CHAN 10180 Front.qxd 24/7/08 10:03 am Page 1 CHAN 10180 CHANDOS CHAN 10180 BOOK.qxd 24/7/08 10:09 am Page 2 Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998) Symphony No. 6 36:41 Dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich and the National Symphony Orchestra of the USA 1 I Allegro moderato 17:51 2 II Presto 4:10 3 III Adagio – 9:32 4 IV Allegro vivace 5:08 Lebrecht Music Collection Lebrecht Concerto grosso No. 2* 32:29 For violin, cello and orchestra Dedicated to Oleg Kagan and Natalia Gutman 5 I Andantino – Allegro 6:19 6 II Pesante 10:22 7 III Allegro 6:04 8 IV Andantino 9:43 Recorded in memory of Alfred Schnittke by soloists Tatiana Grindenko, the co-dedicatee of Schnittke’s Concerti grossi Nos 1 & 3, and Alexander Ivashkin TT 69:22 Tatiana Grindenko violin* Alexander Ivashkin cello* Alfred Schnittke Russian State Symphony Orchestra under Valeri Polyansky 3 CHAN 10180 BOOK.qxd 24/7/08 10:09 am Page 4 1962, going on to teach there until 1972. The liturgical choral music linked to both Russian Schnittke: Symphony No. 6/Concerto grosso No. 2 formative influence of both the First and Orthodox and Catholic rituals.) He died in Second Viennese Schools, the old and the Hamburg on 3 August 1998, a year after new, thus combined with a thoroughly Russian completing his Ninth Symphony. As a high priest of the post-modern, Schnittke Concerto grosso No. 2. Schnittke’s all- upbringing in music to create this Schnittke’s ‘take’ on the past links his name remains a significant figure in late-twentieth- inclusive aesthetic position ranges from polylinguistic and polystylistic musician. As a with composers of the late nineteenth and century music. In his work, Schoenberg’s historical de-construction (as in his composer working in the Soviet Union (where twentieth century who in their different ways twin-concept of ‘the emancipation of the outrageously theatrical First Symphony) to the he composed in all genres, including much film have taken on the burden of tradition. As we dissonance’ and ‘the unity of musical space’ concentrated minimalism of a work like music for Mosfilm) he soon encountered look back on the gradual ageing process of co-exists with the very elements that Symphony No. 6 – elegant and dazzlingly at difficulties in his relationship with the music in the West, Brahms, Mahler, Schoenberg sought to replace. Having made home with mid-twentieth-century practice. All authorities through his early work (the Schoenberg, Bartók, Stravinsky, Britten, his own study of the later twentieth-century this would count for less if it were not for the startlingly iconoclastic First Symphony is a Shostakovich and Berio (in his Sinfonia) all avant-garde (music founded, to a large extent, fact that Schnittke’s music is that of a case in point – part music theatre, part spring to mind as men whose language on the serial techniques of Schoenberg, Berg passionately expressive composer whose jokingly nihilistic in its demolition of tradition, becomes a dialogue – at once innovative and and Webern) Schnittke developed a so-called fastidious ear gives his work immediate and part loving recall). As his musical conservative – with their predecessors. ‘polystylistic’ approach to composition. Multi- sensuous appeal, and whose understanding of reputation grew abroad, and with increasing Schnittke subjectifies and objectifies this layered, diffusely cross-referential but with an instrumental technique and sonority attracts opportunities for travel, it would seem that relationship; he is both inside and outside inner integrity of compositional technique, this the commitment of some of the greatest Schnittke, in common with many of his more music as he has received it – its forms, its is by no means the work of a pasticheur. As a performers and conductors. He attained cult forward-looking contemporaries, felt able to gestures, its dimensions of texture, line, Russian composer, Schnittke is known to have status in his time as man, artist and teacher, breathe more easily in the West. In 1989 he harmony and instrumentation. Visual, literary, taken to himself the symphonic music of and there remains a substantial posthumous moved back to the country of his early philosophical and religious dimensions Shostakovich whose technique of allusion, legacy to explore. boyhood, to Hamburg, where he accepted a interpenetrate without imposing any specific, quotation and self-quotation (Eleventh As a background to understanding his post to teach composition at the Conservatory. programmatic meaning. Symphony, Eighth Quartet, Fifteenth music, Schnittke’s biography is illuminating. He Unfortunately in 1985 his health had begun Taken in isolation from Schnittke’s other Symphony) is mirrored in his younger was born in Engels, Germany, the son of a to decline with the first of a series of strokes eight symphonies (like all true symphonists, his colleague’s outlook. Schnittke even comes German Jew and Volga German mother (his