(Routledge Russian and East European Music and Culture) Gavin Dixon - The Routledge Handbook to the Music of Alfred Schnittke (Routledge Russian and East European Music and Culture)-Routledge (2022)

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK TO THE
MUSIC OF ALFRED SCHNITTKE
The Routledge Handbook to the Music of Alfred Schnittke is a comprehensive study of the work of
one of the most important Russian composers of the late 20th century. Each piece is discussed
in detail, with particular attention to the composer’s groundbreaking polystylism, as well as his
unique approach to musical symbolism and his deep engagement with Christian themes.
This is the first publication to look at Schnittke’s output in its entirety, and for most works it
represents either the first ever published analysis or the first in a language other than Russian.
The volume presents new research from the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive at Goldsmiths,
University of London and the collection of Schnittke’s compositional sketches at the Juilliard
Library in New York. It also draws on the substantial research on Schnittke’s music published in
the Russian language. Including a work list and bibliography of primary and secondary sources,
this is an essential reference for all those interested in Russian music, 20th century music and
performance studies.
Gavin Dixon is a writer and editor specialising in classical music. He is Editor of Schnittke Studies
(Routledge 2017) and Music Editor of Fanfare, America’s leading classical review magazine.
Routledge Russian and East European Music and Culture
Series Editor
Pauline Fairclough, University of Bristol, UK
The parameters of the Routledge Russian and East European Music and Culture series encom-
pass multiple genres of music, including contemporary art music and popular music.
The series encourages submissions that represent the fields of critical musicology and cultural
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view on what made it interesting within the culture that produced it, and not merely describe
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rich in context would be welcome, as would studies that bring together music and other dis-
ciplines (history of literature, drama, visual arts, cinema) in new and enriching ways. Studies that
span national boundaries and traditional boundaries of political time are especially encouraged,
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contain a strong element of cross-fertilisation, whether that be disciplinary, national or political.
Music of the Soviet Era

1917–1991, 2nd Edition
Levon Hakobian
Popular Polish Electronic Music, 1970–2020

A Cultural History
Ewa Mazierska
Black Sea Sketches

Music, Place and People
Jim Samson
Eastern European Music Industries and Policies after the Fall of Communism
From State Control to Free Market
Edited by Patryk Galuszka
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Richard Louis Gillies
The Routledge Handbook to the Music of Alfred Schnittke

Gavin Dixon
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Russian-and-East-European-Music-and-Culture/book-series/REEMC
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK
TO THE MUSIC OF ALFRED
SCHNITTKE
Gavin Dixon
Cover image: © Victor Bazhedor / Boosey and Hawkes Collection / ArenaPAL
First published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
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© 2022 Gavin Dixon
The right of Gavin Dixon to be identified was author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dixon, Gavin, author.
Title: The Routledge handbook to the music of Alfred Schnittke / Gavin Dixon.
Description: [01.] | Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2022. | Series:
Routledge Russian and East European music and culture |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2021038401 (print) | LCCN 2021038402 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367222468 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032162782 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780429274046 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Schnittke, Alfred, 1934-1998--Criticism and interpretation. |
Music--Russia (Federation)--20th century--History and criticism. |
Music--Russia (Federation)--20th century--Analysis, appreciation.
Classification: LCC ML410.S276 D5 2022 (print) | LCC ML410.S276 (ebook) |
DDC 780.92--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021038401
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021038402
ISBN: 978-0-367-22246-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-16278-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-27404-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780429274046
Typeset in Bembo
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
CONTENTS
List of examples x
List of Figures xiii
Conventions xiv
Preface xvi
1 Eras and techniques 1

Student works 1953–1962 1
Serial period 1963–1971 4
Serialism 4
Sonorism: Ligeti and the Polish school 8
Funereal and religious works 1972–1980 12
Funereal works: Schnittke’s quiet period 12
Religious works 13
Polystylism 1968–1991 24
Representations of evil: popular music and the banal 26
Bach and the Baroque 29
Monograms 30
Harmonic and contrapuntal techniques 35
Non-tonal triadic relations 35
The [0,1,6,7] pitch set 35
Schnittke stretto 38
Structural innovations 41
Sonoristic cadences 43
Coda as exposition 44
Late style 1985–1994 45
2 Stage works 50
Ballets 50
Introduction 50
v
Contents
Labyrinths 51
Der gelbe Klang 52
Gogol Suite and Sketches 53
Peer Gynt 54
Operas 59
Introduction 59
Life with an Idiot 60
Gesualdo 64
Historia von D. Johann Fausten 67
Theatre music 69
3 Choral works 72
Introduction 72
Nagasaki 73
Songs of War and Peace 75
Voices of Nature 76
Requiem 76
Sonnengesang 78
Minnesang 79
Seid nüchtern und wachet … (Faust Cantata) 80
Three Choruses 85
Choir Concerto 85
Psalms of Repentance 86
Opening Verse for the First Festival Sunday 87
Festive Chant 88
Agnus Dei 88
Lux aeterna 89
4 Solo vocal works 90

Introduction 90
Three poems of Marina Tsvetaeva 90
10 Songs from Turandot 92
Eight Songs from Don Carlos 92
Magdalina’s Song 93
Three Madrigals 94
Three Scenes for Soprano and Ensemble 96
Drei Gedichte von Viktor Schnittke for Tenor and Piano 97
Mutter 98
Five Fragments to Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch/Fragment for
Orchestra 98
5 Orchestral works 102

Symphonies 102
Introduction 102
Symphony No. 1 104
vi
Contents
Symphony No. 2, ‘St Florian’ 108

Symphony No. 3 111
Symphony No. 4 115
Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5 119
Concerto Grosso No. 4 121
Symphony No. 5 121
Symphony No. 6 123
Symphony No. 7 127
Symphony No. 8 129
Symphony No. 9 131
Concertos and concerti grossi 134
Introduction 134
Violin Concerto No. 1 135
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra 137
Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra 138
Concerto for Oboe, Harp and String Orchestra 143
Cadenzas to concertos by Beethoven and Mozart 145
Concerto for Piano and Strings 154
Viola Concerto 162
Cello Concerto No. 1 164
Concerto for Piano Four Hands and Chamber Orchestra 166
Monologue for Viola and Strings 167
Cello Concerto No. 2 168
Concerto for Three 173
Viola Concerto No. 2 175
Other orchestral works 175
Poem about Space 175
Music for Chamber Orchestra 176
pianissimo… 178
Passacaglia for Large Orchestra 181
Ritual 183
(K)ein Sommernachtstraum 184
Four Aphorisms for Chamber Orchestra 185
Sutartinės 185
Hommage a Grieg 186
Symphonic Prelude and For Liverpool 186
vii
Contents
6 Chamber works 189

Introduction 189
Works for string quartet 190
String Quartet No. 1 190
Canon in Memoriam Igor Stravinsky 198
Variations for String Quartet 199
Works for violin and piano/violin duet/violin solo 200
Violin Sonata No. 1 200
Suite in the Old Style 208
Greeting Rondo 209
Prelude in Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich 210
Stille Nacht 211
A Paganini 212
Madrigal in Memoriam Oleg Kagan 214
Polka for Violin and Piano 215
Works for cello and piano/cello solo/cello and ensemble 215
Cello Sonata No. 1 215
Cello Sonata No. 2 216
Dialogue for Cello and 7 Instrumentalists 218
Hymns for Cello and Ensemble 219
Klingende Buchstaben 221
Epilogue from the ballet Peer Gynt, for Cello, Piano and Tape 221
Improvisation for Solo Cello 223
Works for string ensemble/strings and piano 223
Piano Quintet 223
Stille Musik 227
String Trio and Piano Trio 227
Canon ‘An das Frankfurter Opernhaus’ 230
Piano Quartet – sketch for the second movement of a piano quartet by
Mahler 230
Other chamber works 232
Serenade for Clarinet, Violin, Double Bass, Percussion and Piano 232
Cantus perpetuus 234
Polyphonic Tango 235
Moz-Art/Moz-Art à la Haydn/Moz-Art à la Mozart 237
Septet 238
Lebenslauf 240
Schall und Hall 241
3x7 242
viii
Contents
Herrn Alfred Schlee zum 90 Geburtstag 242

Quartet for Four Percussionists 243
7 Keyboard works 245

Introduction 245
Piano Sonatas 246
Piano Sonata No. 1 246
Other piano works 250
Children’s Pieces 1960 and 1971 250
Prelude and Fugue for Piano 251
Improvisation and Fugue 251
Variations on a Chord 252
Dedication to Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich for Piano Six
Hands 253
Five Aphorisms for Piano and Reciter 254
Sonatina for Piano Four Hands 255
Organ and harpsichord works 255
Two Short Pieces for Organ 255
Three Fragments for Harpsichord 256
8 Film music 257

Introduction 257
Igor Talankin 259
Andrei Khrzhanovsky 261
Alexander Mitta 263
Larisa Shepitko 265
Elem Klimov 266
Late film scores 269
Concert suites 270
Works list 272

A note on sources 296
Bibliography 299
Index 307
ix
EXAMPLES
1.1 (a) Myaskovsky Piano Sonata No. 1, op. 6, movement II, bars 1–10; (b) Schnittke
Six Preludes (1953–1954): Prelude in A♭, bars 1–20 2
1.2 Violin Concerto No. 2, Fig. 41 10
1.3 (a) Bach Mass in B Minor, Crucifixus, opening; (b) Schnittke Magdalina’s Song,
four bars after Fig. 6 (reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music
Publishers Ltd) 17
1.4 Piano Quintet, movement III, Fig. 7 21
1.5 Bell sounds in Schnittke’s piano writing: (a) Improvisation and Fugue, ending;
(b) Variations on a Chord, opening; (c) Concerto for Piano and Strings, Fig. 33; (d)
Piano Sonata No. 2, movement III, bars 85–91 23
1.6 Violin Sonata No. 2, last two bars 31
1.7 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1960), movement I, seven bars after Fig. 2 36
1.8 Piano Quartet, bars 161–67 38
1.9 Concerto Grosso No. 1 (a) movement II, Fig. 1; (b) movement V, Fig. 27
(violin II only) 40
1.10 Four Early Pieces for Violin and Piano (1960), No. 4, ending 44
2.1 Peer Gynt: (a) Bøyg theme, opening (excerpt); (b) Peer theme, act I, three bars
after Fig. 19 (flute I); (c) Peer theme, act I, Fig. 35 (violin I); (d) Solveig theme,
act I, Fig. 70 (oboe I, violin I); (e) Woman in Green theme, act II, Fig. 67
(trombone I, horn I) 57
2.2 Life with an Idiot, Intermezzo (vocal parts only) 63
2.3 (a) Gesualdo, Epilogue, opening; (b) Gesualdo, Madrigal ‘Io parto’ e non più dissi,
bars 47–51 66
2.4 (a) Faust Cantata, one bar after Fig. 24, bass only; (b) Faust opera, No. 1,
Narrator only 68
3.1 Nagasaki, Fig. 41, brass ensemble 2 74
3.2 Songs of War and Peace, movement IV, two bars after Fig. 83, chorus only 76
3.3 (a) Walther von der Vogelweide Palästinalied, as recorded in the Münster
fragment; (b) Schnittke Minnesang, opening 80
3.4 Faust Cantata. Mephistopheles themes (a) opening; Faust themes (b) Fig. 9
(tenor solo only), (c) Fig. 24 (bass solo only) 83
Examples
3.5 Festive Chant (a) opening, bells and violin I only; (b) Fig. 1, solo violin only 88
4.1 Three Madrigals, Francisco Tanzer monogram, as employed in movement II 95
4.2 (a) Cantata, Sketch for movement V (countertenor solo only); (b) Five Fragments
to Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, Ending, movement V, Fig. 49 (tenor solo only) 100
5.1 Symphony No. 0, movement I, Figs. 2–3 (violin I only) 103
5.2 Symphony No. 1, movement II, from Fig. 6 (trumpet I and violin I only) 106
5.3 Symphony No. 1, movement IV, from Fig. 10 (piccolo I only) 108
5.4 Symphony No. 2, movement V, orchestral opening (oboe d’amore and bass guitar
only) 111
5.5 Symphony No. 2, movement VI, Agnus Dei, Fig. 1 (flute I only) 111
5.6 Symphony No. 3, movement I, opening theme 112
5.7 Symphony No. 3, movement II, Fig. 16 (harpsichord only) 113
5.8 Symphony No. 3, movement III, opening theme (tuba) 113
5.9 Symphony No. 4, opening 120
5.10 Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5, movement III, themes with descending/
ascending background lines 122
5.11 (a) Schnittke Symphony No. 6, movement I, Figs. 13–15; (b) Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 6, opening; (c) Mahler Symphony No. 10, movement I, Fig. 24
(trombones and tuba only) 125
5.12 Symphony No. 6, movement I, from Fig. 38 125
5.13 Symphony No. 7, movement I, opening 127
5.14 Symphony No. 7, movement III, ending, from Fig. 47 128
5.15 Symphony No. 8, movement IV, from three bars after Fig. 12 130
5.16 Symphony No. 9 (a) movement I, bars 19–21, clarinet I; (b) movement I, bars
74–77, trombone I; (c) movement II, bars 1–6, violins I; (d) movement III, bars
2–5, violins I 132
5.17 Violin Concerto No. 1 (a) 1957 version, movement IV, bar 282, solo violin only;
(b) final 1962 version, movement IV, bar 282, solo violin only 137
5.18 Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra, movement II, opening piano solo, from
second phrase (excerpt) 139
5.19 Violin Concerto No. 2, opening 142
5.20 Concerto for Oboe and Harp, Fig. 28 145
5.21 Cadenza to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, movement I (a) bars 48–52;
(b) bars 99–102 148
5.22 Concerto Grosso No. 1, movement III, Fig. 11 (solo violins only) 151
5.23 Concerto for Piano and Strings, opening 154
5.24 (a) Orthodox Hymn Gospodi, spasi nas; (b) Concerto for Piano and Strings, Fig. 6 155
5.25 Violin Concerto No. 4, movement II, from 20 after Fig. 12, solo violin only 158
5.26 Violin Concerto No. 4, movement IV, Fig. 18 159
5.27 Viola Concerto, movement II, from Fig. 17 163
5.28 Monologue for Viola and Strings, Fig. 4, solo viola only 163
5.29 Cello Concerto No. 2 (a) movement I, bars 22–28 (solo cello only); (b)
movement II, ending, from bar 329 (solo cello only); (c) movement III, ending,
from bar 122; (d) movement IV, ending, from bar 18 169
5.30 Concerto Grosso No. 5 (a) opening; (b) movement II, opening; (c) movement III,
opening 172
5.31 Music for Chamber Orchestra, opening 177
5.32 pianissimo…, opening 180
xi
Examples
6.1 String Quartet No. 2, movement II, Fig. 16 193

6.2 String Quartet No. 3, movement III, bars 97–99 (violin I only) 196
6.3 (a) Suite in the Old Style, Minuet, bars 63–70; (b) Minuet for Two Violins, bars
63–70; (c) Musica Nostalgica, bars 63–70 (reproduced by permission of Boosey
& Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd) 210
6.4 A Paganini, Fig. 9 (reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music
Publishers Ltd) 214
6.5 Cello Sonata No. 2, original coda for movement IV 217
6.6 (a) Peer Gynt, Epilogue, four bars before Fig. 16 (clarinets only); (b) Epilogue
from the ballet Peer Gynt, for Cello, Piano and Tape, four bars before Fig. 16
(cello only) 222
6.7 Piano Quartet: (a) bars 75–84 (violin and cello only); (b) bars 136–42 (piano
only) (reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd) 231
6.8 Piano Quartet, last three bars (reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes
Music Publishers Ltd) 232
6.9 Cantus perpetuus, full score (reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes
Music Publishers Ltd) 234
7.1 Piano Sonata No. 2, movement III, first draft for climax bars 67–68, later
replaced with improvisation 249
xii
FIGURES
1.1 Tone rows from Schnittke’s works as interval classes 7

