Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)

[Symphonic Addict]

Yes there is. The serenade for violin, piano, double bass, clarinet and percussion.

(But be warned, I don't know the orchestrated version in that recording, only the violin sonata.)

I found it on YouTube. I'll give it a listen later.

[vers la flamme]

Must hear Peer Gynt. I love those descriptions.

Are there recordings other than the BIS?

[AnotherSpin]

Right, the suite seems a bit too much pastiche for me - but the first violin sonata is a bit more interesting. Thanks.

Glad you like it. I haven't listened to it, and I wasn't going to recommend it. Botvinov is known for his concert performances of the Goldberg Variations with a Turkish drummer and cheap lightshow. And so on, which makes me want to stay away.

[Mandryka]

Must hear Peer Gynt. I love those descriptions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnhEdruZkgM&list=PLel0ik2l-H0eliM59DiJl79hiztFghdPb&index=22&ab_channel=VituriDaSilva

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0GGpNnYiP-A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9SB9EuaPNg&list=PLel0ik2l-H0eliM59DiJl79hiztFghdPb&index=25&ab_channel=VituriDaSilva

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ1gdpMJxMg&list=PLel0ik2l-H0eliM59DiJl79hiztFghdPb&index=16&pp=iAQB8AUB


Keep your wig on.

[Mandryka]

Glad you like it.

Well, just for the record, I didn't actually say that!

[AnotherSpin]

Well, just for the record, I didn't actually say that!

I glad you didn't say that   

[Mandryka]

I'd agree about technique, but not about mood: the late symphonies to me are simply an attempt to write a music without any of the filler that is usually present, so all the essential material is there, but the harmonies are stripped down, bridging passages are often replaced by periods of silence, the contrapuntal writing is largely elided and so on. To me, one of the key things about these works is to listen to them in the context of what they "should" be; that's where their radicalism comes in. (I'd lke to have heard the original version of the 6th symphony, which apparently is even more extreme than the final version, and has several lengthy passages that are simply silent.)

I think the influence of late Nono is key to these works: I believe Schnittke is writing without the filler because he saw how, in late Nono, the primary driver of musical tension is the alternation between simple material and silence, and he wanted to see if he could build a style which did the same thing in a tonal context. I'm not sure he always succeeds in this, but where he does the results are intriguing.

I'm listening to the sixth now for the first time and I am totally disoriented. I don't think there's enough silence in most of it to create the tension you alluded to (15 years ago) Maybe in the third movement, but not elsewhere.  I just have no idea what's happening in this music, totally all at sea. Is it an experiment which has failed?

He certainly doesn't like counterpoint!

[CRCulver]

I'm listening to the sixth now for the first time and I am totally disoriented.

I still don't like the Sixth much, but my appreciation was improved by the discussion of it in Peter J. Schmelz's book Sonic Overload.

[AnotherSpin]

I still don't like the Sixth much, but my appreciation was improved by the discussion of it in Peter J. Schmelz's book Sonic Overload.

Abstract question. If you don't like something, but someone intelligent has explained that you might like it, is it worth forcing yourself?

[foxandpeng]

Abstract question. If you don't like something, but someone intelligent has explained that you might like it, is it worth forcing yourself?

Definitely.

Different genre, but for years I couldn't get my yead round Eliot's 'Four Quartets'. Pointless. Until someone walked me though it.

Same with numerous pieces of music, until I grasped what was happening.

[Mandryka]

I still don't like the Sixth much, but my appreciation was improved by the discussion of it in Peter J. Schmelz's book Sonic Overload.

The book is too expensive for me I'm afraid, given that this isn't my main area of musical interest (yet) So a summary of the argument would be appreciated!

Just to be clear - there's no polystylism in the 6th symphony, is there?

[AnotherSpin]

Definitely.

Different genre, but for years I couldn't get my yead round Eliot's 'Four Quartets'. Pointless. Until someone walked me though it.

Same with numerous pieces of music, until I grasped what was happening.

I too could name pieces of music or interpretations that I started listening to and even with great enthusiasm after reading about. Stopped after a while.

