SCHOENBERG’S EPIC LANDMARK CYCLE
Without the clown costume and makeup, Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” was still a success, thanks to a super-charged singer who could dot all the erratic i’s. Even a century later, the song cycle/monodrama can shock and outrage audiences almost as much as in 1912, given its ruthless abandonment of tonality as well as the depressing nihilism of the poems in the text. It was undeniably a landmark opus. But credit the devotees of the Contemporary Music Players for enthusiasm at the…