Tears of a clown! Schönberg reimagined

Arnold Schönberg: Pierrot Lunaire (1912)
Adapted and arranged by Patricia Kopatchinskaja

Moldovan-Austrian-Swiss violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja (known as PatKop) is on a mission to breathe passion, theatricality and humour into classical repertoire. Her remake of Arnold Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire takes the melodrama of the radical 1912 work and turns the brightness up even further than the original.

Kopatchinskaja herself takes on the role of the moon-sick Pierrot, dressed in a torn white clown outfit. PatKop invents her own very personal interpretation of Schönberg’s intricate settings of Albert Giraud’s poems, by for example inserting Strauss waltzes into the middle of the piece.

‘It has become her calling card to make the familiar unfamiliar’, The Times said about her thrilling musical reinventions.

The violin part is taken by Det Norske Kammerorkester’s Cam Kjøll.

Det Norske Kammerorkester. Photo: Bård Gundersen.

Violin, Sprechgesang

Patricia Kopatchinskaja

Flute, piccolo flute

Tom Ottar Andresen

Clarinet, bass clarinet

Ingvill Hafskjold

Violin/viola

Cam Kjøll

Cello

Øystein Sonstad

Piano

Joonas Ahonen

Produced in collaboration with

Det Norske Kammerorkester and Oslo-Filharmonien