The Russian Alfred Schnittke is one of the most famous composers to emerge from the U.S.S.R. since World War II. Avant-garde music was suppressed in the Soviet Union until the early 1980s, and Soviet musicians had little access to the music of the West. Because of this isolation, Russian modern music did not follow European lines. When it was finally heard in the West, Schnittke’s brand of modern music grew increasingly popular partly because of its accessibility.
Alfred Schnittke was born in Engels, Russia, in 1934, to a German Jewish father and a Catholic Volga German mother. His father was posted to Vienna during the Soviet occupation, and from 1946 to 1948 Schnittke studied music there. The family returned to Russia after the occupation, and Schnittke attended the Moscow Conservatory between 1953 and 1961, where he studied instrumentation under Nikolay Rakov. He taught at the school from 1962 until 1972, when his membership of the Composer’s Union allowed him to resign and devote himself to composition without being labelled as a parasite on the state.
During this period, Schnittke supported himself in part by composing music for films; his other work included three symphonies, several string quartets and sonatas, and concertos for violin, viola, oboe and harp, and cello. In these compositions, Schnittke employed a mix of styles, including elements of serialism and conventional tonality. The Requiem, which used traditional harmonies, ensured his success in the USSR, although critics were reproached for heaping “excessive praise” on the composer.
Schnittke began to move away from Soviet Realism, experimenting with the new techniques that were beginning to penetrate from the West, such as graphic notation (where symbols, spatial distance, or linear diagrams are used instead of traditional notes and staves), and incorporating periods of silence (up to ten seconds or longer). In his Sonata No. 2, he incorporated the B-A-C-H motif (German B flat, A, C, and B natural—given as “H” to denote the composer’s name), which J. S. Bach first used in the Art of Fugue and which has been used in homage by several other composers, including serialists such as SCHOENBERG and WEBERN. The Concerto Grosso followed, a work in six movements for prepared piano (where the individual notes have been altered by placing objects between the strings), harpsichord, and 21 string soloists, which mixed baroque, popular, and even serial elements, and contained a quote from Tchaikovsky.
Schnittke’s music arrived in Europe and the U.S. in the 1980s, together with the recordings and scores of other composers whose work was not officially sanctioned in the Soviet Union. Although American musicians were impressed by what they heard, it was at first difficult to program these works because of the difficulty in obtaining scores. However, once the scores were made available in the U.S. by the publisher G. Schirmer, this obstacle was overcome, and Schnittke’s work was presented to a broader audience. In addition, the violinist Gideon Kremer commissioned several new works by the composer.
Despite suffering a stroke in 1985, Schnittke continued to work, and completed his Symphony No. 5 in 1988. His ever-growing popularity in the West encouraged him to move to Hamburg in 1990, where he continued to live for the rest of his life. During this period, Schnittke taught and travelled extensively. He also produced several operas, the best known of which are Gesualdo (1993), a study of the madrigalist and murderer, and The History of Dr. Johann Fausten (1994). Schnittke died on August 3, 1998.
Jane Prendergast
SEE ALSO:
ORCHESTRAL MUSIC; VOCAL AND CHORAL MUSIC.
Brown, Malcolm Hamrick. Russian and Soviet Music (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Research Press, 1984);
Ivashkin, Alexander. Alfred Schnittke (London: Phaidon, 1996).
Concerto Grosso; Quasi una sonata; Requiem; Sacred Hymns; Symphony No. 4; Violin Concertos Nos. 3 and 4.