Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)

[brewski]

Am I the only one who's kind of cooled down on Schnittke? A couple of years ago I would have called him one of my favorites, but I seem to rarely listen to him anymore. The exception for me is this brilliant disc of his string quartets:

I personally haven't cooled down on Schnittke, but it does seem that his music isn't programmed lately as often as it was in, say, the 1990s. But those were the days when many of us were discovering his works, and as is sometimes the case, there's a flurry of activity around a "new" composer. I wish more of his big pieces would get programmed. The last one I heard was in 2014, when Juilliard ended its Focus! Festival with his Symphony No. 8.

Those quartets are fantastic. One of my first encounters with Schnittke (late 1980s?) were three consecutive concerts with the Kronos Quartet, with one of the quartets on each program. I can't even recall what else they played, because the Schnittke pieces blew my mind.

-Bruce

[Spotted Horses]

I've yet to listen to the quartets, seems like I have a pleasure in store. I haven't connected too well with the symphonies, but the various concerti have made a big impression (cello, violin, piano and the concerto grossos).

[Karl Henning]

I've yet to listen to the quartets, seems like I have a pleasure in store. I haven't connected too well with the symphonies, but the various concerti have made a big impression (cello, violin, piano and the concerto grossos).

I haven't yet dived into the quartets, either. (I don't much remember the Kronos recording (offhand, I forget which album it's on.) Nor have I listened to the quartet which is included in the Pacifica Shostakovich cycle. No particular reason. And I do like the Naxos recording of the Piano Quintet with the Vermeer Quartet which @DavidW mentioned. 

[Mandryka]

These are the pieces I like the most

Second violin sonata
Peer Gynt
Symphony 2, 7 - and less so 8 and 4. 6 still haunts very powerfully, but it's uncomfortable for me.
Faust Cantata
4th string quartet - and less so the 1st
Oboe and harp concerto
In memoriam for orchestra
Septet
Serenade for violin, piano, double bass, clarinet and percussion.
Concerto for piano and strings
Piano sonatas

[DavidW]

I haven't yet dived into the quartets, either. (I don't much remember the Kronos recording (offhand, I forget which album it's on.) Nor have I listened to the quartet which is included in the Pacifica Shostakovich cycle. No particular reason. And I do like the Naxos recording of the Piano Quintet with the Vermeer Quartet which @DavidW mentioned.

I also like the Lark Quartet:



And I've also seen that Molinari has recorded the string quartets, will give them a try!

[steve ridgway]

I haven't gone off Schnittke, just beginning to fit the odd piece in again among a load of "new" stuff.

[Symphonic Addict]

To be released on 4 October.

[Le Buisson Ardent]

To be released on 4 October.

Thanks for the alert, Cesar. I'll definitely be purchasing this since I have the other volumes and often I find Schnittke's film music to be of a rather high level creatively speaking. For me, there's nothing run-of-the-mill or cookie-cutter about any of his film music. Also, it's very interesting that Vladimir Jurowski is at the helm. He's only recorded one Schnittke work (the 3rd symphony for Pentatone). When he was in London, he spear-headed an entire festival that was dedicated to Schnittke's music, but unfortunately, it seems nothing was recorded during those concerts.

[CRCulver]

Just as I was getting into Schnittke around 2004, there were frequent comments on classical music fora and Amazon reviews that "the Schnittke fad of the 1990s has passed". I have even seen the sudden decline in the composer's popularity mentioned in scholarship, I think in Schmelz's Sonic Overload book.

[steve ridgway]

Just as I was getting into Schnittke around 2004, there were frequent comments on classical music fora and Amazon reviews that "the Schnittke fad of the 1990s has passed". I have even seen the sudden decline in the composer's popularity mentioned in scholarship, I think in Schmelz's Sonic Overload book.

What have fads and popularity to do with the quality of music?

[Le Buisson Ardent]

What have fads and popularity to do with the quality of music?

This is why no one should listen to these silly people who think things like Schnittke's music was part of a fad. The cluelessness and sheer idiocy of people never ceases to surprise me.

[CRCulver]

This is why no one should listen to these silly people who think things like Schnittke's music was part of a fad. The cluelessness and sheer idiocy of people never ceases to surprise me.

I think you should reflect and seek the most charitable interpretation before you throw around words like "cluelessness" and "idiocy". The "fad" that passed as described two decades had nothing to do with the merit of Schnittke's music – he has continued to have fans and attract attention from scholars to this day. Rather, he was no longer being taken up by prominent orchestras and record labels. The same entities that had commissioned works of his last decade, lost interest in him, or decided he would be too tough a sell to audiences in a world quickly moving on from the Soviet era.

