CHAN 241-39 Booklet.Indd

CHAN 241-39 CCHANHAN 2241-3941-39 BBookletooklet CCover.inddover.indd 1 22/9/07/9/07 220:30:420:30:42 Alfred Schnittke (1934 –1998) COMPACT DISC ONE Cello Concerto No. 1* 40:16 1 I Pesante – 15:32 2 II Largo – 10:07 © Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library 3 III Allegro vivace – 3:44 4 IV Largo 10:54 Cello Sonata No. 1† 21:15 5 I Largo – 4:04 6 II Presto – 6:28 7 III Largo 10:40 Cello Sonata No. 2† 17: 09 8 I Senza tempo 4:14 9 II Allegro – 3:42 10 III Largo 5:04 11 IV Allegro – 2:01 12 V Lento 2:05 TT 78:40 Alfred Schnittke 3 CCHANHAN 2241-3941-39 BBooklet.inddooklet.indd 22-3-3 22/9/07/9/07 220:29:020:29:02 COMPACT DISC TWO Cello Concerto No. 2* 42:13 Alfred Schnittke: Works for Cello 1 I Moderato – 3:23 2 II Allegro 9:35 Alfred Schnittke needs very little introduction. I did not specially want this… Like my 3 III Lento – 8:26 He was one of the most prolifi c composers of German forefathers, I live in Russia, I the twentieth century. His works are considered can speak and write Russian far better 4 IV Allegretto mino – 4:33 an established part of the standard repertoire than German. But I am not Russian… My 5 V Grave 16:16 for orchestras, chamber groups and soloists. Jewish half gives me no peace: I know His music has been performed thousands none of the three Jewish languages – but Concerto grosso No. 2‡* 32:29 of times all over the world, his works have I look like a typical Jew. For violin, cello and orchestra been recorded on over 100 CDs, and his The cello was an instrument that interested Dedicated to Oleg Kagan and Natalia Gutman major compositions – nine symphonies, three Schnittke throughout his life. He started to operas, ballets, numerous concertos, concerti write for cello as early as 1967 (Dialogue 6 I Andantino – Allegro 6:20 grossi and sonatas – have been heard on all for cello and instrumental ensemble), and 7 II Pesante 10:21 continents. later completed Hymns I– IV for cello and 8 III Allegro 6:03 In Schnittke’s music we fi nd a mixture ensemble (1975 –79). Schnittke wrote his of old and new styles, of modern, post- First Cello Sonata (1978) and the First Cello 9 IV Andantino 9:43 modern, the classical and the baroque. Like Concerto (1986) for Natalia Gutman, and his Recorded in memory of Alfred Schnittke by soloists Tatiana Grindenko, Shostakovich or Mahler, Schnittke presents solo cello piece Klingende Buchstaben (1988) the co-dedicatee of Schnittke’s Concerti grossi Nos 1 & 3, and more than just musical ideas: there is for Alexander Ivashkin. Madrigal for solo Alexander Ivashkin always something symbolical in his musical cello (1991), premiered by Natalia Gutman, TT 74:42 language, which leads us to the ‘genetic well’ was a tribute to the memory of Oleg Kagan. of a memory of past generations. His music All Schnittke’s other compositions for cello Alexander Ivashkin cello speaks a universal language with roots clear were inspired by and written for Mstislav to everybody. Schnittke said, Rostropovich, the great Russian cellist and a Although I don’t have any Russian blood, friend of Schnittke’s. Tatiana Grindenko violin‡ I am tied to Russia, having spent all my During the 1970s and 1980s Schnittke † Irina Schnittke piano life here. On the other hand, much of enjoyed enormous, and unusual, popularity in Russian State Symphony Orchestra* what I’ve written is somehow related to Russia. ‘His music used to be our language, under German music and to the logic which more perfect than the verbal one’, wrote one Valeri Polyansky comes out of being German, although Russian critic. Concert promoters used to call 4 5 CCHANHAN 2241-3941-39 BBooklet.inddooklet.indd 44-5-5 22/9/07/9/07 220:29:070:29:07 the police to prevent halls from overcrowding Schnittke’s late compositions are rather cello which announces both subjects of the new circle of events. Slow drifting leads to and chaos when Schnittke’s music was enigmatic; there are fewer notes and the movement at the very beginning. However, an outburst of energy – that of the third performed in Moscow, St Petersburg or texture becomes very ascetic. Unlike his earlier, this vision of the future collapses very soon, movement (Allegro vivace). This starts like Novosibirsk. All performances of Schnittke’s gigantic scores, the late symphonies – from the sinking into a powerful, chaotic entropy of a fi nale, in a mood of high fever. Very soon music were important events for Soviet Sixth to the Ninth – are rather economical and orchestral tutti. ‘Real life’ (Moderato) starts the second subject from the fi rst movement listeners: in Schnittke’s music they used to modest in terms of orchestration, duration