1.2 Transcription of sketch for Symphony No. 2 (Juilliard Manuscript Collection
SCHN_COLL_093, reproduced by permission of Jane Gottlieb) 18
1.3 Monograms employed in Schnittke’s works and monograms considered in
compositional sketches 33–34
5.1 Structure of Symphony No. 4 – Rosary, Themes and Modes 117–118
5.2 Symphony No. 4, themes 118
5.3 Symphony No. 4, modes 119
5.4 Changes made to Symphony No. 6 after the first performance 126
5.5 Structure of Violin Concerto No. 2 141–142
5.6 Concerto for Oboe and Harp, sketch for climax 146
5.7 Violin Concerto No. 3, sketch for movement III coda 154
5.8 Sketch for the Minuet associated with Concerto for Three 174
5.9 Music for Chamber Orchestra, Opening as represented in the sketches 177
5.10 pianissimo… Pitch (left) and Rhythm (right) Matrices 179
5.11 Passacaglia: Thematic Outline 182
6.1 Violin Sonata No. 1, Series 200
6.2 Violin Sonata No. 2, Structural Models 204–205
6.3 A Paganini, derivation of birth/death motif 213
6.4 Piano Quintet: (a) Sketch for plan of work (Juilliard Manuscript Collection
SCHN_COLL_555, reproduced by permission of Jane Gottlieb);
(b) transcription 224
6.5 String Trio, textures and chords related to I Ching trigrams (based on compos-
itional sketches) 228
6.6 Cantus perpetuus (1981 version), derivation of harmonies from religious
symbols at Fig. 3 (harpsichord, piano, harp) and five bars before Fig. 10 (piano) 236
CONVENTIONS
Transliteration of Cyrillic script

Russian text is presented in this book using a simplified version of the Library of Congress
romanisation system, as outlined below. Personal names are rendered less systematically, in most
cases employing the Latin version that is either conventional or the expressed preference of the
bearer (i.e. Alfred Schnittke). The soft sign, ‘ь’, is rendered as an apostrophe, but this is omitted
from personal names. Work titles and all titles in bibliography entries, however, conform to the
system below.
Аа Aa
Бб Bb
Вв Vv
Гг Gg
Дд Dd
Ее Ee
Ёё Ee
Жж Zh zh
Зз Zz
Ии Ii
Йй Ii
Кк Kk
Лл Ll
Мм Mm
Нн Nn
Оо Oo
Пп Pp
Рр Rr
Сс Ss
Тт Tt
Уу Uu
Фф Ff
Хх Kh kh
Цц TS ts
Чч Ch ch
Шш Sh sh
xiv
Conventions
Щщ Shch shch
Ъ "
Ыы Yy
ь '
Ээ Ee
Юю IU iu
Яя IA ia
Musical register
Note names refer to pitch classes (i.e. in any octave) or to pitches in specific registers as implied
by the context. Where register designation is required, Scientific Pitch Notation is employed,
with the octave number given in subscript. Octaves are counted upwards C–B, with middle C as
C4. All musical examples are written at concert pitch.
xv
PREFACE
The composer Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998) was a man of many musical identities. He came
to prominence in the West in the late 1970s as a polystylist, a radical eclectic seemingly intent
on levelling all musical hierarchies. This contrasted the parallel reputations that he had already
established in Soviet Russia, as one of the leading Modernists of the 1960s generation, and as a
popular and prolific film composer. In the 1980s, Schnittke’s career continued along similarly
diverse paths. His polystylistic works brought ever-greater acclaim in the West, while in Russia
his religious works aligned with a resurgence of the Orthodox faith, giving voice to a newly
liberated spiritual awareness. And even to describe Schnittke as a Russian composer is simplistic.
His family roots were Catholic and Jewish, and he was born and raised in the Volga-German
region of southern Russia, with German as his mother tongue. Schnittke spent much of his
adult life seeking reconciliation between these disparate identities, and much of his music is as
Austro-German as it is Russian. Yet, in spite of these competing influences, Schnittke’s attitude
to the art of music remained little changed throughout his career. He was instinctively drawn to
musical genres, especially the symphony and concerto, and his works in these forms are often
closely related.
The structure of this book acknowledges the diversity of Schnittke’s music while also focusing
on deeper connections within individual genres. Chapters 2–8 discuss Schnittke’s music in each
of the forms in which he worked.Works are grouped by genre, and each section has a short intro-
duction discussing Schnittke’s relationship with the form. A more general context is provided
in Chapter 1, ‘Eras and Techniques’, which offers a broadly chronological survey of Schnittke’s
career. The chapter is divided into stylistic periods, and each is discussed with reference to the
technical and expressive features of Schnittke’s music at the time. Readers with a general interest
in Schnittke’s music are encouraged to read Chapter 1, as well as the introductions to the later
chapters. Readers looking for information on individual works can begin with the dedicated
section and then explore the chapter introduction for links to other works in the genre, and
Chapter 1 (cross-references are provided) for discussion of contemporaneous works, and of
Schnittke’s artistic motivations at the time.
This book is not a biography of Alfred Schnittke. The composer himself appears regularly
in these pages, but only with reference to his music and how it was shaped by his motiv-
ations and compositional strategies. However, separating the musical from the extramusical in
Schnittke’s work proves difficult. Schnittke treated music as a language, in which he sought to
xvi
Preface
express definite ideas in abstract terms. These concepts were often highly personal – his search
for identity, his grief at the death of his mother, his increasingly devout Christian faith – but
were coded into his music as a deep layer of meaning. If there is a single idea that links every
period of Schnittke’s career it is this search for subtext, a long struggle but increasingly successful
in his later years. Schnittke’s earliest professional works, at the start of the 1960s, were to official
commissions. Schnittke would later reject most of these, finding little personal subtext in music
that conformed to Socialist Realist conventions. Schnittke’s exploration of serialism in the 1960s
also proved frustrating, the technique’s focus on surface detail continually at odds with his search
for depth. That helps explain Schnittke’s move to polystylism in the 1970s. Here, the semantic
potential of multiple styles, and especially the relationships between them, allowed Schnittke
to create many layers of expression and meaning. Monograms derived from musicians’ names
provided a more direct, even literal, means of conveying subtext. Similarly, Schnittke’s late style,
from the mid-1980s, can be understood as a sonic distillation of the composer’s underlying
message. Generic forms are subverted, and the music resists rational analysis, its surface no longer
reliant on historical conventions, shaped instead almost purely by intuition and subtext.
The sheer stylistic diversity of Schnittke’s music has proved challenging for musical analysis.
Within individual periods of his career, specific analytical techniques have been fruitfully applied.
Schnittke’s search for subtext often involves treating musical styles as a play of codes, and analyt-
ical techniques have been applied, particularly to his tonal music and his serialism, to demonstrate
both the depth of his stylistic engagement and the subversion he employs to create irony and
historical distance. Almost every analytical approach in common use today has been fruitfully
applied to Schnittke’s work (the exception is Schenker, still a rarity in Russian music studies).
The discussion of Schnittke’s music in the present volume assumes a grounding in common-
practice tonality, serial technique and in pitch-class set theory analysis. Schnittke himself was not
familiar with the set-theory approach, but it proves particularly useful in discussing his post-serial
music, where rigorous serial transformations are often applied to shorter sets, and in situations
where pitch distribution can be concisely described as the manipulation of unordered sets. The
discussion of Schnittke’s later music also brings in terminology from Neo-Riemannian ana-
lysis, although these concepts are explained in the text and require no prior knowledge of the
approach.
Many sections of this book have been expanded from earlier published texts. These include
programme notes for the BBC Philharmonic and the Salzburg Festival, CD liner notes for the
BIS and Somm labels, prefaces for the Alfred Schnittke Collected Works Edition (Schnittke 2010–)
and papers published in the proceedings of conferences at the Gnessin Academy of Music in
Moscow. I am grateful to the editors of those publications for permission to reuse the material
here.
Thanks also go to the late Professor Alexander Ivashkin (1948–2014), who supervised my
PhD on Schnittke’s music (Dixon 2007). This book is indebted to him in many ways. The
Collected Works Edition, a project ongoing at the time of writing, was his initiative, and its schol-
arly approach to Schnittke’s music, and to the available resources, is a model to which the present
publication aspires.The supervising editor for the Collected Works, Aleksey Vulfson, has also greatly
assisted my research, helping to trace scores and articles, and patiently assisting in my never-
ending struggle with Russian cursive script.
The Collected Works Edition was made possible by Ivashkin’s collection of photocopies of
Schnittke’s manuscript scores. This collection, which is almost complete, now forms the basis of
the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive at Goldsmiths. The Archive has been invaluable to the present
publication, for the manuscript copies, but also for the compositional sketches and the vast array
of secondary literature that Ivashkin also collected. I am grateful to Ivashkin’s widow, Natalia
xvii
Preface
Pavlutskaya, for her help in sourcing many scores and articles and for her permission to repro-
duce several of the sketches in the Archive. At Goldsmiths, the collection is under the curatorship
of Lesley Ruthven, Special Collections & Archives Manager. I am deeply indebted to Lesley and
her colleagues for all their assistance during my many visits to the library. Thanks also to Lesley
and to Jade Leonard for sourcing information in the Archive after Covid-19 brought library visits
to a halt. Another important archive of Schnittke’s compositional sketches is held at the Juilliard
School in New York. I am grateful to Jane Gottlieb,Vice President for Library and Information
Resources, for permission to reproduce two of the sketches.
Sourcing information on Schnittke’s music has often proved challenging, not least for the
many languages involved. I am particularly grateful for the help I received in locating documents
and verifying information to Professor David Blake, Dr Elena Dubinets, Aleksander Laskowski,
Dr Ivana Medić, the late Dmitri Smirnov, Dr Christian Storch and Dr Hans Brandon Twitchell.
Finally, thank you to my wife, Dr Felicitas Dixon, for proofreading the text. Any remaining errors
or unwieldy linguistic constructions are of course my own responsibility.
Gavin Dixon
Watton-at-Stone
xviii
1
ERAS AND TECHNIQUES
Student works 1953–1962