[Mandryka]

I think for me, @AnotherSpin , there are some things I don't like and really I'm not interested in them at all. A lot of Beethoven's music is like that - I don't like the Hammerklavier and I have zero interest in reading anything to help me make sense of what on earth he was up to in it. Same for a huge amount of Scarlatti and Palestrina. It's just boring bad music as far as I'm concerned.


Some other pieces are different. I don't like them in the same way as I don't like being shouted at by someone who is using a language I don't understand. I can sense that they're trying desperately to communicate but because I don't have their language, all I'm hearing is vacuous. In that case, I may be keen to pick up a few words,  to see what the fuss is about.

The Schnittke symphony 6 is in the second category.

[CRCulver]

Abstract question. If you don't like something, but someone intelligent has explained that you might like it, is it worth forcing yourself?

In my case, that someone intelligent didn't really set out to explain that anyone might like it (it's a work of scholarship, not deliberate advocacy). But he did give me some useful analysis, and even if my dislike of the Sixth remains, I better understand the context of Schnittke's whole career and the road towards the late Schnittke pieces that I do like.

The book is too expensive for me I'm afraid, given that this isn't my main area of musical interest (yet) So a summary of the argument would be appreciated!

The book is available from the usual pirate sources, that's how I read it. There's no concise summary, Schmelz walks through the whole work with passages from the score. No, this symphony is not polystylistic except in the most ghostly way.

[Mandryka]

From the notes to the Chandos Symphony 6

Taken in isolation from Schnittke's other
eight symphonies (like all true symphonists, his
works in the genre are staging posts, each
new attempt marking a fresh beginning) his
Symphony No. 6 (1992) is a remarkable work
to unpack. The symphony contains references
to his opera Historia von D Johann Fausten
(1983–94), which he described as a 'negative
passion'. Dealing with the problem of good and evil, the prominent chorale-like (brass
choir) elements in the symphony suggest a
sub-text link with the opera. From the
cataclysmic outset, unfolding all twelve notes
of the chromatic scale in a piled-up chord on
winds, brass and strings pp-ff, the vividness of
its refined yet dark sound world both disturbs
and fascinates. First of all, there is the
exquisite textural spareness of its writing – a
true chamber symphony which sharply profiles
winds, brass (especially) and percussion. The
strings make their dramatically delayed impact
in the searing, Berg-like lament of the third
movement. Then we have the extraordinary
stammering/stuttering speech of this
symphony's rhetoric – here is a broken
language that finds its pre-echoes in such
landmarks of the twentieth century as
Sibelius' Fourth Symphony, Schoenberg's
A Survivor from Warsaw or Shostakovich's
Fifteenth Symphony – all three works written
in the shadow of impending death. The
dynamic range from overpowering fff to barely
audible pppp is that of a composer whose ear
has passed through the filter of a study of
Webern. The angularity of line bespeaks the
lingua franca of Bartók, Schoenberg and
Stravinsky and the twelve-note density of the
harmonic dimension relates to late
Shostakovich. Behind all this is the mould of
the Austro-German symphony with its four
movements of sonata-like dramatic engagement, dance-scherzo, reflection and
'resolution' – but in the finale it is as if
Schnittke, after making a pass at triumphalism
in a clinching opening gesture, is forced back
to reconsider the implications of the first
movement and is left with nothing more than
anxious questioning.

[Mandryka]

By comparison, the notes for BIS about 6 are more amusing -- and supports @not edward 's point about silences and cuts.

Schnittke's late symphonies are rather economical and modest in terms of
orchestration, duration and density. The Sixth (1992), Seventh (1993), Eighth
(1994) and Ninth (1997–98) surprise us with the rarefied nature of their sound,
reminiscent of the fabric of Shostakovich's late works. However, the latent
tension increases: the meaning of Schnittke's latest compositions is to be
found between, rather than within the notes themselves. The language be -
comes rather 'tough', dissonant and discordant; it is definitely not easy-listen -
ing music.