and somewhat uneasily, with the soloist playing reappears, as if resurrected after a disaster at fi nd metaphysical ideas and spiritual values, density. However, the latent tension increases: against the irregular, ‘incomprehensible’ the end of the fi rst movement. But yet again it absent in real life during the endless years the sense of his latest compositions is to be rhythms of the orchestra. The soloist loses the battle and dies in a powerful victory of ‘the Terror’, ‘the Thaw’, the Cold War, or found between, rather than within, the notes continues to fi ght the orchestra’s resistance of the fi rst melody; only for this climax, too, ‘stagnation’. During the 1980s and 1990s themselves. The language becomes rather until suddenly the music abates, allowing the to collapse. What follows seems to be a Schnittke’s music was performed extensively tough and discordant; it is defi nitely not easy- soloist to play a second tune which evokes complete decomposition of everything that and to great acclaim everywhere in the West, listening music. At the fi rst performance of Mahler’s emotional interludes in, for example, was achieved. We hear only short phrases, from Germany and the USA to South America Schnittke’s Symphony No. 6 at Carnegie Hall in the Ninth Symphony or Das Lied von der small bits here and there, repeatedly played and New Zealand. New York, almost half the audience left before Erde. by the soloists and harpsichord in turn in a From 1991 Schnittke lived in Hamburg, the end. The remaining part, however, was very The development section is almost surreal, aleatoric context. going to Moscow only occasionally. enthusiastic. entirely a cadenza for solo cello which Originally Schnittke planned a three- Surprisingly, he wrote more than half his major Cello Concerto No. 1 was the fi rst work begins unaccompanied, continues with an movement concerto with a fast fi nal movement, compositions during the last thirteen years of written by Schnittke after his initial, almost orchestral accompaniment and subsequently i.e. the Allegro vivace. But at the last moment his life, when he was gravely ill. He wrote his devastating stroke which occurred in the has to fi ght against the orchestra. The cello he changed his mind and wrote a different, last work, the Ninth Symphony (1996 – 97), summer of 1985. He was clinically dead – his is defeated and the recapitulation starts slow, fourth-movement fi nale (Largo). ‘It was with his left hand, when he was already unable heart stopped three times – and the concerto with a chilling unison-tutti, bringing us back like a present to me’, he recalled. ‘Suddenly I to speak and could hardly move. He died refl ects this terrifying ‘trip’ to the next world. to the concerto’s opening bars. Yet again, was given this fi nale from somewhere, and I’ve in Hamburg on 3 August 1998, after a fi fth In fact most of the concerto’s melodic material everything collapses and the soloist is just written it down.’ A passacaglia with the stroke, having been fi ghting this fatal illness was composed before July 1985. On returning banished. The more human second subject is quality of a prayer, this last movement becomes since 1985. His funeral in Moscow on 10 from hospital Schnittke found it all on his desk, not present here at all… increasingly ecstatic towards the end, and the August 1998 was attended by thousands of but had forgotten everything and had to start The second movement (Largo) refl ects an cello requires amplifi cation at the climax. people: a tribute of honour and admiration again from scratch. It was after this stroke attempt to restore life, to fi x the unfi xable. Schnittke was able to be present at the fi rst for the greatest Russian composer since that his music became more dissonant and There is no action in this movement and performance of his Cello Concerto No. 1 in Shostakovich. All the Russian newspapers extremely expressionistic. Melodic lines were the development is extremely slow, like an Munich on 7 May 1986 which was given by called him the ‘last genius of the twentieth much more twisted than ever before. hallucination, but still we hear an echo of the the dedicatee, Russian cellist Natalia Gutman. century’, and so too, rather belatedly, did The fi rst movement (Pesante – Moderato) fi rst movement’s main tune. Schnittke brings The composer was given an ovation. Critics Russian offi cials. starts with a poignant monologue by a solo back its rhythmical skeleton but begins a talked about ‘a score with the hand of fate 6 7 CCHANHAN 2241-3941-39 BBooklet.inddooklet.indd 66-7-7 22/9/07/9/07 220:29:090:29:09 in it’.

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