)
Flute: Kelly Watson (Hear Now Berlin)
Clarinet: Lauriane Maudry (Hochschule fuer Musik ‘Hanns Eisler’ Berlin)
Piano: Chris Lloyd (1781 Collective)
The Work - Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21
Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds "Pierrot lunaire" ("Three times Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's 'Pierrot lunaire'"), commonly known simply as Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21 ("Moonstruck Pierrot" or "Pierrot in the Moonlight"), is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg. It is a setting of 21 selected poems from Albert Giraud's cycle of the same name as translated into German by Otto Erich Hartleben. The work is written for reciter (voice-type unspecified in the score, but traditionally performed by a soprano) who delivers the poems in the Sprechstimme style accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble. Schoenberg had previously used a combination of spoken text with instrumental accompaniment, called "melodrama", in the summer-wind narrative of the Gurre-Lieder, which was a fashionable musical style popular at the end of the nineteenth century. Though the music is atonal, it does not employ Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, which he did not use until 1921.
Pierrot lunaire is among Schoenberg's most celebrated and frequently performed works. Its instrumentation – flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano with standard doublings and in this case with the addition of a vocalist – is an important ensemble in 20th- and 21st-century classical music and is referred to as a Pierrot ensemble.
The piece was premiered at the Berlin Choralion-Saal on October 16, 1912, with Albertine Zehme as the vocalist. A typical performance lasts about 35 to 40 minutes. The American premiere took place at the Klaw Theatre, on Broadway, New York, on 4 February 1923 as part of a series of concerts organised by the International Composers' Guild.
about the perfume - atelier oblique (berlin independent perfumery)
Poetry meets Bauhaus. Atl. OBLIQUE is a Berlin based niche perfume house founded by Mario Lombardo in 2016. Luxurious Eau de Parfums and handmade scented candles represent the core collection. The invisible language of scents, timeless design and the craft that accompanies it, are the guiding theme of the brand. Deep-seated in the here and now with a classic heart the fragrances of Atl. OBLIQUE are not only a window onto our history but a deep breath of the present and a dance with the unknown.
More information at https://atelier-oblique.com/
About the TExt
The original text of Giraud, was translated into German by Otto Erich Hartleben into almost a new story entirely; which Shoenberg then took even further with the musical reproduction.
You can read the full song texts for each of the 21 movements here:
ABOUT THE VENUE - Kuehlhaus berlin
THE HISTORY
The Society for Market Halls and Cold Storage was founded in Hamburg in the year 1890. Six years later, they commissioned their first compound in Berlin, an ice factory with a cold storage unit attached to it.
However, the demand for fresh produce kept increasing, and the facilities were soon incapable of handling the amount of trade going through them. As a result of this, in the year 1901, Europe’s biggest cold storage unit was built on a plot between Luckenwalder and Trebbiner Straße, along with the Gleisdreieck rail station.
The compound consisted of three buildings, Kühlhaus I, Kühlhaus II, and an administration building. The two storage units measured more than nine thousand square meters and even had their own connection to the city’s railway network through Anhalter Güterbahnhof.
The compound is a neo-gothic building, evoking memories of the unique brick buildings of northern Germany. The building’s endoskeleton, however, was modern in both style and function, and made from steel. For the first time on a large scale, reinforced concrete was used for the ceilings of the separate floors.
In the fifties, the building was used as a storage hall for the city’s emergency reserves, since it suffered virtually no damage in the war. Many of the decorative elements on the roof and the façade were removed at this time.
Despite the excellent state they were in, the city decided to demolish the southernmost buildings of the compound in 1979. Only the Kühlhaus II was left, and its days were also numbered – plans were already made to destroy the building.
Kühlhaus II was saved and then listed through the efforts of the architect Dr. Helmut Meier.
The future of Kühlhaus Berlin is bright. The owners are in the process of re-modelling this fascinating and challenging building, focusing on realising the potential of the currently unused spaces. This means that the future potential of the Kühlhaus Berlin is unlimited.