Schnittke’s earliest surviving works date from his years at the Moscow Conservatory where
he studied as an undergraduate student from 1953 to 1958 and as a postgraduate student from
1958 to 1961. Throughout these years, Schnittke studied under the composer Evgeny Golubev
(1910–1988), and his student works document a rigorous training programme, covering all major
instrumental and vocal genres.
By 1953, Schnittke was already a proficient pianist, and his early exposure to the Russian late-
Romantic piano school, particularly Rachmaninov, is evident from his earliest works. He had
also studied harmony and counterpoint privately with Iosif Ryzhkin since 1950 (Ivashkin 1996,
44–45). Golubev agreed to teach Schnittke on the strength of his Poème for Piano and Orchestra,
a single-movement work, written under Ryzhkin’s supervision, but only completed in piano
score. The music is clearly reminiscent of Rachmaninov, with the piano textures of the main
theme and contrasting middle section modelled on those of Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C♯ minor,
op. 3, no. 2.
Schnittke remembered Golubev as a musical conservative: ‘In terms of harmony, he, unfor-
tunately, could not help me at all, because his own interests ended in Romantic-era major and
minor, with supplementary major and minor chords, and some extended dominants’ (Shulgin
2004, 14). But a constructive tension arose between teacher and pupil, with Golubev stressing the
value of smooth transitions and a natural, ‘narrative’ flow, while Schnittke’s tendency was towards
stark contrasts and rhythmical regularity (Ivashkin 1996, 58–60).
Golubev asked Schnittke to write in a broad range of genres, and his student works gradually
expanded in scale from piano works to solo songs and chamber works 1953–1955, to choral then
orchestral works 1955–1958, culminating in his graduation piece, Nagasaki, a full-scale cantata
(1958). Schnittke entered the Conservatory in the year of Stalin’s death, and his earliest works
demonstrate a conformity to the stylistic conventions of the time. Myaskovsky and Kabalevsky
are clear models, especially in Schnittke’s piano writing, in the Six Preludes (1953–1954) and the
piano part to the Violin Sonata No. 0 (1954–1955). From Kabalevsky, the E minor Prelude takes
the triadic harmonies alternating with downbeat diatonic dissonances. In the D minor Prelude,
Schnittke alternates major harmonies with their tonic minor, another idea found in Kabalevsky,
for example in the Prelude in C major, op. 38, no. 1.
1 DOI: 10.4324/9780429274046-1
Eras and techniques
Myaskovsky was a more direct influence, as Golubev himself had studied with him. During
classes with Golubev, Schnittke played in four-hand arrangements of Myaskovsky’s symphonies
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 22). Myaskovsky’s piano writing was particularly influential
on Schnittke’s early work, a lyrical and Romantic style, but more direct and less florid than
Rachmaninov. The piano part for Schnittke’s Violin Sonata No. 0 employs textures derived from
Myaskovsky’s ‘Barcarolle-Sonatina’ from his Piano Sonata No. 8 (Vashchenko 2016, 97). The
Myaskovsky sonatas also influence the Six Piano Preludes. The D minor and B minor Preludes
both employ simultaneous chromatic mirroring between treble and bass, a textural device that
Schnittke would return to in his orchestral music of the 1980s, but which here looks back to
Myaskovsky, for example his Piano Sonata No. 4, movement III. Schnittke’s A♭ major Prelude is
modelled even more closely on Myaskovsky’s Piano Sonata No. 1, movement II (see Example 1.1).
In both cases, the quiet lyrical opening theme is presented over widely arpeggiated left-hand
harmonies, accompanied by a more static alto voice, and then reprised in octaves.
Example 1.1 (a) Myaskovsky Piano Sonata No. 1, op. 6, movement II, bars 1–10; (b) Schnittke Six Preludes
(1953–1954): Prelude in A♭, bars 1–20
2
Eras and techniques
Music from outside the officially endorsed curriculum was difficult to access in the early
1950s, but opportunities gradually increased later in the decade. Schnittke also attended the
composition class of Vissarion Shebalin (1902–1963), who made great efforts to introduce
students to forbidden Western music – Stravinsky, Hindemith, Bartók, Schoenberg. In addition,
the Students’ Association (Scientific Student Society – Nauchnoe Studencheskoe Obshchestvo),
under the energetic leadership of Edison Denisov, regularly met to hear recordings of new music.
Stravinsky’s Russian-period ballets figured prominently, as did wartime works by Shostakovich,
still censured following the Zhdanov denunciations. The Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9, which had
been singled out for criticism in the first draft of the 10 February 1948 Resolution on Music of
the Central Committee (Bolshevik) and officially proscribed four days later (Fay 2000, 157, 162),
were performed at the Students’ Association in four-hand piano arrangements (Ivashkin 1996,
56). As Schnittke recalled: ‘for a long time I was tormented by the covert logic of Shostakovich’s
voice leading. It seemed that a lot of time passed until I was able to understand it. Also interesting,
but just as unclear, was Stravinsky’s linearity, but it is obvious that just my independent contact
with the music of these luminaries … was a necessary stage in the development of my compos-
itional skills’ (Shulgin 2004, 14).
As Schnittke’s studies moved to orchestral forms, he was increasingly influenced by the
contemporaneous works of Shostakovich. The premieres of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10
and Violin Concerto No. 1, in 1953 and 1955, respectively, made a significant impact on the
way that Schnittke understood the orchestra. In his Symphony No. 0 (1956–1957), the passa-
caglia third movement is modelled on the third movement of the Shostakovich concerto. The
symphonic scope of Schnittke’s early concertos also reflects the influence of Shostakovich,
and the first violin concertos of both composers are effectively symphonies for violin and
orchestra (Ivashkin, preface to Collected Works Edition, Series III, Volume 5a). Distinctive
features of Shostakovich’s orchestration also appear in Schnittke’s early scores, such as the
xylophone doubling the melody in the coda of the first movement of the Concerto for Piano
and Orchestra (1960).
In 1993, Schnittke drew up a list of his ‘early’ compositions, which formed the basis of
the ‘Early and Unfinished Works’ appendix to the works list compiled by Alexander Ivashkin
(Ivashkin 1996, 223–24). The only two student works not consigned to the juvenilia list were
the concertos, for violin (1957, rev. 1962) and piano (1960). The two concertos are also the
most stylistically advanced of his early works, with 20th-century innovations in harmony
and orchestration applied to the otherwise traditional structuring and expression. The har-
monic language of the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra provoked heated debate at a meeting
of the Composers’ Union in 1961 (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 11), but such harmonic
explorations were becoming an increasingly prominent feature of Schnittke’s music in his
first years of postgraduate study. A collection of four works for violin and piano, also written
in 1960, show a similarly experimental approach. One movement (the second in the manu-
script copy) is notated without key signature, but hovers around a modal E minor. The final
movement is in a similarly ambiguous D minor, with repeated diatonic dissonances in the
piano part, and prominent movement in parallel fifths – another borrowing from recent
Shostakovich (see Example 1.10).
Most of Schnittke’s postgraduate works were large-scale projects to official commissions.
Schnittke described these years as a ‘time of unsuccessful attempts to enter into friendly relations
with the Union of Composers’ (Shulgin 2004, 17).The relationship lasted just over two years and
resulted in the cantata Songs of War and Peace (1959), the orchestral Poem About Space (1961) and
the unfinished operas African Ballad (1961–1962) and The Eleventh Commandment (1962). The
large-scale, civic style of these works drew on Carl Orff ’s Carmina Burana, which had impressed
3
Eras and techniques
Schnittke when he heard it performed in 1957, as well as on the patriotic cantatas of Gigory
Sviridov (1915–1998), although neither influence lasted long into the 1960s.
Schnittke’s ‘short affair’ with the Composers’ Union came to an abrupt end around the
time that he completed his postgraduate studies. Poem About Space did not meet the Union’s
requirements, and in the fallout from that project, the two operas that had been commissioned
also fell through. Work on The Eleventh Commandment also demonstrated to Schnittke that his
path lay in a different direction: ‘While working on the opera, I realised that I needed to put
the larger issues to one side for a while and thoroughly examine my musical language. I realised
that I didn’t care enough about the exact embodiment of ideas, often being satisfied with a
“generalised” approach based on my technique. And since limitation of means encourages inven-
tion, I turned to chamber music, and wrote a number of works in this genre’ (Kholopova &
Chigareva 1990, 14).
The issue of an ‘exact embodiment of ideas’ relates to the texts that Schnittke was setting, none
of which he had chosen himself (Shulgin 2004, 33, 35, 37; Ivashkin 1996, 63). But the move
away from vocal writing was emphatic, and for several decades Schnittke’s music was dominated
by instrumental forms, with voices only returning in a significant capacity with his choral works
from the late 1970s. Chamber music took precedence over orchestral works, in part because these
were easier to perform, and could be organised at short notice to avoid censorship (Schmelz
2009c, 205). But that limitation paralleled Golubev’s syllabus a decade before, with Schnittke now
exploring his growing interest in serialism and post-war avant-garde techniques first through
piano works and pieces for small ensemble, but then gradually building in scale up to orchestral
scores at the end of the 1960s.
Serial period 1963–1971
Serialism
Like many Russian composers of his generation, Schnittke spent the early years of the 1960s
experimenting with serial techniques. The wave of interest in serialism across Western Europe
between the wars was impeded in Russia by Soviet censorship, and information about the
techniques and practices of the Second Viennese School only became widely available during the
Khrushchev years of the mid-1950s. The result was a rapid and chaotic assimilation, with infor-
mation about Schoenberg’s pitch-based serialism arriving simultaneously with scores from the
Darmstadt School, where serialism was by then being applied to all musical parameters. Schnittke
learned of serial techniques while still a student, but only began to explore their potential ser-
iously after completing his studies in 1961. The relationship soon proved to be problematic, and
after a short period of strictly applied technique, 1963–1964, Schnittke began to move away,
still employing tone rows and serial practice, but increasingly combining them with other ideas.
Schnittke’s polystylism of the 1970s grew out of the composer’s dissatisfaction with serialism,
with its resolutely technical approach and its enforced abstraction.
Schnittke learned of Schoenberg’s musical philosophy earlier than most of his contempor-
aries, through Thomas Mann’s novel Doktor Faustus, which he read in the original German soon
after its first publication in 1947. Mann’s Faust is a thinly veiled portrait of Schoenberg, and
while the text does describe Schoenberg’s serial technique, it is more concerned with the sym-
bolism and philosophy of the idea than the mechanics of serial composition. So, from the start,
Schnittke’s attitude to serialism was informed by the numerological symbolism of the number
12 – which Mann perceived in Schoenberg’s approach – and by a philosophical dichotomy
between technical restraint and personal expression.That idea had come from Mann himself, and
4
Eras and techniques
was presented in the novel with a profound ethical significance, as the restraint and depersonal-
isation were linked in the narrative with evil and the demonic.
Exposure to serial music came later, during Schnittke’s undergraduate years at the Moscow
Conservatory. From 1954, scores by Schoenberg, Berg and Webern became available in the
USSR. While Schnittke was an undergraduate, he lived with his family in Valentinovka, three
hours by train from Moscow. The journey was often spent studying these scores and writing
musical exercises that imitated the techniques (Ivashkin 1996, 62). At the Conservatory, many
of the students were taking a similar interest in serialism, with scores and recordings distributed
as they became available. Edison Denisov, as head of the Students’ Association, was particularly
active in this respect, well connected with musicians in the West and able to provide fellow
students with otherwise unavailable scores and recordings. Under his leadership, the Students’
Association became a ‘window on Europe’, introducing students to recordings of still forbidden
works.
Another important figure for composers of Schnittke’s generation was Philipp Hershkowitz
(or Gershkovich, 1906–1989). Hershkowitz was a Romanian-born composer who had studied
briefly with Alban Berg and more extensively with Anton Webern. In 1946, he settled in Moscow
and from the 1950s became a mentor for young composers, a ‘living witness’ to the Second
Viennese School (Smirnov 2003, 69). Hershkowitz was wholly outside the musical establish-
ment – he earned a living editing film scores, while continuing to write and propagate serial
music privately – and acted as an independent mentor to many composers of Schnittke’s gener-
ation. Denisov described him as ‘the anti-secretary of the anti-union of (anti-Soviet) composers’
(Kholopova 2003, 69). Although Hershkowitz was versed in serial technique, his influence on
Schnittke was more aesthetic and philosophical. The Viennese musical culture he brought to
Moscow stretched back to Beethoven, whom he revered for the perfection of his thematic
development. The implicit link that Hershkowitz presented between First and Second Viennese
Schools communicated Schoenberg’s own view on the historical foundations of his theories.
Schnittke also recalled that Hershkowitz taught his followers to be wary of relying too heavily
on serial techniques. ‘What was important was that Hershkowitz was influential, not so much as
a source for techniques, but as a person with a powerful aesthetic instinct, who helped us find
specific and concise characteristics for the artistic side of our work’ (Shulgin 2004, 20).
In 1980, Schnittke recalled that his first ‘12-tone’ movement was composed in 1961
(Hansberger 1982, 205). This probably refers to the fugal second movement of the Concerto
for Electric Instruments (1960), itself an arrangement of a string quartet composed in 1958–1959
(Ivashkin 2003, 259).The movement is both strictly fugal and strictly serial, but the fugal develop-
ment is more accomplished than the serial manipulation.The fugue subject is based on the prime
form of the row, presented three times without transposition. The countersubject is based on the
row in inversion. Transpositions only occur according to the fugal logic, i.e. in ascending fifths in
the exposition, and no retrogrades are employed. Subject and countersubject are fragmented in
the coda, and this is the only section that is not strictly serial. Schnittke said of his earliest serial
experiments that the main difficulty the method posed was in the creation of dynamic forms
(Shulgin 2004, 16). In this movement, the problem was solved by mapping serial practice onto
fugal form, with all the structural decisions dictated by the latter.
In 1963, Schnittke began a two-year period of intensive exploration of serialism. He was
now in a better position to understand the technical minutiae of serial practice as well as its his-
tory, as textbooks from the West were becoming available. Schnittke had a particular advantage
in his native German competency, reading textbooks by Krenek and Eimert, and later texts by
Stockhausen and Ligeti (Kholopova 2003, 70–71). Theoretical debates about modern compos-
itional theory were also at the front of Schnittke’s mind throughout this period through his
5
Eras and techniques
teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, where he discussed composers including Berg, Boulez
and Ligeti (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 22).
But Schnittke was not yet ready to embrace the full rigour or the system: His first two serial
works of that year, the Violin Sonata No. 1 and Prelude and Fugue for Solo Piano, both employ mul-
tiple series. The Violin Sonata No. 1 is particularly cautious in its application of serialism and, in
the first movement, the series only appears in the melody untransposed (Schmelz 2009c, 137)
(although it is used in retrograde to form the piano’s harmonies – the first use of retrograde forms
or chordal voicings of rows in Schnittke’s music).
The following year, Schnittke composed two works that pushed the rigour of the system to
its limits. By this stage, post-war total serialism was coming into play for Soviet composers (in
a 1980 interview, Schnittke used the terms ‘12-tone’ and ‘serial’ to distinguish tone-row seri-
alism from total serialism in music of the early 1960s (Hansberger 1980, 250)), and it had been
discussed – negatively – in a Sovetskaia Muzyka article as far back as 1959. Music for Piano and
Chamber Orchestra and Music for Chamber Orchestra (both 1964) employ integral serial techniques.
In the first work, Schnittke applies serial techniques to pitch, rhythm and texture, although in
non-rigorous ways. The second work employs a more rigorous system for applying serial order
to durations, although it employs a 13-note set.
These two works, and especially Music for Chamber Orchestra, which Schnittke chose not to
include in his works list, caused a brief crisis for the composer, who was unsure where to take his
serial project next. His next major work, Three Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (1965), was based on a
more intuitive approach to pitch organisation. As Schnittke explained, the two Music pieces ‘led
me to the fact that I wanted to write a work completely free from both the technical dogmas of
serial technology and the mechanical dogma of tonal music’ (Shulgin 2004, 42).
Two works from 1966 suggest a new role for serial technique in Schnittke’s music. The
String Quartet No. 1 and Violin Concerto No. 2 were written at the same time (Schnittke
interrupted work on the quartet to meet a commission deadline for the concerto), and both
employ symmetrical tone rows (see Figure 1.1). The symmetry in the two cases is different,
reflective symmetry in the concerto and rotational symmetry in the quartet, but the sym-
bolism is the same. In the quartet, Schnittke seeks symmetry on many levels, and the structure
of the row is complemented by similar symmetries in the structure and counterpoint of the
music. In the Violin Concerto, symmetry and order are linked to the music’s covert narrative.
The work is based on the life of Christ, with the row symbolising his message, the musical
order imposed by serialism now symbolic of virtue, and a musical virtue in its own right. That
attitude may have resulted from a deeper engagement with the work of Anton Webern, who
championed symmetrical rows. The Violin Concerto No. 2 also contains brief applications of
serial rhythm, which have little structural significance, but allude to the Webernian post-war
tradition.
Schnittke’s attitude to serialism in the late 1960s gradually became less utilitarian and more
symbolic. That process began with Improvisation and Fugue (1965), which follows the letter of
serial technique more than the spirit. As Schnittke pointed out, the work is based on an all-
interval series (Shulgin 2004, 43), a property he had also explored in the two Music scores the
previous year (see Figure 1.1). But the serial manipulation is deliberately primitive, with the row
mainly appearing in prime form in the Improvisation. In the Fugue, the row vies for primacy
against a rumba rhythm. The chordal passage from the work’s opening reappears, but with the
accumulating series replaced by clusters. The row becomes a symbol of order rather than a func-
tional structuring device.
By the time of Serenade (1968) and Symphony No. 1 (completed 1971), that symbolism has
become more generalised. Neither uses an all-interval row or a symmetric row – the fact that the
6
Eras and techniques
Figure 1.1 Tone rows from Schnittke’s works as interval classes
row contains all 12 pitch classes is sufficient to denote its status. In Serenade, the serial ordering
competes with aleatoric devices in a clash between order and chaos. In the Symphony No. 1, the-
matic connections, tonal relations and the prime number sequence are as significant as the row
in structuring the music – the row and its serial transformations have become a cultural, even
historical, artifact within the signification system.
A parallel aspect of that symbolism, which also grew in importance for Schnittke in the late
1960s, was the numerological significance of the number 12. In the Violin Concerto No. 2, the
link with the life of Christ is illustrated through the 12 instruments of the string orchestra,
representing the apostles. pianissimo… (1968) is based on a story by Kafka, ‘In the Penal Colony’,
about a torture machine that operates over 12 hours. The number 12 again becomes structur-
ally significant well beyond functional serialism, with the instrumental groups each made up of
12 players, and the score structured as a series of 12 variations. Rhythm series are employed in
both works, extending the 12-part symbolism to the rhythmic structure as much as the pitches.
The ethical significance of the number 12 in the Kafka story effectively reverses that in the New
Testament narrative, suggesting a more abstract symbolism.
In Schnittke’s later music, serial practice is largely abandoned – he said that his last serial work
was pianissimo… , composed in 1968 (Hansberger 1982, 252) – but he continued to employ
melodic presentations of all 12 pitch classes.This idea connects with an important trend in Soviet
serialism. Svetlana Kurbatskaya, following classifications devised by her teacher Yuri Kholopov,
makes a distinction between a ‘technique of 12-tone rows’ and ‘serial technique’ (Kurbatskaya
7
Eras and techniques
1996, 34–36, see also Cairns 2012). While both are series-based compositional strategies, the
‘technique of 12-tone rows’ is not based on a single ordering of the pitch classes: all 12 appear
with equal regularity, but not in an order derived from the serial system. Kholopov identifies this
as a feature of Shostakovich’s late adoption of serialism, and, as Peter J. Schmelz points out, ‘Only
in Russia was there a pervasive tendency to construct pieces with multiple twelve-tone rows that
in fact obeyed none of the traditional Schoenbergian “laws” of twelve-tone music (or if they did,
did so only selectively)’ (Schmelz 2004, 326).
Schnittke continued to privilege 12-note aggregates in his later music, although only as
symbols of completion. In the 1970s, these aggregates were completed through an intuitive
filling in of the pitch space. In the Requiem (1975), Schnittke described how ‘a principle of com-
plementarity applies, within free atonal thinking, where I still ensure that the number of notes
reaches 12 and that they are not repeated before that’ (Shulgin 2004, 80). The fourth movement
of the Symphony No. 2 (1979) returns to the symbolism of the Violin Concerto No. 2. In both cases,
the religious symbolism is reflected in the symmetry of the respective rows, and the four-note
cross representation that begins and ends each (see Representations of the Cross, below). But the
two works differ in the functional status of serial technique, which is fundamental to the Violin
Concerto No. 2, but only applied in the Symphony No. 2 movement through a repeating 12-note
passacaglia theme.
Twelve-tone aggregates also appear in Schnittke’s late works, although the thinking here is
influenced as much by Josef Hauer as by the Second Viennese School (see Late Style below).
Aggregates in these works are usually constructed through repeating pitch patterns, for example
in the Piano Sonata No. 1, movement II, bars 72–76, where a full aggregate is constructed from
alternating tritones and semitones. Such an approach often leads to symmetric rows, often with
transpostionally related hexachords (Honarmand 2019).
Serial practice also retained a symbolic status in Schnittke’s music of the 1980s, especially in
works that address the Austro-German tradition. In the Symphony No. 3 (1981), monograms
representing the names of Austro-German composers are each expanded into separate 12-note
rows. This device allows Schnittke to acknowledge both the extensive use of monograms by
many German-speaking composers, and the role of serialism in the history of Austro-German
music. The finale emphasises the referential status of the tone rows by harmonising them with
tonal triads, the anachronism emphasising historical perspective. Similar historical juxtapositions
are employed in the Concerto Grosso No. 3 (1984–1985), a work commemorating the anniver-
saries of Bach, Handel, Domenico Scarlatti and Alban Berg. In the second movement (as in the
Symphony No. 3), 12-note rows are constructed to begin with monograms based on the names
of the four composers and harmonised with tonal triads. Schnittke emulates Berg’s quasi-tonal
serial structuring. One of the second movement rows employs the hexachordal partitioning of
the row for Berg’s Der Wein, the first half of which, in the Berg, is an ascending D minor scale
(Honarmand 2019, 2). Schnittke also regularly employs the chord sequence D minor–G major,
referencing the first five notes of the row for Berg’s Violin Concerto (Sullivan 2010, 22–25). The
referential status of the rows is emphasised by the absence of serial manipulation (the rows only
appear in prime form): serialism has now become a wholly historical concept, a symbolic refer-
ence to an earlier era.
Sonorism: Ligeti and the Polish school