The score of the Sixth Symphony (1993) contains almost no passages for
full orchestra; the orchestra plays in groups only, and the actual texture of the
music seems to be ascetically dry and abstract. One has to listen attentively, to
penetrate the musical material itself, in order gradually to become accustomed
to this ascetically sparse texture, so strange on first hearing. As an American
critic remarked after the first New York performance of the work: 'When the
last notes evaporated I had the queasy feeling of having heard a Mahler symphony with most of its musical flesh torn away, leaving a gruesome skeleton
dangling forlornly in a black space'. At that concert, in Carnegie Hall on 6th
February 1994, almost half of the audience left during the performance. Those
who stayed acclaimed the composer with a standing ovation. Schnittke had
made significant cuts after the first performance in Moscow on 25th Nov -
ember 1993, deleting numerous pauses and silences between the bars, which
made the music much more energetic, condensed and articulated.

[relm1]

By comparison, the notes for BIS about 6 are more amusing -- and supports @not edward 's point about silences and cuts.

Schnittke's late symphonies are rather economical and modest in terms of
orchestration, duration and density. The Sixth (1992), Seventh (1993), Eighth
(1994) and Ninth (1997–98) surprise us with the rarefied nature of their sound,
reminiscent of the fabric of Shostakovich's late works. However, the latent
tension increases: the meaning of Schnittke's latest compositions is to be
found between, rather than within the notes themselves. The language be -
comes rather 'tough', dissonant and discordant; it is definitely not easy-listen -
ing music.


The score of the Sixth Symphony (1993) contains almost no passages for
full orchestra; the orchestra plays in groups only, and the actual texture of the
music seems to be ascetically dry and abstract. One has to listen attentively, to
penetrate the musical material itself, in order gradually to become accustomed
to this ascetically sparse texture, so strange on first hearing. As an American
critic remarked after the first New York performance of the work: 'When the
last notes evaporated I had the queasy feeling of having heard a Mahler symphony with most of its musical flesh torn away, leaving a gruesome skeleton
dangling forlornly in a black space'. At that concert, in Carnegie Hall on 6th
February 1994, almost half of the audience left during the performance. Those
who stayed acclaimed the composer with a standing ovation. Schnittke had
made significant cuts after the first performance in Moscow on 25th Nov -
ember 1993, deleting numerous pauses and silences between the bars, which
made the music much more energetic, condensed and articulated.

This reminds me, I quite like the 8th but have never heard the 9th.  Should put that on my play list.  The Symphony No. 5 with Rozhdestvensky is excellent.  I think it's on Melodiya.

[Spotted Horses]

I found the 6th and 7th to be less than compelling, just because the stuttering musical exposition doesn't resonate with me, and because I didn't find myself guided by any musical or dramatic arc that I could detect. (I take for granted that it is there, but it doesn't resonate with me, for whatever reason). The exception would be the opening movement of the 7th, which starts with a violin solo, blossoming to some lovely, dissonant music mostly for strings.

The eighth doesn't make that impression. I don't find it as sparse as the two symphonies that receded it, and I do find myself following a musical/dramatic arc as I listen to this music. I particularly enjoyed the first movement, which starts with an elemental theme for horn that I would characterize as reminiscent of Bruckner, but with unexpected large interval leaps. This is taken up by other sections of the orchestra with a buildup of tension. It is followed by an extroverted fast movement, a largely static slow movement, and another extroverted movement that ends in a static chord.

[Karl Henning]

I found the 6th and 7th to be less than compelling, just because the stuttering musical exposition doesn't resonate with me, and because I didn't find myself guided by any musical or dramatic arc that I could detect. (I take for granted that it is there, but it doesn't resonate with me, for whatever reason). The exception would be the opening movement of the 7th, which starts with a violin solo, blossoming to some lovely, dissonant music mostly for strings.

The eighth doesn't make that impression. I don't find it as sparse as the two symphonies that receded it, and I do find myself following a musical/dramatic arc as I listen to this music. I particularly enjoyed the first movement, which starts with an elemental theme for horn that I would characterize as reminiscent of Bruckner, but with unexpected large interval leaps. This is taken up by other sections of the orchestra with a buildup of tension. It is followed by an extroverted fast movement, a largely static slow movement, and another extroverted movement that ends in a static chord.

Thanks for your report. Interesting.

[Karl Henning]

I'm looking for more small scale (not symphonic) music in the spirit of the second violin sonata. Any suggestions?

When you asked, I was ignorant of the fact that Quasi una Sonata is in fact his 2nd vn sonata.