I’ve lived in Bangkok three times; first, as a child, between the ages of seven and twelve, sneaking out to see concerts by the Royal Navy Orchestra conducted by ML Usni Pramoj; next, as a young man, in the 1970s, battling to create new audiences; and finally, in my old age, for the last twenty years, when I’ve had the chance both to witness and to be a part of exciting new developments in music.
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I’ve lived in Bangkok three times; first, as a child, between the ages of seven and twelve, sneaking out to see concerts by the Royal Navy Orchestra conducted by ML Usni Pramoj; next, as a young man, in the 1970s, battling to create new audiences; and finally, in my old age, for the last twenty years, when I’ve had the chance both to witness and to be a part of exciting new developments in music. But it is only in the last month or so that it’s really hit home: the audience in Bangkok has come of age at last, and it’s a young, passionate, and uniquely local audience.
Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire is an iconic, and iconoclastic, work of the twentieth century. It’s a song cycle about lunacy, absurdity, and the archetypal sad clown who is also the artist himself writ large — and by extension all of humanity. It’s composed in this weird singing style Schoenberg pioneered,…