[Spotted Horses]

I think you should reflect and seek the most charitable interpretation before you throw around words like "cluelessness" and "idiocy". The "fad" that passed as described two decades had nothing to do with the merit of Schnittke's music – he has continued to have fans and attract attention from scholars to this day. Rather, he was no longer being taken up by prominent orchestras and record labels. The same entities that had commissioned works of his last decade, lost interest in him.

I don't think it is a question of a "fad." He was an unknown who suddenly came to the attention of the public (particularly the record-buying public) and the explosion of interest has quieted down to a sustainable slow burn.

[Symphonic Addict]

Thanks for the alert, Cesar. I'll definitely be purchasing this since I have the other volumes and often I find Schnittke's film music to be of a rather high level creatively speaking. For me, there's nothing run-of-the-mill or cookie-cutter about any of his film music. Also, it's very interesting that Vladimir Jurowski is at the helm. He's only recorded one Schnittke work (the 3rd symphony for Pentatone). When he was in London, he spear-headed an entire festival that was dedicated to Schnittke's music, but unfortunately, it seems nothing was recorded during those concerts.

Count me as another fan of that film music series. I haven't heard the 5th volume yet, but I guess it should be as good as the previous ones. Hopefully Jurowski or another conductor will bring Schnittke to the fore once again.

[Le Buisson Ardent]

Count me as another fan of that film music series. I haven't heard the 5th volume yet, but I guess it should be as good as the previous ones. Hopefully Jurowski or another conductor will bring Schnittke to the fore once again.

One can only hope!

[DavidW]

This is why no one should listen to these silly people who think things like Schnittke's music was part of a fad. The cluelessness and sheer idiocy of people never ceases to surprise me.

I think it was not even a fad. BIS recorded most of his catalog in the 80s and 90s. Schnittke is still recorded and performed to this day.

[Le Buisson Ardent]

I think it was not even a fad. BIS recorded most of his catalog in the 80s and 90s. Schnittke is still recorded and performed to this day.

Exactly, which is why I said these people saying that Schnittke was a fad are ignorant. I guess Penderecki is a fad, too, since he has passed away or Górecki. Then there's Saariaho --- what do we make of her now? Is she yesterday's news?

[CRCulver]

Schnittke is still recorded and performed to this day.

By the New York Philharmonic? By the major labels on a regular basis? Of course interest in Schnittke remains, but it isn't what it was in the 1980s and 1990s when more conservative Western audiences could still be sold on a modernist composer if he was portrayed as a bold dissident against the Soviet regime.

Kevin Karnes' recent books on Arvo Pärt rather highlight how that composer got lucky from a marketing perspective: Pärt's association with ECM meant that in the public imagination today, he seems to have come out of 1980s West Germany. That Pärt's first tintinnabuli works were not only written in the USSR but performed there, and his first performances in the West happened before his emigration, now gets overlooked. (And of course, in his last interviews before retirement, Pärt refused to comment on the Soviet era entirely.) Consequently, as large-scale public interest in Soviet dissident art waned, he wasn't affected.

[DavidW]

By the New York Philharmonic? By the major labels on a regular basis

I don't regularly listen to the NYPO and fail to see how they are the gold standard. As for the second question... YES.

The rest of your post is mostly a speculative narrative that I just don't buy. Sorry. It has been a very long time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and classical music listeners are always craving diverse and interesting music.

[CRCulver]

As for the second question... YES.

The answer is, in fact, no. You know this is something that can be easily checked, right? Have a look at the Discogs entry for Schnittke and filter by releases where he is the composer. You'll see that the majors recorded Schnittke frequently in the 1990s, but then that dropped off; later releases are almost solely reissues of those 1990s recordings.

Sorry. It has been a very long time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and classical music listeners are always craving diverse and interesting music.

Sure, but Schnittke's decline in popularity happened around the turn of the millennium just as the anti-Soviet narrative lost its power, and we're just living in the aftermath of that where no other hook appeared to get Schnittke back before that many subscriber audiences. While classical music listeners may individually be "craving diverse and interesting music", they clearly aren't restoring Schnittke to the prominence he once held, and now he is just a relatively niche composer among myriad others. Peter J. Schmelz, perhaps the major Schnittke scholar at the moment, says this right out (Sonic Overload, p. 336): "As with many composers, since his death Schnittke's reputation has declined."

Again, this is making no aspersions on the quality of Schnittke's music for his fans; I enjoy his work greatly myself. It's just sad that he didn't get the canonical status that he might have seemed set out for in the Nineties.