Serial techniques proved paradoxical for Schnittke, new approaches that offered liberation from
the confines of tonality, but that imposed even greater restrictions in the process. As his interest
in strict serial practice waned, around 1965, he began to explore peripheral aspects of Western
8
Eras and techniques
post-war Modernism, particularly extended performing techniques. Another movement in the

late-1950s also accorded with his maturing musical voice: the exploration of timbre and tex-
ture, the basic acoustical materials of music. These ideas came from several sources. American
composers of the early 20th century, notably Charles Ives and Henry Cowell, had made sig-
nificant advances in texture-based music, and their ideas had reached the Darmstadt School via
Pierre Henry and John Cage. Another school of texture-based composition developed in Poland
during the late 1950s, and Polish music proved particularly influential in Russia. By the late
1960s, Schnittke was also aware of the music of György Ligeti, which synthesised aspects of the
Darmstadt and Warsaw approaches to texture and sonority. Serialism, and mathematical systems
for pitch and rhythm, continued to play an important role in Schnittke’s music, but his focus
gradually shifted towards a greater interest in texture and sonority.
Schnittke’s Violin Sonata No. 1 (1963) introduces new piano techniques, a chromatic cluster
and playing inside the body of the instrument. Both are very limited – only one cluster occurs,
movement I, Fig. 6, and, in the passage where the pianist reaches inside the piano, movement II,
Fig. 34, it is only to damp the strings rather than to play them directly. These ideas can be linked
to the early years of Darmstadt serialism – Boulez had used piano clusters as early as Notations
(1945), and Stockhausen had employed under-the-lid piano playing in Formel (1951). But as
Schnittke became increasingly disillusioned with the limitations of serialism, both techniques
became more prominent. His Three Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (1965) includes two pages of
instructions on how to interpret the under-the-lid techniques in the piano part, and similarly
detailed instructions are given for the second movement of Serenade (1968).
By the mid-1960s, Schnittke was exploring alternatives to serialism. From around 1965, his
aim was to find some kind of ‘unregulated technique’, or to rely instead on ‘pure intonation’.
‘Since that time,’ he recalled, ‘I have begun to pay more attention in my work to the “imme-
diate moment” than to a constructive scheme; I began to feel a kind of “amoralism” in the
fact that a constructive plan was calculated in advance, … reducing [the composer’s] task to
filling in cells of different sizes in accordance with the general plan …’ (Shulgin 2004, 21).
Schnittke looked increasingly to the Polish Sonorist school, a movement that had developed
from the late 1950s, led by composers Krzysztof Penderecki (1933–2020), Witold Lutosławski
(1913–1994) and Henryk Górecki (1933–2010). In contrast to Western serialism, the Sonorist
approach prioritised texture and sound at each specific moment over mathematical ordering
principles. Russian composers of Schnittke’s generation had early exposure to Sonorism, par-
ticularly through the Warsaw Autumn Festival. From 1964, the Polish authorities were actively
disseminating scores and recordings from the Festival to the Soviet Union (Schmelz 2009c, 47),
and in 1967 Schnittke himself attended, for a performance of his Dialogue for Cello and Seven
Instrumentalists (1965).
Schnittke recalled that his first experiments with ‘Polish’ techniques were earlier, when he first
started writing film music in 1963. There, under pressure to create something new, he resorted
to clusters, aleatorics, polyrhythms and ostinato (Ivashkin 2003, 50). Many of these techniques
would recur in Schnittke’s film scores of the 1960s and 1970s, with clusters playing a signifi-
cant role in the soundtracks to Day Stars (Igor Talankin 1968), You and Me (Larisa Shepitko
1971), Ascent (Shepitko 1977) and Agony (Elem Klimov 1974, released 1981), a significant bridge
between his film and concert work.
Although Schnittke only made limited use of aleatoric techniques, they proved totemic, for
the opposition they embodied to the mathematical order of serialism. Dialogue for Cello and Seven
Instrumentalists and the Violin Concerto No. 2 employ Lutosławski’s ‘limited aleatoricism’, with
musical cells enclosed in boxes and repeated in an unsynchronised fashion (see Example 1.2).
For both composers, this was a means to a specific end, creating predetermined textures, but
9
Eras and techniques
Example 1.2 Violin Concerto No. 2, Fig. 41
without precisely notating the details.That distinction came into focus in Serenade (1968), where
the serial ordering of the pitches is in stark contrast to every other aspect of the work’s organ-
isation. Aleatory boxes are again used, and the published score also leaves blank spaces, rather
than empty staves, for silences, a style pioneered by the Polish publisher PWM for Sonoristic
scores. Serialism and aleatory techniques are here presented in opposition, with the latter clearly
dominant.
Schnittke’s larger scores of the late 1960s – Violin Concerto No. 2 (1966), pianissimo… (1968),
Sonata for Violin and Chamber Orchestra (1968, the orchestral version of Violin Sonata No. 2),
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Eras and techniques
and Symphony No. 1 (begun in 1969) – show an increasing alignment with the aesthetics of
Ligeti. However, Schnittke downplayed any direct influence, pointing out that he had not heard
either Atmosphères (1961) or Lontano (1967) when he composed pianissimo… (Shulgin 2004, 26),
and the two composers were both combining ideas from Warsaw and Darmstadt independently
through the mid-60s. Nevertheless, Ligeti was an important influence on a more fundamental
level. Never a serialist himself, Ligeti had been critical of the strict adherence to serial technique,
especially by Boulez. Ligeti’s article ‘Pierre Boulez: Decision and Automatism in Structure Ia’
(Ligeti 1958) was one of the texts on serialism to reach Moscow in the early 1960s. In it, Ligeti
pays ironic tribute to the ordering potential of Boulez’ integral serialism, but also highlights how,
even here, intuitive elements play an important role – a tension that Schnittke would later amp-
lify in his Serenade.
Although Ligeti employed evocative titles for many of his orchestral works, these only suggest
a mood for the music, rather than any specific narrative or reference. Schnittke’s music in the
late 60s, by contrast, was becoming increasingly focused on cultural concepts and associative
themes. But Schnittke’s encounter with Ligeti’s abstraction sparked a brief period of exploration
of acoustical phenomena. One result was Schnittke’s only electroacoustic work, Stream (1969),
created on the ANS synthesiser (see Schmelz 2009b). The ANS can divide the octave into 72
equal steps, and Schnittke uses these increments to emulate the higher partials of the harmonic
series.We hear a single, gradually evolving sound mass, although it is actually constructed through
dense, imperceptible canon. The music’s progression is both timbral and harmonic, growing in
intensity while clarifying in texture and culminating in a pure overtone series of C, before the
process is reversed in a substantial coda. The idea of exploring higher partials of the harmonic
spectrum would return at the opening of the Symphony No. 3 (1981). But, by then, Schnittke
had left behind the abstraction of Stream, with the harmonic series now signifying nature in a
dialogue between nature and culture.
The canonic construction of Stream reflected a similar practice in Ligeti’s orchestral scores of
the 1960s, his micropolyphony. This approach to cluster writing became increasingly prominent
in Schnittke’s orchestral scores of the late 1960s as well. His earlier cluster technique had followed
Polish models, the clusters either static or with the voices moving en masse in parallel glissando,
as in the Violin Concerto No. 2. But the idea of an internally evolving sound mass, constructed
through dense polyphony, was an innovation of Ligeti, soon adopted by Schnittke, albeit through
a wide range of harmonic approaches. In pianissimo… , the pitch and rhythm organisation are
serially determined, with the series applied to progressively expanding intervals. The Concerto for
Oboe, Harp and Strings (1971) employs similarly expanding lines in its micropolyphonic construc-
tion, but with the pitch organisation governed by the prime number sequence. Most radically of
all, Passacaglia (1981) applies the micropolyphonic idea to tonal voice leading, a canon of voice
groups, each group internally organised in traditional four-part harmony, and all within a stable
C major tonality.
Ligeti’s micropolyphonic canon technique became a valuable element of Schnittke’s
polystylistic vocabulary in the 1980s, but with Ligeti’s wholly abstract voice leading replaced by
associative melodic lines. In the Symphony No. 2 (1979) for example, micropolyphonic textures
are constructed from lines derived from Gregorian chant, and in Minnesang (1980–1981), an
unaccompanied choral work for 52 independent voices, similarly complex micropolyphonic
textures are constructed from medieval troubadour songs. In Concerti Grossi Nos. 1–4, lines of
pastiche Baroque counterpoint are combined in dense Schnittke stretto (see below), comprom-
ising the tonal implications of the individual lines, while still alluding to the contrapuntal inter-
play of Baroque toccatas. In the 1970s, Schnittke wrote an article entitled ‘Ligeti’s Orchestral
Micropolyphony’ (Schnittke 2002, 225–28). The article demonstrates how Ligeti’s voice
11
Eras and techniques
leading creates the dense and apparently non-contrapuntal textures in Lontano. But Schnittke
is as interested in what Ligeti avoids – he argues that Ligeti’s approach inherits an ‘aesthetics of
avoidance’ from 1950s serialism. Schnittke’s description inadvertently reveals the key difference
between Ligeti’s micropolyphony and his own. He writes that Ligeti ‘avoids direct topical asso-
ciations’, and that individual lines are ‘deprived of conventional expressive effect’. In Lontano,
each voice begins with a semitone descent, but then returns to the opening pitch. To simply
descend would suggest a sigh, but returning to the initial note neutralises it, ‘a “sigh” is expressive;
“inhaling” and “exhaling” are not’ (Schnittke 2002, 225). In Schnittke’s music of the 1970s and
1980s, individual lines are always expressive, and semantically charged, that significance intensi-
fied through the multiplicity of voices.
Funereal and religious works 1972–1980

In 1972, Schnittke’s mother died unexpectedly, a personal loss that dominated his work for the
next decade. His immediate response was to begin work on a Requiem Mass setting, but the
project proved complex and occupied him for several years. Around the time of the work’s com-
pletion, in 1975, his father also passed away.These events contributed to the composer’s adoption
of the Christian faith, although this too was a gradual process, also influenced by the rising profile
of the Russian Orthodox Church through the 1970s. Two related trends appear in his music of
the time, both linked to the Requiem project. The Requiem began a period of engagement with
the music of the Christian church, with further choral works, as well as instrumental pieces based
on liturgical chant. It also gave rise to Schnittke’s Piano Quintet (1972–1976), based on music
originally composed for the Requiem setting. The Piano Quintet became the first of a series of
mournful instrumental works, subjective and inward-looking, which brought a new depth of
expression to his work.
Funereal works: Schnittke’s quiet period