which were eventually to bring his life to a works in the genre are staging posts, each close to ‘quoting’ Shostakovich’s characteristic father was a journalist who later worked in premature end thirteen years later. His new attempt marking a fresh beginning) his sonorities in formal contexts that resemble Vienna). Although his musical studies began in amazingly productive final years were spent Symphony No. 6 (1992) is a remarkable work those of his model – for example, the celeste, Vienna (with whose musical culture he was under the shadow of death – a factor which to unpack. The symphony contains references one of Shostakovich’s favourite instruments of deeply to identify) the family returned to was not without its influence on his continuing to his opera Historia von D Johann Fausten closure in his orchestral works, is used at the Russia where the young Schnittke completed commitment to religious belief. (Schnittke was (1983–94), which he described as a ‘negative end of the second movement of Schnittke’s his studies at the Moscow Conservatory in baptised a Roman Catholic in 1982 and wrote passion’. Dealing with the problem of good 4 5 CHAN 10180 BOOK.qxd 24/7/08 10:09 am Page 6 and evil, the prominent chorale-like (brass engagement, dance-scherzo, reflection and gleams, darkens and explodes throughout the anxiety. And yet – all things considered – the choir) elements in the symphony suggest a ‘resolution’ – but in the finale it is as if first three movements, but returns in all its work, in its Mozartian flicker of moods, retains sub-text link with the opera. From the Schnittke, after making a pass at triumphalism calm for the long drawn-out final movement. In its own ambiguous smile. Perhaps the strength cataclysmic outset, unfolding all twelve notes in a clinching opening gesture, is forced back contrast with the D major-ish arpeggio of this Concerto lies in its fulfilment of of the chromatic scale in a piled-up chord on to reconsider the implications of the first radiance à la Bach of the first movement Mendelssohn’s dictum: ‘music begins where winds, brass and strings pp-ff, the vividness of movement and is left with nothing more than Allegro, turbulence and stress inform the inner words end’. its refined yet dark sound world both disturbs anxious questioning. The symphony, movements – though the third begins with a and fascinates. First of all, there is the commissioned by the National Symphony luminous cross-reference to the first © 2004 Eric Roseberry exquisite textural spareness of its writing – a Orchestra of Washington and its director, movement’s major arpeggio, now in E major true chamber symphony which sharply profiles Mstislav Rostropovich, was given its first on the woodwind. The second movement – in The violinist Tatiana Grindenko is a People’s winds, brass (especially) and percussion. The performance by that orchestra in Moscow on which ‘Stille Nacht’ takes a rough ride – Artist of Russia, the most eminent title that strings make their dramatically delayed impact 25 September 1993. swerves into a preliminary (but not tonally can be awarded to the country’s performers. In in the searing, Berg-like lament of the third The earlier Concerto grosso No. 2 (1982) is form-establishing) F minor that takes as its 2003 Tatiana Grindenko received the State movement. Then we have the extraordinary perhaps less easy to come to terms with, for if point of departure the stalking bass of a Prize of the Russian Federation in recognition stammering/stuttering speech of this the symphony achieves its own elegant baroque passacaglia. In a kaleidoscope of of her outstanding achievements in music. symphony’s rhetoric – here is a broken minimalism and homogeneity, Schnittke’s textural contrasts, bells, glockenspiel and Her career as a violinist began in Ukraine at language that finds its pre-echoes in such appropriation of the baroque model is here a celeste figure prominently (here Schnittke the age of eight, when she performed as landmarks of the twentieth century as process of constant disruption and dislocation vividly proclaims his Russian heritage) with soloist in a Bach concerto. She continued her Sibelius’ Fourth Symphony, Schoenberg’s – emotional, textural, harmonic, stylistic (tonal- percussion maintaining a strong, frequently studies in St Petersburg and at Moscow A Survivor from Warsaw or Shostakovich’s atonal). In this piece, the standard string- menacing presence. The soloists are given a Conservatoire and has won several Fifteenth Symphony – all three works written based baroque orchestra, with its interaction virtuoso role and their impassioned cadenza- international competitions. Although known as in the shadow of impending death. The of solo concertino and massed ripieno, is like breaks keep up a dialogue both between a performer in the romantic tradition, she was dynamic range from overpowering fff to barely enclosed within the giant envelope of the themselves and with the orchestra.