Pianist Nicolas Stavy, who has already made recordings devoted to works by Boris Tishchenko (BIS-2189) and Dmitri Shostakovich (BIS-2550), now presents the first instalment of a complete survey of Alfred Schnittke's compositions for solo piano. This recording presents works from various periods of the Russian-German composer's career - from the 1950s, which the composer described as the 'years of obscurity', to the 1990s, a time shaped both by world fame and serious illness. While Schnittke wrote relatively little music for the piano, each work reflects - or sometimes anticipates - the phases of the composer's creative development. The Five Preludes and Fugue and the Prelude and Fugue belong to Schnittke's first creative phase, when he was still under the influence of Shostakovich. The Little Piano Pieces, composed for the composer's six-year-old son, are an example of his 'polystylism', juxtaposing and combining music of various styles from the past and present. The Sonata No. 2 and the Five Aphorisms, both from 1990, return to a more ascetic and abstract language, with a bleaker tone, no doubt echoing his serious health problems.

SCHNITTKE: VIOLA CONCERTO, TRI

SCHNITTKE: Cello Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2 / Epilogue / Musica no

Alfred Schnittke as a composer of film music - that is a fact well known to anyone who has ever been concerned with Alfred Schnittke. However, only very few people are familiar with his actual work in the film music genre, something all the more surprising since on the one hand he wrote more than 60 film scores between 1961-84, and on the other hand, his poly-stylistic techniques found a nearly perfect equivalent in film. Since Alfred Schnittke suffered from the artistic regimentations like many contemporary composers in the USSR, and his works could often only be performed under difficult circumstances, his work for the film to a large extent contributed to his livelihood. Credited with opening new insights into the world of film music, Frank Strobel, here leading the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, is strongly committed to the works of Mr. Schnittke (1934-98), being the authorized editor of the composer’s work, some of which he helped Schnittke notate during his final years.

What a wonderful title. The absurdist libretto of Schnittke's opera by the former 'dissident' writer Victor Erofeyev is based on his own short story and is partly a satire on Soviet life under Communism ('Vova' was Lenin's nickname, and Howard Haskin — the creator of the role — was made up to look like the former leader). Clearly, for Schnittke and other post-Soviet artists, there are still scores to setde with the past. Whether that will tell against the opera's long-term success remains to be seen.

At its worst it recalls a superior cabaret act, Schnittke's frequent recourse to parody as part of his 'polystylistic' approach sounding a touch glib. But other moments suggest wider resonances. The opera was premiered in Amsterdam last April, when this recording was made. Rostropovich, who was instrumental in the project from an early stage, conducts a brash but vital performance (he also plays the cello and piano) and the cast enters fully into the spirit of the piece. The sound has a curiously hollow quality.

-- George Hall, BBC Music Magazine

SCHNITTKE: VIOLIN SONATA NO 1,

Here is a neat conspectus of Soviet music for chamber orchestra forces in the immediate post-Shostakovich years. Schnittke in 1979 was already on his way out of his familiar Gothic-horror juxtaposition of styles. His Concerto for Piano and Strings may still confront emblems of religious ritual with a demented waltz, a thumping toccata, or a lacerating cadenza, but on the whole its concern is with a single-minded, in-bred intensity. Whether it is any the better for that I am still not sure; but Krainev and Spivakov certainly respond whole-heartedly to its alternation of the hypnotic and the trenchant.

Since the flurry of interest in his music in the late 1960s Rodion Shchedrin has failed to capture Western imaginations to the extent of his younger colleagues. Yet his musical personality has always been blessed with a distinctive brand of rhythmical poise and wit, and even if Music for the City of Cothen (composed in 1984 for the Bach tercentenary the following year) comes across as little more than watered-down neo-classical Stravinsky — Dumbarton Oaks, above all — it has more than a few moments of attractive pungency.

Gubaidulina's Seven Last Words of 1982 could hardly be more different. Modelled to some extent on Schütz's and Haydn's settings of the last words of Christ on the Cross, it is shot through with mystical symbolism, not least in its deployment of the bayan (a Russian accordion) and cello to represent the human and spiritual spheres respectively. Again the performance is first-rate.

-- Gramophone [5/1993]

SCHNITTKE: HISTORIA VON D. JOH

This is a special work. It begins with a dialogue between the soloists, cello and viola which seems very elaborated. Then starts a Handel-like concerto grosso sound which is in that context very mad. Soon join drums and electrical guitar to the orchestra. This is a great fun and could be called a remix of old classical music with modern parts... Orchestra, Soloists and Conductor are the best of that time in Russia (Discogs).

Classical Music

Cello Sonatas, Klingende Buchs

Alfred Schnittke's film music encapsulates almost everything that characterises the Russian composer's compositional style. A self-described polystylist, he began writing for film in the 1960s, penning 66 film scores between 1962 and 1984 for Soviet film companies. His method of drawing on the past was rejected by the avant-garde but embraced by filmgoers and concertgoers too. Volume six in this CD Edition of Schnittke's film music presents music from the film series "Little Tragedies" (1979) based on popular novels by Alexander Pushkin. After longtime research conductor Vladimir Jurowski also recorded all parts of the score which have been cancelled at the end for the final Film Version.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music