Even before his mother’s death, Schnittke was turning his attention to commemorative works.
The Concerto for Oboe, Harp and Strings (1970) remembered ‘a number of my friends and relatives
[who] died within a few years’ (Shulgin 2004, 60). In 1971 and 1975 Schnittke wrote Canon in
Memoriam Igor Stravinsky and Prelude in Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich, both paying homage on
a civic level to well-known composers. The works that immediately followed the Piano Quintet,
Violin Concerto No. 3 (1977) and Cello Sonata No. 1 (1978), continued the Piano Quintet’s deeply
expressive and personal style. The three pieces are closely related, even sharing some thematic
material. The connections demonstrate an important element of Schnittke’s new approach,
a desire for unity, both within and between works, and a move away from arbitrary musical
contrasts.
In place of explicit contrast, conflict and resolution were now achieved through shadings of
instrumental colour. In the Violin Concerto No. 3, Schnittke likened the timbral contrasts to day
and night (the solo violin is predominantly accompanied by winds), but said that he was most
interested in the transitions, dawn and dusk, and the shadow play and colour modulation that
could be achieved (Köchel 1994, 95). The movements of each of the three works are joined
together attacca, and each work has the feeling of a single, uninterrupted utterance, with one
movement in each piece simply acting as an introduction (Cello Sonata No. 1) or coda (Piano
Quintet, Violin Concerto No. 3).
Although Schnittke continued to recognise the structural necessity of contrast, he was now
keen to minimise its role.When asked, in 1976, whether he looked more for contrast or similarity
12
Eras and techniques
when formulating a musical structure, Schnittke replied: ‘Similarity. Contrasts interest me more
as connections, or as shocks, in the sense of collage. But now I am more interested in finding a
new technique for integration, not serial or tonal, but still ensuring a form of unity. It must be
original but developed organically. I have not yet achieved this, to be honest.’ His goal was to
demonstrate deeper connections within his musical material. He continued, ‘it seems to me that
the main task of the composer is to permeate everything with a kind of structural unity. Webern
described this as a feeling for something both impossible but essential, allowing everything to
converge’ (Shulgin 2004, 94–95).
This idea appears in a simple form in the Prelude in Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich. The work is
based on monograms derived from the names of Shostakovich and Bach, which gradually merge
into a single utterance. The Piano Quintet employs a broader musical vocabulary, including tri-
adic progressions, chromatic passages and quartertones. But Schnittke explained that he ‘did not
want these different layers of music to contrast in a consciously polystylistic way. The idea was
to combine these layers, to find their connections, not their contrasts’ (Kholopova & Chigareva
1990, 116).
One consequence of this approach was a sense of calmness in Schnittke’s new aesthetic. He
described the Requiem as resulting from ‘a need for quiet, measured, steady music …’ (Kholopova
& Chigareva 1990, 95). Kholopova described the phase as Schnittke’s ‘quiet period’. The goal, in
each work, was to explore the musical material in greater depth, a meditative approach, based on
subtle and abstract associations. For example, the Cello Sonata No. 1 and Violin Concerto No. 3 share
a horn-like figure: it ends the sonata’s first movement and opens the concerto’s third. The music
in both cases evokes the ‘horn fifths’ of Classical symphonies, that idea itself invoking distance,
and made even more remote through the abstract presentation. The harmony contributes to the
sense of ambiguity, vacillating between C major and C minor. Ivashkin writes that Schnittke’s
musical material in these works avoids direct connotation in order to communicate on a more
universal level, the abstract stylistic references connecting with a ‘“genetic well” of memories’.
Ivashkin writes of a ‘Velvet Depth of Meaning’, where a smooth but finely textured musical sur-
face allows a deeper significance to permeate. That meditative quality reflects Schnittke’s feeling
of grief in these years, but is also indicative of the times: at the height of the Khrushchev stagna-
tion, censorship was low key, but pervasive: ‘nothing was possible but everything was important’
(Ivashkin 1996, 126, 134). The growth of the Orthodox Church was also in spite of increasingly
harsh government restrictions, and the idea of an ‘underground’ faith is reflected here in music
that is deeply spiritual but not religious.
Towards the end of the 1970s, Schnittke began to write explicitly religious works, and the
liturgical elements that he introduced sat comfortably with the ‘quiet style’. The Hymns for Cello
and Ensemble (1974–1979) take a meditative approach to the musical language of Orthodox
chant, as does the String Quartet No. 2 (1981). The style also continues in two short chamber
works of the late 70s, Stille Nacht (1978) and Stille Musik (1979), the latter modelled on Webern
and his deep structural unities.The approach also influenced several of Schnittke’s more reflective
film scores of the era, particularly Ascent (Larisa Shepitko 1977) and Leave-Taking (Shepitko,
completed Elem Klimov 1983).
Religious works
Schnittke was interested in religion from an early age, but he had little exposure to any Christian
tradition during his childhood. His parents were atheists, but his maternal grandmother, a
Volga-German Catholic, read the Bible (in German) and was considered a religious authority
within the family. Schnittke’s first exposure to religion was through talking to her, and seeing
13
Eras and techniques
her pray every night (Ivashkin 1996, 21). That distanced engagement with religion resumed
in the mid-1960s, when Schnittke began to read religious texts, as they gradually became
available in the Soviet Union. His interest in religious literature began with Boris Pasternak’s
Doctor Zhivago, which he read in samizdat in 1965 (Ivashkin 2003, 24) (the novel was banned
in the Soviet Union until the 1980s). Schnittke was particularly interested in the appendix
‘The Poems of Doctor Zhivago’, a cycle of poems attributed to the title character, many on
religious themes. For around a decade, this remained primarily an intellectual interest, but from
the early 1970s, with the death of his mother, he began a gradual adoption of the Christian
faith. This was also part of a larger trend in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, with large numbers
of people re-engaging with the religion of their forebears (see Smolkin 2018, Chapter 7). The
movement was reflected in the music of the time, with at least 100 religious works composed in
the Soviet Union in the 1970s (Medić 2017a, 3), including by composers of Schnittke’s gener-
ation Sofia Gubaidulina, Rodion Shchedrin, Nikolai Karetnikov, Nikolai Sidelnikov and, most
significantly for Schnittke, Arvo Pärt. Schnittke was baptised into the Catholic faith in Vienna
in 1982, but retained an equal affiliation to the Orthodox Church, confessing to an Orthodox
priest when in Moscow. His music traces the course of this increasing engagement with the
Christian faith, from works demonstrating an intellectual interest in the late 1960s and early
1970s, through a period of spiritually inspired chant-based works in the late 1970s, to a broader
acceptance of the Christian faith from the mid-1980s, its ethos and traditions now integral to
his musical persona.
The Violin Concerto No. 2 (1966) reflects Schnittke’s intellectual curiosity towards biblical
themes in the 1960s. Cantus perpetuus (1975) also derives its abstract musical form from reli-
gious symbolism, this time drawing on iconography from Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and
Yoga, as well as Christianity. That comparative approach reflects Schnittke’s intensive interest in
world religions in the mid-1970s. Schnittke recalled how he had received a book on cabbala, the
Jewish mystical tradition of interpreting sacred texts through number codes, from Luigi Nono
(Schnittke 2002, 32), and also read widely on the I Ching,Yoga and Anthroposophy. Grigory Frid
remembered visiting the library of the Composers’ Union to read something on Yoga, but was
told, ‘There is nothing on the shelf, Schnittke has everything’ (Kholopova 2003, 115). Der gelbe
Klang (1974), Schnittke’s choreographic setting of a libretto by Wassily Kandinsky, was connected
with the ethos of Anthroposophy, and the first Russian performance was given in 1984 by a
Steiner-oriented group.
Schnittke’s adoption of the Christian faith changed his perspective on each of these religious
traditions. Comparing so many symbolic systems proved overwhelming, and he came to see
much of the iconography, especially of the more esoteric traditions, as overly intellectual and
rational. He grew suspicious of the influence of Rudolf Steiner, and his final verdict on the cab-
bala book from Nono was, ‘The world of the cabbala reminds me of a psychic illness, which is in
essence a continual and critical accumulation of negative experiences’ (Schnittke 2002, 32). But
the Bible was different, and Schnittke continued his intensive study through the 1970s. ‘It affects
me emotionally’, he said (Kholopova 2003, 114), in marked contrast to his more intellectual
engagement with the texts of other religions.
The Requiem marked the start of Schnittke’s explicitly religious phase – its initial presentation
as incidental music for a play was due to state censorship rather than personal reticence.The work
instigated an exploration of historical choral genres, linked with the composer’s new-found faith,
but not exclusive to it: Minnesang (1981) for example, is a choral work based on medieval trou-
badour songs. But the majority of Schnittke’s choral works, from the Requiem up to Lux aeterna
in 1995, set sacred texts and engage with Christian choral traditions and genres.This engagement
14
Eras and techniques
with vocal genres was direct, without commentary or irony, in marked contrast to his use of
instrumental genres.
Religious symbolism also began to appear in Schnittke’s instrumental music, and the most
significant works of the late 1970s – Hymns for Cello and Ensemble (1974–1977), Symphony No.
2 (1979), Concerto for Piano and Strings (1979) and String Quartet No. 2 (1980) – explore themes
and ideas from liturgical music, but with the purely instrumental forces allowing the composer a
degree of abstraction and greater semantic freedom than in sung performance.
Liturgical allusions in instrumental works

The Hymns for Cello and Ensemble were a laboratory for liturgically inspired instrumental
works. Where the Requiem draws on Catholic plainchant traditions, the Hymns are based
on the Znamenny chant of the Orthodox Church. Schnittke had learned a little about
the theory of Znamenny chant from his studies with Evgeny Golubev at the Moscow
Conservatory. His knowledge was later expanded by the publications of Nikolai Uspensky,
particularly The Ancient Russian Art of Singing (1971), which provided the source material
for the Hymns for Cello and Ensemble. The fourth hymn attempts to reconcile the static
nature of chant with the dynamic structure of sonata form. That approach is repeated, on a
larger scale, in the Concerto for Piano and Strings, with Orthodox bell-ringing traditions also
invoked (see below), all within a strict sonata form structure. In the early 1980s, Schnittke
extended these ideas in several directions, with each work taking a different approach to the
constructive tension created between Orthodox chant and the conventions of instrumental
music. In the String Quartet No. 2, genuine hymns, again from the Uspensky collection,
are subjected to radical contrapuntal techniques and instrumental textures. The Symphony
No. 4 (1984) abstracts the modal structure from Orthodox chant and exchanges the modal
characteristics of different liturgical musics. But the work ends with sung counterpoint,
re-establishing a link to liturgical practice. Meanwhile, Schnittke had also begun to take
a greater interest in the Gregorian chant of the Catholic church, which became the basis
of the Symphony No. 2, again with a choir singing the chant sources, which the orchestra
elaborates independently.
As Schnittke became more comfortable with his new-found faith, these religious allusions
became more symbolic allowing theoretical aspects of liturgical music to convey religious and
ethical significance, without the need to invoke the sound of church singing. In the late 1980s,
Schnittke explained how using church music imposed an ethical rigour on his work:
When I included episodes of church music in various of my works, I was quite ser-
ious about what I was doing. I believe that in this respect using genuine or pseudo-
quotations that limit one stylistically is something obligatory. This is not because it
involves a hypocritical demonstration of one’s own humility, but because in essence it
means that one understands the necessity of moral limitations that one is obliged to
impose on oneself.
(Schnittke 2002, 31)
But these ‘moral limitations’ were not applied to the manipulation of liturgical themes in instru-
mental works, where Schnittke continued to exercise considerable freedom. This reflected
another dimension of the composer’s understanding of religious symbolism, his belief that reli-
gion is an integral part of everyday life, allowing a close interaction of sacred and secular. When
15
Eras and techniques
asked, about the ‘Poems of Zhivago’, whether he thought it strange that the collection mixes
poems on gospel themes with poems about everyday life, he replied:
I think that our traditional ideas about the disunity of these two worlds are largely arbi-
trary, these worlds inevitably interact. By convention, we imagine this interaction to be
conservative. But if we mix them vigorously, then perhaps we find what we need. All
that is necessary is that the motivation is genuine.
(Ivashkin 2003, 25)
Representations of the Cross

Musical representations of the cross appear in many of Schnittke’s funereal and religious works of
the late 70s. The idea has roots in the Baroque, particularly the music of Bach, on which Schnittke
models his approach. In the music of Bach, a figure can be identified that represents the cross:
C♯-D♯-C♯-B♯-C♯, often condensed as C♯–D♯–B♯–C♯ or D♯–B♯–C♯ (Eberle 1994, 48–49). It
appears in this last form in the final fugal statement of the Crucifixus of the B Minor Mass, from bar 37.
In Schnittke’s music, this circulatio idea is employed with even greater flexibility. It is transformed into
a cross-shaped formula encompassing a minor third, one form of which spells out the B-A-C-H
monogram. Schnittke also uses it in a more general form, as the four pitches within a minor third,
but in a different order.This form can also resemble the Dies irae chant, a similarity Schnittke exploits.
Another important representation of the cross for Bach is the note C♯, on account of the C
standing for ‘Christ’ and the sharp a sign for a cross – a cross sign was an accepted alternative for a
sharp sign in the 18th century, and only later came to denote double sharp (Eberle 1994, 47–48).
In Bach’s Cantata No. 56, ‘Gladly Shall I Bear the Cross’, for example, the word ‘Kreuz’ (cross) in
the first line of the opening aria is set to the note C♯.
Schnittke added to these Baroque ideas to create a broader range of symbols of the cross. Arvo
Pärt and Sofia Gubaidulina also experimented with cross-motifs at this time, Pärt in his Symphony
No. 3 (1971) and Gubaidulina in In Croce (1979) and Seven Words (1982). Both Schnittke and
Gubaidulina explored texture-based representations, with the horizontal beam appearing as a
single line or small group of instruments mid-way up the score page, and the vertical beam as
a tutti chord intersecting it. The idea of crossing, in the broadest sense, became a symbol for the
cross in Schnittke’s counterpoint. Similar crossings are also achieved through dynamic contrasts,
with two voices beginning with opposing dynamics, crossing, and then crossing back. In its most
abstract manifestation, the cross becomes the basis of symmetries in Schnittke’s music: musical
motifs and harmonies with symmetrically organised pitch sets or non-symmetrical chords
presented in symmetric relations (Medić 2017a, 8–10).
These ideas are first heard in Schnittke’s music in his Violin Concerto No. 2 (1966).The concerto is
modelled on the life of Christ, and its tone row, which has reflective (R) symmetry, begins and ends
with a circulatio motif.The passage from Fig. 41 corresponds with the crucifixion (see Example 1.2).
The solo violin line reprises the concerto’s opening – this is also the recapitulation within the sonata
form – but the woodwind and brass describe cross-patterns, the voices crossing in pairs from high to
low and vice versa.The note C♯, Bach’s other symbol for the cross, is also prominent, as the highest
note at the beginning and end of the wind interjection, and of the piano chord that terminates it.
From the mid-1970s, Schnittke began to include cross motifs in almost every work. In the Requiem,
circulatio figures appear at the opening of the Kyrie (organ) and as the main theme of the Recordare.The
Requiem also includes the cross as a textural figure, with the choral lines in the Dies irae appearing in
simultaneous chromatic inversion, a device also used extensively in Sonnengesang (1976). Magdalina’s
Song (1977) also employs the circulatio figure: the last line of the sixth stanza, ‘The Cross will Tear to
16
Eras and techniques
Example 1.3 (a) Bach Mass in B Minor, Crucifixus, opening; (b) Schnittke Magdalina’s Song, four bars after
Fig. 6 (reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd)
Heaven’ (Budet k nebu rvat’sia etot krest), is set to the pitches G, B♭♭, A♭, B♭ and the last line of the sev-
enth stanza, which includes the words ‘kraiam kresta’ (the ends of the cross), is set to a figure resembling
the chaconne bass of Bach’s Crucifixus (see Example 1.3). The ending of the Violin Concerto No. 3
(1979) is a similar reaching upwards towards a cross figure.The violin plays a high, repeating circulatio
in the final passage, which Schnittke labels in his sketches, ‘CODA – KREUZ’ (see Figure 5.7).
The cross-motif becomes a structural feature in the Piano Quintet (1972–1976). The work
opens with the full five-note version of the circulatio motif, revolving around the symbolic C♯:
C♯–D♯–C♯–B♯–C♯. The five-note motif becomes the basis for the entire five-movement plan,
with the durations and tempos of each movement determined by the rhythms and pitches,
respectively (see Chapter 6). But Schnittke also explores the thematic associations of the motif in
the second movement, linking it explicitly with the B–A–C–H monogram, as the main theme,
and to the Dies irae chant at Fig. 8.
Schnittke’s most comprehensive exploration of the symbolic and structuring potential of the
cross figure is the Symphony No. 2.1 In the sketches for the symphony, the cross idea appears
early on, just as Schnittke was considering the symphony/Mass hybrid. On a page that begins
‘Vielleicht eine instrumentale Messe?’ (Perhaps an instrumental Mass?), the next suggestion is for
a ‘Kreutzgebaut’ (cruciform structure) in the Crucifixus movement. Another page gives a graphic
visual representation of the idea (see Figure 1.2). Schnittke described how the cross image was
applied to the music:
17
Eras and techniques
Figure 1.2 Transcription of sketch for Symphony No. 2 (Juilliard Manuscript Collection SCHN_
COLL_093, reproduced by permission of Jane Gottlieb)
The entire harmonic content of the symphony, as well as its overall form, were constructed
on the principle of the crucifix. How is it possible to build a chord on the basis of a
cross? In this case it means that two non-symmetrical chords are interlinked, but their
link results in symmetry, and this works in horizontal movement again, so that optically
a crucifix is formed. I obeyed this exactly. It was very important for me to discover such
a constructive principle, especially for the Credo. Everything that happens in the vertical
is strictly controlled. Everything must correspond to the principle of the crucifix.
(Eberle 1994, 86–87; translation Ivana Medić)
The Crucifixus movement imitates the passacaglia bass line of Bach’s Crucifixus, which he alluded
to in the vocal line of Magdalina’s Song. This time the reference is more substantial, a passacaglia
based on a 12-note row bass line. As in the Violin Concerto No. 2, this row (see Figure 1.1) has the
cruciform properties of symmetry (rotational, RI, rather than reflective) and of beginning and
ending with a circulatio figure.
Two chamber works with organ from the early 1980s continue to explore cross motifs, the
Two Short Pieces for Organ (1981) and Schall und Hall for Trombone and Organ (1983).The Symphony
No. 4 also includes a circulatio figure at the start of its ‘Lutheran’ theme, but as part of a much more
diverse religious symbolism. But two ideas derived from Schnittke’s cross representations of the
late 1970s continue into his later work: the B–A–C–H monogram and common-mediant chord
progressions, both discussed below.
The circulatio device also continues, but in a more abstract form. It is used as the basis for
melodic lines, moving by stepwise motion, alternating tones and semitones, but with the direc-
tion of movement erratic. The result is an upward or downward stepwise progression, made up
of interlocking circulatio motifs, each note pair the first half of one such motif and second half of
18
Eras and techniques
the last. This idea first appears in the Cello Sonata No. 1 (1978), where it forms the basis of the
cello moto perpetuo in the second movement. In the 1990s, it becomes a recurring element of
Schnittke’s now much-reduced musical vocabulary, for example, Symphony No. 6, movement III.
Common-mediant chord relations

