The Poné Ensemble for New Music will perform Arnold Schoenberg’s monumental song cycle for soprano and quintet, Pierrot lunaire. Composed in 1912, the text is drawn from 21 provocative poems set in the Pierrot (pantomime) canon by the Belgian poet, Albert Giraud. Schoenberg’s daring musical setting was highly controversial at the time and deeply influential on later composers. The work features an early, pre-twelve-tone use of atonality, Sprechstimme (speech-song) characteristic of popular cabaret singers of the time, and a novel instrumentation that has come to be known as the Pierrot Ensemble.