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As to the verse, I know of few attempts to translate the untranslatable. Perhaps Mr. Symons has tried his accomplished hand at the task. How render the sumptuous assonance and solemn rhythms of Marche Funèbre: O convoi solennel des soleils magnifiques? "Je ne suis qu'un viveur lunaire Qui faits des ronds dans les bassins Et cela, sans autre dessin Que devenir un légendaire...."
The work is entitled Lieder des Pierrot Lunaire, the text of which is a fairly good translation of a poem cycle by Albert Guiraud. This translation was made by the late Otto Erich Hartleben, himself a poet and dramatist. I have not read the original French verse, but the idea seems to be faithfully represented in the German version. The piece is described as a melodrama.
Among his compositions are: Opera 1, 2 and 3, Songs "Gurrelieder"; Opus 4, sextet "Verklärte Nacht"; Opus 5, "Pelleas und Melisanda"; Opus 7, 1st String-quartet; Opus 8, Songs with orchestral accompaniment; Opus 9, "Kammersymphonie"; Opus 10, 2nd String-quartet, with setting of "Entrückung," by Stefan George; Opus 11, three pieces for Piano; Opus 13, a capella choruses; Opus 15, Songs; Opus 16, five Pieces for Orchestra; Opera 17 and 19, Piano pieces; Opus 21, "Die Lieder des Pierrot Lunaire."
Lunaire, where it could not ride with any safety, and anchored in the bay of St. Cas, about three leagues to the westward.
In two days it weighed and stood again to the southward; but was obliged by contrary winds to return to the same riding. The second effort, however, was more effectual. The fleet with some difficulty kept the sea, and steering to the French coast, came to anchor in the bay of St. Lunaire, two leagues to the westward of St. Maloes, against which it was determined to make another attempt.
I confess I did not understand at one hearing the curious dislocated harmonies and splintered themes melodies they are not in the Pierrot Lunaire. I have been informed that the ear should play a secondary rôle in this "new" music; no longer through the porches of the ear must filter plangent tones, wooing the tympanum with ravishing accords.
This Pierrot lunaire, this buffoon of new and dusty eternities, wrote a sort of vers libres, which, often breaking off with a smothered sob, modulates into prose and sings the sorrows and complaints of a world peopled by fantastic souls, clowns, somnambulists, satyrs, poets, harlots, dainty girls, Chéret posters, pierrots, kings of pyschopathic tastes, blithe birds, and sad-coloured cemeteries.
If I had begun by listening to the comparatively mellifluous D-minor string quartet, played by the Flonzaley Quartet, as did my New York colleagues, instead of undergoing the terrifying aural tortures of Lieder des Pierrot Lunaire, I might have been as amiable as the critics. The string sextet has been received here with critical cordiality. Its beauties were exposed by the Kneisel Quartet.
Nor has it been my luck to be present during the production of "Lysistrata," by Aristophanes, or "Bastien et Bastienne," by W. A. Mozart, or "Orpheus," by Monteverde, or "Maestro di Capella," by Pergolese, or "Timon of Athens," by Purcell. Nor have I been present when an eminent technician has rendered Florent Schmitt's "Palais Hanté," or Arnold Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire."
It may be that after the cloud of the war has completely lifted from the field of art, and a normal interchange is re-established it will be seen that the monodrama, Op. 20, "Die Lieder des 'Pierrot Lunaire," which was the latest of his works to obtain a hearing, was in truth an earnest of a new loosing of the old lyrical impulse so long incarcerated.
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