Common-mediant chord pairs are major and minor chords that share the same third (often spelled
enharmonically), i.e. C minor and B major. The link is known as an ‘odnotertsovyi’ relation in
Russian and is also equivalent to the Slide (S) relation in Neo-Riemannian theory. Schnittke
employed the common-mediant chord pairing as a cross representation, as is demonstrated by the
sketches for the Symphony No. 2, where a C major/C♯ minor coupling is one of a group labelled
‘Kreuzakkorde’.2 Schnittke also links the idea with the circulatio cross-motif at the opening of the
Concerto for Piano and Strings (see Example 5.23), where the chords of C minor then C♭ major are
each articulated in a cruciform arpeggio pattern.
Schnittke recalled that he had been introduced to the idea by the music theorist Lev
Mazel, who first described the phenomenon in the late 1950s (Schnittke 2002, 12). The art-
icle Schnittke is referring to (Mazel 1957) was published while Mazel was a professor at the
Moscow Conservatory and Schnittke a student. A prominent early use of the progression, in
the third movement of the Violin Sonata No. 1 (1963), suggests Schnittke may have been aware
of the article at the time. The progression is not emphasised here but used as a means of linking
one statement of the passacaglia theme to the next. Schnittke goes on to cite Mazel’s analyses
of common-mediant progressions in Beethoven and Liszt, specifically Liszt’s Valse oubliée No. 2,
which were published in Problems of Classical Harmony (Mazel 1972).3 Schnittke’s greater interest
in the idea was probably sparked by this publication, as he started employing common-mediant
progressions regularly from 1974, with his Hymn No. 2 for Cello and Double Bass.
Mazel’s discussion of common-mediant progressions begins with a remarkable example from
Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 29, op. 106, a modulation at the end of the Scherzo from B♭ major
to B minor. Mazel goes on to discuss Glinka’s Song of Margarita, where a D in the melodic line
is initially harmonised in B♭ major but is sustained as the harmonies beneath switch to B minor.
His discussion of Liszt’s Valse oubliée No. 2 focuses on a reprise of the main theme, originally in
D♯ minor, but now in D major, with the accidentals altered to match the new harmony, an effect
that also relies on the sixth and seventh degrees coinciding. Mazel concludes:
[t]he effect of the common-mediant chord change is … complex and contradictory.

Indeed, the transition from minor to major is naturally associated with the rise of a note
(or notes), and from major to minor with a fall. Common-mediant progressions create the
opposite relation: functionally significant scale degrees experience chromatic lowering
upon transition to major and rising in the transition to minor. The pitch characterising
the modal character remains unchanged, but is reinterpreted as its opposite; finally, a
contrasting juxtaposition of melodically close but harmonically distant harmonies can
cause a feeling of peculiar and not immediately comprehensible slipping of the tonal
support – the tonal ground moves beneath your feet. All this taken together sometimes
creates the feeling of a magical transformation, introduces a hint of the fantastical.
(Mazel 1972, 376)
The symbolism of common-mediant pairs as a cross motif was of Schnittke’s making, but his use
of the technique highlights all the psychological implications that Mazel describes. Schnittke’s
use of the idea in Hymn No. 2 for Cello and Double Bass resembles the Glinka example in Mazel’s
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Eras and techniques
text, with a mediant note at the top or bottom of the texture sustained while the double-stopped
fifth in the other part slides a semitone to the new harmony.
The common-mediant idea is explored in greater depth in the Piano Quintet, where the
music’s greater tonal focus highlights the modal ambiguities of the technique. As in Hymn
No. 2, a main motif is presented in the opening bars, which is then compromised tonally by a
common-mediant pairing (bars 5 and 6). The work also superimposes common-mediant chords,
for example, movement III, bar 16, a possibility not discussed by Mazel.
This sonority, of superimposed common-mediant triads, comes to the fore in the Concerto
for Piano and Strings. The harmonic language of the work is broadly tonal, but choral allusions
also link it to the sound of densely voiced, heterophonic chant (see Example 5.24). Schnittke
increases the harmonic density through superimposed common-mediant triads, which appear
regularly throughout, and almost continuously in the development section (Figs. 14–23).
Other tonal implications of the technique are employed in the String Trio (1985). Sketches for
the work suggest that Schnittke returned to the idea while experimenting with I Ching trigrams,
where a common mediant with changing tonic and dominant can be expressed as three parallel
lines, the top and bottom of which are split, and the middle continuous (see Figure 6.5). Many of
the psychological effects that Mazel describes are employed. The work’s three violent outbursts
give the impression of ‘the tonal ground [moving] beneath your feet’. The chordal progressions
here (first example movement I, Fig. 15) are minor chord – common-mediant major – relative
minor – common-mediant major etc. The effect that Mazel identifies (and Schnittke cites)
in Liszt, of revoicing the main theme to its common-mediant key, occurs at the start of the
first-movement development (Fig. 20). Mazel also cites another example, the Tarantella from
Prokofiev’s Children’s Pieces, op. 65. He says that the idea comes from a ‘desire to give a vivid
juxtaposition of major and minor (as tonalities or as triads) in situations where it is also desirable
to maintain the median pitch’ (Mazel 1972, 378) – in Schnittke’s case the first and highest note
of the theme: B♭. Most significantly, the structure of Schnittke’s first movement is built around a
common-mediant pairing, beginning in G minor and ending in F♯ major – the latter now taking
the structural role of the dominant.
As tonality became more firmly established in Schnittke’s music of the mid-1980s, another
aspect of common-mediant relations became important, the ability to move from the seem-
ingly corporeal world of the home key to a more dreamlike world in the common-mediant key.
Mazel writes:
Sometimes, with a common-mediant relation, one of the keys is associated with the
illusory, unreal or fantastical, existing only in the imagination, or in distant memory.
Sometimes, the non-primary tonality is perceived in such cases as a mirage or hallu-
cination, and a swift transition back to the main tonality is like its disappearance, dis-
sipation, a return to reality. There is an element of this effect in the reprise from Liszt’s
Valse Oubliees [No. 2].
(Mazel 1972, 377)
Schnittke employs this effect to move into an illusory world, but rarely re-establishes the pre-
vious stability or reality. An early example is found in the Piano Quintet, movement III, 2 bars
before Fig. 8 (see Example 1.4), where an emphatic fff piano chord of A♭ major is followed by
a ppp, con sordino, non-vibrato A minor chord in the strings, a chilling and disorientating effect. A
similar effect is employed in the Choir Concerto, movement I, Fig. 3, to set the words, ‘mysterious,
omniscient, frightening’. The progression heightens the sense of mystery and disorientation, a
purely psychological phenomenon for Mazel, but a mystical one for Schnittke. The paradox of
20
Eras and techniques
Example 1.4 Piano Quintet, movement III, Fig. 7
minor-key pitches falling rather than rising in the move to major is emphasised here, with the
soprano lines dropping in register in the move from C♯ minor to C major. Kholopova writes
that this ‘reveals the antithesis within the text, and gives it perspective, not only spatial, but also
spiritual’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 239).
The most subtle application of this psychological effect comes in the ending of the Violin
Concerto No. 4 (1984). The main tonality is F♯ major, but in the closing pages, a G minor tonality
is ‘inlaid’ within the orchestral textures (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 225). This continues the
paradox of the preceding cadenza visuale, an illusory world – imagination or a distant memory –
still intruding onto the perceptible reality of the home key.
As with the circulatio motif, common-mediant relations continued to appear in Schnittke’s
music through the 1980s and 1990s, more rarely, although still retaining religious connotations.
Piano Sonata No. 1 (1987) and Piano Sonata No. 2 (1990–1991) both include chorale passages,
with common-mediant chord progressions. Again, Schnittke employs the ‘magical transform-
ation’ property of the formula to evoke religious transcendence, but he can do so sparingly in
music not saturated with religious imagery, as his works of the 1970s had been. The opening
of the second movement of Piano Sonata No. 1 also employs a common-mediant progression,
interpolated with [0,1,6,7] sonorities (see below).This is a particularly clear example of the effect
that Mazel describes of voices rising, despite moving from major to minor. The paradox creates
a sense of stasis, which neutralises the affirmative connotations of the ascending melodic line.
Bells
The sound of bells, real or imitated, is a feature of Schnittke’s music throughout his career. Bells
are a staple of Russian classical music, an element of the Russian vernacular in which Schnittke
worked. However, as he turned towards the Christian faith in the 1970s, Schnittke’s use of bell
sounds changed, becoming more aligned with traditions of Russian Orthodox bell ringing. The
sound of bells also continues into his later career, still conveying a spiritual dimension, but in a
more abstract way and within a broader semantic framework.
21
Eras and techniques
Bell sounds appear in Schnittke’s orchestral scores of the 1960s and early 1970s as signals for
opening and closure, a typically Russian idea. This imbues each work with a sense of ritual,
derived from Christian liturgy, but still abstract. In the Violin Concerto No. 1 (1957, revised 1962),
the first movement ends with a violin cantilena accompanied by repeating bell chimes from the
piano and xylophone. The result is a solemn sense of closure, not overtly religious, but given
more gravitas by the distant association with church bells. Symphony No. 1 begins and ends with
a satirical exaggeration of the framing bells of Russian tradition, with a percussionist coming on
to an empty stage and ringing a loud and disorganised peal on the tubular bells, f ad libitum, quasi
improvisato. This gesture sets the stage for an interplay of sacred and secular throughout the work
(see Adamenko 2017).
Schnittke’s increasing engagement with Christian liturgical traditions in the late 1970s led to a
greater role for bell sounds in his music. As part of the anti-religious campaign under Khrushchev
1958–64, a decree was issued in 1961 by the USSR Council of Ministers instructing provincial
governments to suppress church bell ringing (Pospielovsky 1987, 149). So, by the late 1970s, the
sound of church bells had become a historical memory for Russia’s Christians. Nevertheless, sev-
eral of Schnittke’s works from this period imitate the sound of Russian Orthodox bell ringing
very closely. Schnittke’s evocations of Orthodox bell ringing emulate the repeating patterns,
often unsynchronised, and the fact that the higher bells ring faster patterns than the lower bells.
The effect is presented in simple textures in the piano part of the Piano Quintet (see Example 1.4),
with a low bass chiming, at two different speeds. The Concerto for Piano and Strings comes even
closer to the sound and technique of Orthodox bell ringing. The solo piano emulates the sound
of church bells almost throughout, but the evocations are particularly specific at the opening and
in the cadenza. In the cadenza, Fig. 33 (see Example 1.5(c)), the piano recreates the sound of the
three bell groups of Orthodox tradition, the Zazonny (soprano), Podzvonny (alto) and Blagovestnik
(bass), all ringing repetitive cycles at different speeds.The concerto also employs Orthodox chant,
an approximation of the hymn Gospodi, spasi nas (see Example 5.24). Schnittke sets this in the
strings, with bell chimes in the piano above. But the repeated, homophonic chords of the chant
and the ringing are very similar (the tubular bell part in Hymn No. 3 for Cello and Ensemble also
exploits this similarity).
In Schnittke’s later orchestral works, bells return to the role of signifiers for opening and
closure, but retain much of the Christian symbolism they had acquired in the late 1970s. The
three chords that open and close Symphony No. 4 (1984) (Example 5.9) clearly evoke the sound
of bells, but in an abstract way that accords with the ritualistic, although not liturgical, nature of
the work. Bell sounds at the endings of Symphonies No. 6 (1992) and 8 (1993–1994) also suggest
the ending of a liturgical ritual. In both works, the bell sounds give closure to a musical discourse
that is spiritual but without any specific links to religion. The sound of bells within the orchestra
also contributes a spiritual dimension to the endings of many of Schnittke’s later concertos:
Violin Concerto No. 4, both cello concertos, as well as Cello Sonata No. 2 (1994). In these cases,
the personal and subjective voice of the solo instrument is offered a spiritual support for its tran-
scendent conclusion.
The actual instruments used to evoke the sound of bells include metallic percussion of all sizes,
usually tuned. Tubular bells create the most specific evocation, but more abstract representations
are achieved with vibraphone (Sonnengesang, Concerto for Piano Four Hands), harpsichord
(Symphony No. 2) or harp (Violin Concerto No. 4). But the most practical and adaptable instrument
for bell sounds proved to be the piano, an idea with roots in Stravinsky’s Les noces. The sound of
bells permeates Schnittke’s piano writing. In Variations on a Chord (1965), the pitch organisation
system is introduced in bell chimes, and one of the variations is marked Quasi campane (Example
1.5b). Schnittke described the ending of his next piano work, Improvisation and Fugue (1965)
22
Eras and techniques
Example 1.5 Bell sounds in Schnittke’s piano writing: (a) Improvisation and Fugue, ending; (b) Variations on
a Chord, opening; (c) Concerto for Piano and Strings, Fig. 33; (d) Piano Sonata No. 2, movement III, bars 85–91
as a sound of ‘chaotic bells’ (Shulgin 2004, 44), a repeated tinkling figure in the piano’s highest
register. From the 1970s, Schnittke often used extended techniques or prepared piano for bell
effects. In Magdalina’s Song the pianist plucks the strings to create bell sounds for the whole
of the first section. The prepared piano is introduced in Concerto Grosso No. 1 – substituting
the harpsichord, which Schnittke had originally chosen for the opening and closing bell sounds.
23
Eras and techniques
The prepared piano is also employed for bell chimes in the Violin Concerto No. 4. Bells also return
in Schnittke’s late piano music, as in the 1970s, still closely aligned with evocations of choral
music. The Piano Sonata No. 2 ends with a quiet chorale (bar 75) followed by two, even quieter,
bell chimes (see Example 1.5(d)). The bell sounds are serene, although the harmonies are highly
dissonant – the last chord a [0,1,6,7] collection (see below). The effect looks back to the ending
of Improvisation and Fugue, but Schnittke’s religious experiences of the intervening years have
softened the message: the bells remain, but the chaos has been tamed.
Polystylism 1968–1991
Polystylism – the deliberate mixing of musical styles from different genres and eras – was
the defining innovation of Schnittke’s career. In the 1970s and 1980s, Schnittke added a new
semantic dimension to his work through stylistic links to other music, evoked through quotations
or allusions. The idea was not unique to Schnittke, and when he began experimenting with the
new approach in the late 1960s, similar ideas had recently been explored by Rodion Shchedrin
(Piano Concerto No. 2, 1966), Boris Chaikovsky (Symphony No. 2, 1967), Sofia Gubaidulina (Piano
Sonata, 1965) and Arvo Pärt (Collage on B-A-C-H, 1964; Pro et contra, 1966) (Smirnov 2002, 2).
In a paper delivered in 1971, ‘Polystylistic Tendencies in Modern Music’ (Schnittke 2002,
87–90), Schnittke discussed earlier precedents for his approach, citing Shostakovich, Henze,
the Second Viennese School and, above all, Stravinsky as significant models.4 In fact, Schnittke
concedes that the concept is relevant to almost all eras, ‘But should one use the term polystylistic
in connection with the fantastic play of temporal and spatial associations inevitably evoked by any
music?’ In a later interview (1988), Schnittke cited precedents as early as Guillaume de Machaut,
who mixed themes from different sources in his parody Masses, ‘What is that? The polystylism
of the 14th century’ (Köchel 1994, 20). But, as the ‘Polystylistic Tendencies’ essay demonstrates,
Schnittke’s formulation of polystylism grew out of an increasing frustration with serialism, and
he describes the ‘neo-academic crisis of the 1950s and the purist tendencies of serialism …’ as
important preconditions for polystylism.
For Schnittke personally, the mid-1960s were a time of increasing artistic crisis, as these ‘purist
tendencies’ in his serial concert music were at odds with his increasingly successful career in film.
He began to lose his confidence in serial technique, especially for its compromise of spontaneity.
The result, from around 1967, was a feeling of schizophrenia, ‘it seemed to me that it was unfair
to be so completely “dirty” in the cinema and completely “clean” in my serial technique … I
began to mix cinema and non-cinema music, pushing together (stalkivat’ lbami) the two sides of
my personality’ (Barankin 1999, 66).
Two works from 1968 were pivotal, Serenade and the Violin Sonata No. 2. That year, Schnittke
had written the music for Andrei Khrzhanovsky’s cartoon film The Glass Harmonica, itself a
polystylistic montage, with figures from Renaissance paintings cut out and animated together.
Quotations from the score appear in both the Serenade and the sonata, the first of many con-
cert works by Schnittke to quote his film scores. The Serenade also includes brief quotations of
Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Rimsky-Korsakov. But the primary tension is between aleatoric
freedom (the work is played without conductor, the players synchronised through ad hoc gestures)
and serialism, on which the composer still relies. Schnittke described the Serenade as a ‘depiction
of banality’ (Shulgin 2004, 52), and the quotations and self-quotations all contribute to a sense
of absurdist humour, propelled and enlivened by a dance-like character reflected in the title. The
Violin Sonata No. 2 is based on similar conflicts but rendered in more abstract terms by the
brevity of the quoted material. The Glass Harmonica music is represented only by the B-A-C-H
monogram, harmonised with Romantic harmonies, and the concept of tonality is otherwise only
24
Eras and techniques
represented through maniacally repeating G minor chords. The sound world is otherwise avant-
garde, so an emphatic stylistic contrast is achieved through the use of these brief tonal elements.
These ideas gradually came into focus with the Symphony No. 1 (1969–1972). The concep-
tion of the symphony was closely linked with another film project, Mikhail Romm’s And Still I
Believe… (completed by Romm’s students in 1975, after his death). The film is a documentary
about the modern world, and Schnittke aimed for a similarly documentary quality in the sym-
phony, with quotations linking the music to the modern, everyday world, and to our contem-
porary understanding of musical history. The symphony acts as a manifesto for polystylism, in
conjunction with the contemporaneous ‘Polystylistic Tendencies’ essay. It also relates back closely
to the Serenade and Violin Sonata No. 2, continuing the absurdist comedy of the former, and, as
in the sonata, using the stylistic heterogeneity to compromise and question the generic form.
After these early experiments, Schnittke pulled back from the radical heterogeneity of the
Symphony No. 1, and his music of the mid-1970s was dominated by funereal and religious
works. Works based on stylistic interaction continued, but mostly on a smaller scale, as Schnittke
explored two possible directions that the Symphony No. 1 suggested. The first was to write music
derived wholly from quoted material, which he continued in the Moz-art series (1975–1980),
based on an unfinished pantomime score by Mozart, and Minnesang (1981), a choral work based
on troubadour songs. The second approach, which would later predominate, was to avoid direct
quotation completely and evoke the music of the past through stylistic allusion. This approach
was facilitated by his film scores, which often included historical pastiche, and which he began to
quote in his concert music: Suite in the Old Style (1972) and Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1977) are both
derived from multiple film scores. Some projects mixed the two approaches, such as the cadenza
to the first movement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (1975) and the String Quartet No. 3 (1983),
but this became increasingly rare.
The move to stylistic allusion, rather than direct quotation, was also motivated by a desire to
emphasise connections rather than contrasts. Comparing the quotations in the Symphony No. 1
with the stylistic allusions in the contemporaneous Suite in the Old Style, Schnittke commented
that the Symphony No. 1 ‘needed to depict a fairground atmosphere. This needed a documentary
character, and quotations needed to be highlighted in order that they would be recognised’. In
the Suite, ‘quotations do not need to be recognised, but need to create links between different
times and musical epochs’. Hence, the music is made up of ‘pseudo-quotations’, which, when
heard in new contexts, can create ‘a new aesthetic experience – sometimes shock, sometimes
bewilderment and sometimes an unexpected understanding of links between different stylistic
epochs’ (Ivashkin 2003, 210–11).
That focus on connections was linked to Schnittke’s growing personal desire to understand his
own cultural background. His family roots were broad, his mother German-speaking and from
a Catholic background, his father also German-speaking but Jewish. Several of Schnittke’s works
of the 1980s explore this diverse lineage, using increasingly abstract stylistic allusions to create a
generalised impression of each cultural identity, and approaching musical reconciliation through
their harmonious interaction or close stylistic alignment. Schnittke’s German side proved the
most interesting and immersive and was explored in depth in the Symphony No. 3 (1981) and
Concerto Grosso No. 2 (1981–1982) and Concerto Grosso No. 3 (1985). Austrian culture also became
an important focus, partly for the two formative years that the composer had spent in Vienna in
1946–1948. As a result, the music of Alban Berg became an important focus, especially in the
Symphony No. 3 and String Trio (1985), as did Gustav Mahler. Mahler’s example was significant,
not least for the personal connection that Schnittke felt for a fellow German-speaking Jewish
composer. Schnittke also saw his polystylism anticipated in Mahler’s symphonies. As a precursor
to musical postmodernism, Mahler had already been the subject of similarly postmodern works
25
Eras and techniques
by Lukas Foss (Timecycle, 1960), George Rochberg (String Quartet No. 3, 1972), Luciano Berio
(Sinfonia, 1968–1969) and Jan Klusák (Variations on a Theme of Mahler, 1960–1962), the last two
discussed in articles by Schnittke written in the 1970s. Schnittke went on to explore Mahler’s
legacy, and quote his music, in the Piano Quartet and Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5
(both 1988). Meanwhile, the different religious traditions from which Schnittke’s family had
come (despite his parents’ atheism), as well as Orthodoxy and Lutheranism, are explored in the
Symphony No. 4 (1984), one of the few works to combine Schnittke’s growing interest in litur-
gical music with the cultural interactions of polystylism.
When Schnittke’s music began to be heard in the West, from the early 1980s, it was under-
stood within the framework of Postmodernism. But this classification is problematic, for the
cultural distance between the Western philosophy of the 1960s and the artistic environment in
Russia at the time. Ivana Medić argues that Schnittke’s later polystylistic music, as well as con-
temporaneous works by Boris Tishchenko and Valentin Silvestrov (their respective Symphonies
No. 5, 1976 and 1980–1982), can be better understood as examples of ‘meta-pluralism’. The
pluralism of Schnittke’s earlier quotation-based works has been transcended with his more subtle
use of stylistic allusion. His aesthetic has moved beyond simple juxtaposition, and yet continues
to be based in stylistic plurality. The concept of meta-pluralism also acknowledges how Soviet
composers of Schnittke’s generation reacted to the homogenising and ahistorical impulses of
Socialist Realism, as opposed to the high Modernism against which Western Postmodernism was
formulated. Medić writes that this group of meta-pluralist composers ‘shared a common urge to
(re)establish the historical continuum, to (re)engage with various traditions and to (re)assess their
own historical positions’ (Medić 2017c, 142).
Representations of evil: popular music and the banal

