Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 June 2005
The re-discovery and recent commercial release, on Regis/Forum, of one of my earliest performances of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, cannot help but evoke a mood of piquant personal reminiscence. The recording was made in 1967 at Olympic Studios in London, roughly two years after I first became acquainted with this riveting, endlessly compelling and many-layered masterpiece. The mid-1960s were marked by optimism, eager creative responses to the challenge of the new, and a spirit of idealism that is perhaps difficult to recapture in today's more commercially-driven world.