Abstract

My research will be a feminist musical analysis of Arnold Schoenberg's "Colombine" from his song cycle Pierrot lunaire (1912). This form of feminist research has not been done to Schoenberg's “Colombine.” It will display the male gaze in the text of Albert Giraud’s original poem “Pierrot lunaire” and in Schoenberg’s piece of the same title. The analysis brings to light the views of women being passive at the beginning of the twentieth century as reflected in Schoenberg’s suppressive treatment to Colombine, who once was a strong female theatre character. In the music, I will focus on the contrasting characters of the instruments, extreme dynamics, and the tensely dissonant nature of the piece. During the piece, the character of Colombine transforms under the assertion of the male gaze in the bipartite structure of the piece. Besides the music, my analysis will look at the history of the commedia dell’arte stock characters of Colombine and Pierrot and their changing depictions from the sixteenth century on to the time of Pierrot lunaire. My sources will include their roles in Italian and French comedies, their depictions in Rococo art, their inspiration for opera buffa, and their treatments by Modernist artists. I hope that my research will bring awareness to the subjectivity of women in the male dominated world of the twentieth century.