Schnittke’s religious experiences of the 1970s had a profound influence on his polystylism. Moral
connotations were often associated with particular styles, and the structure of works often played
out as a conflict between good and evil. In the late 1970s, Schnittke came to associate evil with
the banal, which he demonstrated in his music through references to popular music styles.
Musical conflicts between good and evil appear in much of Schnittke’s earlier music, but are
signified in different ways. In his unfinished opera The Eleventh Commandment (1962), negative
images in the story are associated with serial techniques and dissonance, while positive images
are supported by traditional tonal writing. By the Violin Concerto No. 2 (1966), the ethical status
of serialism has been reversed: good is associated with the order imposed by serial technique, and
the work is based on a symmetrical series. But the association of evil with dissonance and dis-
order remains. The strings represent the disciples, while the winds represent opponents and
oppressors. The contrast is reflected in their relative orderliness, with the winds made to sound
more chaotic through aggressive interjections and limited aleatory techniques.
When Schnittke began to introduce religious evocations into his instrumental works, these
were often contrasted with aggressive and mechanistic textures, another conflict of good and evil.
In the Cello Sonata No. 1 (1978), a chorale theme in the first movement is immediately countered
by moto perpetuo textures at the start of the second. In the Piano Sonata No. 1 (1987), a similar
tension plays out, but in reverse, with an aggressive and impersonal repeating-note figure resolved
by the peaceful, consonant and religiously evocative chorale that ends the movement.
Another musical manifestation of evil developed from Schnittke’s interest in the Faust legend:
the idea that Mephistopheles has no fixed identity of his own but erodes the identities of others.
This idea relates to the dynamics of order and chaos in earlier works but allows Schnittke to
create more specific presentations of evil through the erosion of the identity of musical themes.
26
Eras and techniques
This approach is explored in the Faust Cantata and Symphony No. 3 (both 1983, see Chapter 5
for more on the process of thematic erosion in the third movement of Symphony No. 3). The
idea of a duality of good and evil is also presented in the Symphony No. 3 in the relationship of
its inner movements; the third movement is presented as a distorted and dissonant version of the
second. The Septet (1981–1982) is based on a similar duality but in reverse: the two numbered
movements are of similar scale, but where movement I moves between moto perpetuo and dance
rhythms – waltz and tango – movement II is a gentle and orderly chorale.
Popular dance forms became linked with evil in Schnittke’s music through his perception of
popular culture as banal, and therefore an impediment to spiritual freedom. When asked about
the link between popular music and evil in his music, Schnittke replied:
Nowadays what is often called ‘pop culture’ is the most direct manifestation of evil in
art. Evil in a general sense. Because evil has a localized coloration. Every locality shares a
common tendency of its people to stereotype thoughts and feelings, and set patterns are
the symbol of this process. Rather like canned food or a pill with a guaranteed effect,
these are part of pop culture. And this is the greatest evil: the paralysis of individuality,
making everyone like everyone else. The product itself, the cause of all of this, is itself
part of pop culture.
The role of deliberately banal references to popular culture was codified in the Concerto Grosso
No. 1 (1977), a work dominated by Baroque pastiche, but also with prominent tango episodes.
Schnittke wrote that the concerto grosso was conceived from a desire to unify serious and enter-
tainment (Ernst and Unterhaltung) music. But, in order not to be constrained by the banality of
the latter, the composer must distance himself from the popular styles he employs. ‘An artist has
only one possible way of avoiding manipulation – he must use his own individual efforts to rise
above materials that are taboo, materials used for external manipulation’ (Schnittke 2002, 45). In
another text on the Concerto Grosso No. 1, Schnittke writes that ‘the “objective force of the banal”
should be strongly present throughout, similar to in Thomas Mann’s Tonio Kröger’ (Köchel 1994,
100). Mann’s novella is the story of a writer who comes to realise that, in order to reflect everyday
life, the artist must stand apart from its banalities, even while acknowledging their attraction and
comfort (Schmelz 2021, 171–72).
The writings of Nikolai Gogol provided another important model for artistic representations
of the banal. In 1978, Schnittke wrote incidental music for The Census List, a play based on
Gogol’s short stories. The music was later adapted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky into the ballet
Sketches (1985). Schnittke was only tangentially involved in the ballet, but the way that it reimaged
the scenario – broadly similar to the play, but inevitably more abstract in choreographic form –
brought Schnittke to a new understanding of the banal elements, both of Gogol’s stories and of
the music he had written for them. He explained:
In general, I consider some of the consciously amassed banalities in Sketches to be

