From: ujwb@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Jeff Beer)
Subject: Re: The Russians are coming!  Schnittke
Organization: Educational Computing Network
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 23:40:12 GMT

In article <ALLMUSIC%92072414581639@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU> Doug Barbieri <DBARBIER@UCDCVDLS.BITNET> writes:
>Dear Jeff Beer,
>
>I am always interested in learning about modern composers and their music, esp.
> about any NEW works.  I've never heard of Sofia Gubaidulina, nor of any other
>of the Russian composers that you mentioned, so if you have any more informa-
>tion about them, I'd be happy to hear from you.

The only other thing by Gubaidulina I know of is (No 3) on Arditti Two, which
also has a Bartok (No 4) and a Schnittke (No 2).  That is an excellent
CD from an excellent String Quartet.

Other than that, there recently was some discussion from Schnittke from
the classical music list.  Here was my post:
==============================================================


Some of my Scnittke favorites:  Symphony No 4, Requiem, Four Hymns for
Chamber Ensemble, Sonatas No 1&2 for Violin and Piano, String Quartet No
2, Viola Concerto, Trio Sonata, and Cello Concerto No 2.

Four Hymns is for Cello and mixed instruments, there is a movement with
harp and timpani, another with bass, another with bass, bassoon, harp,
and tubular bells, and the last with everything.  It has a very ancient
feeling, like a religious ritual.  If you ever heard Stravinsky's
Introitus:  it is much older, and much darker.

For a good taste of his orchestral work, the Cello Concerto No 2. is
very strong, it is fairly recently composed.   The CD with Requiem and
Symphony 4 also displays his art to advantage.

Finally, two of his early works are the Sonatas for violin and piano.
The first one uses the 12-tone technique, "but with a varying row (first
movement: diminished and augmented triads, the second movement: minor
triads, the third movement: major triads, the fourth movement: the
interaction of all four types of triad.  It depicts a tonal world with
atonal highways, but thematically it is complete tradition (even with
quasi-quotations from folk music and from Shostakovich's Second Piano
Trio)

Schnittke considers the second sonata as a breakthrough piece, after
composing many serial pieces: "This piece is a sort of borderline case of
the sonata form.  The form is called into question; it seems not to be
achieved - and then the sonata is already over.  It is reminiscent of
Fellini's film 8 1/2, which is really only the story of how difficult
and impossible it is to make the film.  And it is not made but
meanwhile the film has already come into existence.  For me it was
similar with this piece...  Suddenly I had to write this piece,
without rules of construction.  It was, so to speak, a mutiny against
everything else.  There is a continual exchange between this triad and a
dissonant violin chord: the piece seems to stammer.  Then, suddenly the
motif B-A-C-H appears, first in a transposed form, but at the end it
stands out clearly as the solution.  The solution consists of the fact
that nothing is solved: both (the traditional triad and the sounds of
atonal order) remain as contrasting elements which are balanced against
each other.  Here I tried out a polystylistic method of writing for the
first time, a technique which was to determine many of my later works.
Polystylisticism is, for me, a conscious playing-out of stylistic
differences, by means of which a new musical dimension is created and a
dynamic creation of form - which had become impossible because tonal
thinking had become overtaken in the course of the development of the
avant garde - is once again made possible."




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