<P> 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 Otto Erich Hartleben's German translation of the Belgian poet Albert Giraud's cycle of French poems of the same name . The première of the work, which is between 35 and 40 minutes in length, was at the Berlin Choralion - Saal on October 16, 1912, with Albertine Zehme as the vocalist . Davids Steaks </P> <P> The narrator (voice - type unspecified in the score, but traditionally performed by a soprano) delivers the poems in the Sprechstimme style . 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 . The melodrama is in atonal form, yet does not use Schoenberg's twelve - tone technique . </P>

Pierrot lunaire is based on a cycle of poems written by