Björk’s lost Pierrot Lunaire performance
I’ve been reading Listen to This by Alex Ross, which is pretty cool. Ross is the music critic of The New Yorker, and the book is largely a collection of his writings for the magazine, along with some updates and original material.
Mentioned in the chapter about Björk is a selection of songs from Arnold Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire that she performed for a music festival. The fansite Björkish has some info on the performance:
On August 4th, 1996, Björk appeared at the Verbier Festival, and performed Schöenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, with conductor Kent Nagano, the Opera orchestra of Lyon, and Murray Hipkin, who later worked with Björk on John Tavener’s Prayer of the Heart.
The performance required three months of rehearsals, and was never officially released.
The decision not to record the performance was actually Björk’s. As explained to Alex Ross in one of his pieces:
“… Kent Nagano wanted to make a recording of it, but I really felt that I would be invading the territory of people who sing this for a lifetime.”
Which is a remarkably well-grounded position, and one which I respect, but at the same time I MUST HEAR THIS GIVE THIS TO ME