fundamentally important. Why? Because all devilry – and many of Gogol’s plots are
connected with devilry – the whole area of the demonic, is not associated with the
exotic, but with the banal, the refuse, the grubby, the tattered and obsolete. This is
the tendency of all devilry, which from it, becomes worse. Of course, we can guess at
something mysterious and transcendental behind all this, but it is the juncture of the
transcendental and the banal that is usually the essence of devilry. And if you write
music for a story by Gogol, then this is inevitable, as Gogol himself resorted to this …
27
Eras and techniques
his use of the banal as wholly legitimate material – all this, of course, influenced me to
the greatest extent.
(Ivashkin 1985, 23)
This retrospective understanding by Schnittke of the role of popular styles in his music of the
1970s masks an initial uncertainty. In the Symphony No. 1, he had included a jazz improvisation
episode in the second movement, although without any specific connotation of evil. Similarly, in
the Requiem, the Credo includes a passage accompanied by a driving rock beat from a drum kit.
Again, the ethical implications are unclear, although the drum kit and electric guitars were also
used in one of the songs in Don Carlos, the staging in which the Requiem was first performed,
titled ‘Evil Monarchs’. Electric lead and bass guitars would become staples of Schnittke’s orchestra
in the 1980s, creating a more generalised evocation of popular music: a kind of ‘shadow’ con-
tinuo group (Ismael-Simental 2017, 46 fn).
A more specific invocation of banality is created by the tango episodes in the Concerto Grosso
No. 1. The tango theme had originally been written for the film Agony (1974, released 1981).
The film is about Rasputin, and the tango is associated with his malign influence. Although the
tango has little connection with turn-of-the-century St Petersburg, its character suits Rasputin
– seductive, but with malign undertones.
The tango has traditional associations with death (the Tango de la muerte), making it an ideal
component for Schnittke’s evocations of evil. The link is made explicit in the climax of the
Faust Cantata, where Faust’s final damnation is accompanied by an increasingly frenzied tango
theme. Schnittke cited several precedents for this episode. In Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus,
in Leverkühn’s Apocalypse Cantata, on which Schnittke’s cantata is partly based, dark forces are
invoked through popular music (see Chapter 3). Schnittke recalled a dispute with the composer
Nikolai Karetnikov (1930–1994), who was working throughout these years on his magnum opus,
the opera The Mystery of Paul the Apostle (1972–1987). Like the Faust Cantata, the opera has a
quasi-liturgical atmosphere, but represents the death of Nero with a tango. Karetnikov showed
Schnittke the unfinished score of the work. ‘Later Karetnikov was absolutely convinced that the
tango I used in the Concerto Grosso No. 1 was there because of his influence. And when, even
later, he heard the tango in my Faust, he regarded it as direct plagiarism.’ Schnittke countered this
charge by pointing out that Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera contains a similarly cynical tango,
as does Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (Schnittke 2002, 15–16).
In the late 1980s, Schnittke looked to the music of Mahler as a model for several of his large-
scale orchestral works, including Mahler’s use of dance styles to create ironic banality. In both
the Violin Concerto No. 4 (1984) and the Viola Concerto (1985), we hear banal melodies, a recur-
ring sarabande in the Violin Concerto and, in the Viola Concerto, a series of insipid and grotesque
‘burlesque’ episodes in the second movement. As in Mahler’s symphonies, the effect of these is
to temporarily suspend the musical argument and briefly move into a world of unreality. This
Mahlerian banality is even more explicit in the Symphony No. 7 (1993).The symphony concludes
with a previously heard chorale theme, now transformed into a menacing waltz. At the end, the
waltz gradually evaporates into silence, as if the banality itself has finally overcome the symphonic
discourse (see Example 5.14).
In the early 1990s, Schnittke took a greater interest in music for the stage – ballets, operas and
a return to incidental music for theatre. In these contexts, dance forms could again be employed
to invoke evil, especially when incorporated into the narrative. All three of Schnittke’s mature
operas employ banal dance themes to illustrate dark forces. The tango from Agony was again
used in the opera Life with an Idiot (1990–1991), the entire scenario of which plays on the nega-
tive connotations of absurdity and the banal. The Faust opera (completed 1994) uses the earlier
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Eras and techniques
Faust Cantata, but with the climactic tango episode now fully staged. And in Gesualdo (1994), the
adulterous seduction scene (Tableau II) is accompanied by a tarantella, a fitting substitute for the
tango, given its associations with courtship and danger, and also its stylistic links to Renaissance
Italy. In Schnittke’s final film score, The Master and Margarita (1993), the ball scene resembles
that of Agony, requiring background dance music, but with demonic undertones, to represent
Walpurgis Night. Schnittke again employs overt banality, quoting Ravel’s Bolero.
Bach and the Baroque

While allusions to popular music became a shorthand for evil in Schnittke’s polystylistic music,
references to Baroque music, and particularly Bach, became representations of good, although
in a similarly nebulous sense, ranging from the orderly to the divine. This tension, between
representations of popular music and representations of the Baroque, is heard most clearly in the
first two concerti grossi (1977, 1981–1982), which both contain passages where the two are over-
laid. In the Concerto Grosso No. 1, the tango in the fifth movement is interrupted by a Baroque
duet on the solo violins at Fig. 15. In the Concerto Grosso No. 2, the first movement begins as a
pastiche of the Brandenburg Concertos, but from Fig. 3, this Baroque continuum is overlaid with
jazz drumming and electric guitars.
Schnittke rarely quotes Bach directly, but his Baroque textures usually relate back to Bach’s
music. In fact, Bach and the Baroque are effectively interchangeable in Schnittke’s semantics.
When asked about his approach to the concerto grosso, Schnittke replied that his treatment of
the form was purely German. ‘They are not Italian at all. They are based more on the type of
concerto grosso that has come down to us through Bach than on the concerti grossi of Vivaldi
or Corelli’ (Ivashkin 2003, 54).
The same holds true for all of Schnittke’s Baroque stylings, which are often linked to Bach
explicitly through the B–A–C–H monogram, and which never stray far from his stylistic model.
Bach had a deep significance for Schnittke, and Schnittke considered Bach’s work to be the
mostly purely spiritual in the history of music. He said, ‘Bach’s music produces its own form of
physical effect, although not one of loudness or harshness. In fact, one could call it a spiritual
effect’ (Schnittke 2002, 9). He felt connections to Bach on personal, spiritual and cultural levels.
‘Bach is now at the centre of everything for me’, Schnittke said in the late 1980s, his music a
‘distant, unattainable ideal’ (Ivashkin 2003, 36). On a personal level, Schnittke looked back to
his Volga German roots. The Volga Germans left the German lands in the 18th century, and
so Schnittke felt a strong personal connection to this period of German musical history. As a
result, evocations of Bach’s music in Schnittke’s works carry connotations of holiness, purity and
personal fulfilment.
Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism provided a valuable model for Schnittke’s stylistic alignment with
Bach. Despite Schnittke’s veneration for Bach, he recognised that he could not simply imitate
his music, ‘… Bach … is number one for me. But I must not imitate Bach … I must not imi-
tate anyone, I must remain just as I am’ (Ivashkin 2003, 155). The subtle distancing techniques
in Stravinsky’s neo-Baroque music helped Schnittke to maintain this distance. In Schnittke’s
Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5 (1988), the concerto grosso first movement is made up of
Baroque textures, but its sound is more modern, thanks to ideas taken from Stravinsky, the pre-
dominance of woodwind and brass over strings in the orchestra and occasional asymmetric bars
to break up the metric flow.
Schnittke first employed Baroque pastiche in his early film scores of the 1960s. Baroque-
sounding themes, and prominent harpsichord, help to underline the absurdity of the humour in
Elem Klimov’s Adventures of a Dentist (1965) and Sport, Sport, Sport (1971), especially as both films
29
Eras and techniques
have modern-day settings. Conversely, Schnittke’s score for the film Day Stars (1968) culminates
with an extended quotation from Air on the G-String, to accompany a scene at a war memorial –
this time genuine Bach conveying genuine emotion.
The harpsichord also entered Schnittke’s orchestra via his film work. Music from Adventures
of a Dentist was reused in Symphony No. 1 and retained the harpsichord accompaniment. From
then on, harpsichord featured in almost every one of Schnittke’s orchestral scores. Its role in the
Concerti Grossi Nos. 1–5 is clear, as each makes reference to Baroque music and accommodates
the harpsichord as continuo or soloist. But in the symphonies, the harpsichord has a more subtle
role, similar to the electric guitars, although conveying the opposite significance. Schnittke often
integrates the harpsichord into tutti textures, with little concern for its symbolism. But he also
uses it occasionally for brief Baroque interjections in stylistically alien contexts, such as in the
second movement of the Symphony No. 7 – a brief reminder of the Bachian undercurrents in
Schnittke’s musical psyche.
Schnittke’s religious works of the late 1970s and early 1980s often draw on specific elements
of Baroque musical rhetoric, again with a strong focus on those used by Bach. The lamento motif
of a falling minor second, associated with grief and sadness in Bach’s music, plays a similar role in
many of Schnittke’s ‘quiet period’ works, beginning with the opening theme of the Piano Quintet.
The lamento idea also later became an important element of Schnittke’s late style, and is prom-
inent in the String Quartet No. 4 (1989) and the Symphony No. 9 (1995–1997). The Symphony
No. 2 (1979) also contains several direct references to Bach’s musical language. The Crucifixus
is modelled on the passacaglia structure of the Crucifixus from Bach’s B Minor Mass (and also
features the lamento motif in its melodic lines). Also, the fifth movement begins with an oboe
d’amore solo (see Example 5.4), whose melody opens with a rising minor sixth, and then con-
tinues with a lamento descent, the line modelled on ‘Erbarme dich’ from Bach’s St Matthew
Passion. This opening is another example of Baroque and popular music in juxtaposition, as the
oboe d’amore is accompanied by bass electric guitar.
Bach’s passion settings also inspired a sub-genre in Schnittke’s music – the ‘inverted passion’.
Three of Schnittke’s narrative works, spanning his career, have negative and traumatic subjects,
which Schnittke presents in quasi-ritualistic fashion, by modelling each opening after the first
chorus of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, ‘Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen’, but in a sufficiently
distorted way to make clear the meaning has been reversed. In the Nagasaki oratorio (1958), the
reference is clear, but the distortion is minimal. In the Faust Cantata (1983), the sense of inversion
is much more emphatic, the Bach textures set as tango. The last movement of the Faust Cantata
also references the final chorale of the St John Passion, ‘Ach Herr, lass dein lieb Engelein’. The
most obvious and most distorted take on the Matthew Passion opening chorus is in the opera Life
with an Idiot (1990–1991), where the melody and bass line are both almost exact quotations from
the Bach but the harmonies and inner lines of counterpoint quickly blur the picture and negate
the spiritual connotations (Flechsig 2017, 60).
Monograms
Bach is represented most clearly in Schnittke’s music through the use of the musical monogram
B♭, A, C, B, rendered as B–A–C–H in German note names. This was used by Bach himself in
The Art of Fugue and was later the subject of many fugues by German composers of the 19th
century. Schnittke approached the monogram cautiously. It first appears in his Violin Sonata No. 1
(1964), disguised through transposition, to C, B, D, C♯, but still prominent as the upper notes of
the repeating chord progression in the third-movement passacaglia. But the central status of the
monogram in Schnittke’s musical vocabulary was established with the Violin Sonata No. 2 (1968).
30
Eras and techniques
Example 1.6 Violin Sonata No. 2, last two bars
The setting of the B–A–C–H monogram in the Violin Sonata No. 2 was borrowed from
Schnittke’s music for the cartoon film The Glass Harmonica (also 1968), where it appeared as
the voice of the eponymous instrument. In the film, a man appears in a corrupt and materi-
alistic society and transforms the people through the sound of the harmonica. The monogram
is transposed up a semitone and played on celesta. The instrument’s transformative power is
represented by harmonising the notes with a chord sequence that moves from A♭ Minor to A♭
major (via two subdominant chords, with major sixth and augmented fourth added, respect-
ively (illustrated in Hansberger 1982, 248)). In the Violin Sonata No. 2, Schnittke creates an
opposition between atonality and tonality, the latter represented simply by a repeating G minor
triad. Through the course of the work, the monogram moves from transposed versions to the
untransposed version, which appears at the end (Example 1.6). Schnittke said that the ending
‘[demonstrates] that no final decision has been taken, that the contrast between the triad and the
atonality remains, with the two elements in a state of parity’ (Köchel 1994, 119). That parity is
achieved in part through the atonal character of the monogram. But the monogram itself also
enacts closure in these final bars, heard simultaneously with its retrograde beneath, a symbol of
completion and unity. But overall closure remains elusive, and the work ends on an unresolved
augmented octave.
From the mid-1970s onwards, the B–A–C–H monogram appears regularly in Schnittke’s
music. Transposed and untransposed versions are employed with different connotations. The
untransposed monogram serves as an evocation of the composer himself and, by extension, a
symbol for the history of Western music (Chigareva 2012, 221). The transposed version has a
more spiritual dimension, a signifier of good in opposition to Schnittke’s many evocations of evil.
The idea of Bach as a source point for musical history is suggested in the Prelude in Memoriam
Dmitri Shostakovich (1975), which exploits the fact that Shostakovich’s monogram, D, E♭, C, B
(D–S–C–H), shares two pitches with the Bach monogram. Schnittke explained, ‘I would not say
that Shostakovich is equal to Bach. Here it is completely different: the B–A–C–H motif appears
as a kind of objective voice – greater than the previous one and absorbing it …’ (Shulgin 2004,
75). The B–A–C–H monogram appears as an invocation of musical history: Shostakovich may
be a lesser figure, but he is honoured by being integrated into the historical continuum that the
B–A–C–H monogram represents.
The untransposed monogram is most clearly linked with Bach himself and with musical his-
tory in Symphony No. 3. The work is dedicated to the German symphonic tradition, and the
first three monograms to appear are Earth (Erde – E, D, D, E), Germany (Deutschland – D, E,
D♯, C, B, A) and B–A–C–H. The monogram retains a central position throughout the work,
invoking Bach as both a historical and ethical foundation for German music. The link to Bach’s
own music is made clear in the second movement, where a pastiche of the First Prelude of The
Well-Tempered Clavier, played on the harpsichord, spells out the monogram in the top notes of
31
Eras and techniques
its arpeggios (Example 5.7). The ethical dimension is demonstrated in the third movement,
which is a depiction of evil. The destructive forces of evil make the music increasingly unstable
and heterogeneous, but the process is resolved by reverting to the B–A–C–H monogram in the
coda. Schnittke then links the two aspects of the monogram – the ethical and the historical –
by segueing into the finale, which opens with monograms based on the names of Bach’s sons,
Johann Christian and Carl Philipp Emanuel. The role of the B–A–C–H monogram as a symbol
of completion is also emphasised in the finale by linking it with presentations of the full 12-note
aggregate, either as the start of a 12-note row, or by associating statements of the monogram with
accompanying lines based on its eight-note complement.
The Symphony No. 3 also exploits another important feature of the B–A–C–H monogram:
its recognisability. In the symphony, Schnittke employs monograms based on the names of 34
German and Austrian composers, mostly devised by Schnittke himself. He signals to listeners
when a passage of monogram-based music is approaching by prefacing it with a clear statement
of B–A–C–H, as in the Well-Tempered Clavier pastiche in the second movement (Example 5.7),
and the resolution of the third movement, introducing the more obscure monograms that open
the fourth.
Transposed versions of the B–A–C–H monogram appear in many of Schnittke’s religiously
inspired works from the late 70s onwards. The shape of the monogram, without its specific pitch
classes, allows for a more abstract invocation, suggesting the spiritual dimension of Bach’s liturgical
music, rather than the historical status of the composer himself. The Recordare movement of the
Requiem opens with a clear statement of the monogram, but transposed to begin on G. Similarly,
the Concerto for Piano and Strings closes with an ascending figure in the piano, which passes
through the notes E♭–D–F–E, adding a symbolic dimension to the transcendent gesture, but
without specifically linking it to Bach. The Symphony No. 2 is based on musical representations
of the cross. Transposed versions of the B–A–C–H monogram appear regularly, here connoting
Bach’s spiritual presence, but also a musical representation of the cross in its own right. From the
Symphony No. 2 and the String Quartet No. 4 onwards, the transposed monogram becomes equally
representative of Bach, of the cross and of the circulatio motif to which it is closely related. As such,
it becomes an important element of the abstract signification of Schnittke’s late style. It appears
prominently in the third movement of the Violin Sonata No. 3 (1994), perhaps as a recollection
of the Violin Sonata No. 1 three decades before. It also becomes a signifier of virtue in Life with
and Idiot and the Faust opera, where it stands in opposition to similarly concise evocations of evil,
particularly the tritone.
Schnittke’s broader monogram technique grew out of the B–A–C–H and D–S–C–H
monograms, both of which already codified by their respective composers. Monograms devised
by Schnittke himself only appeared sporadically in the 1960s and early 1970s, but from the
Polyphonic Tango (1979–1980) onwards, Schnittke often incorporated the names of performers
into works (see Figure 1.3). Christopher Segall has identified three general principles:
1. He encoded the names of individuals with particular relationships to the works in

question. Most frequently these are the performer-dedicatees who would have premiered
the works.
2. He accounted for every letter of a person’s name in order. Sometimes he included repetitions
of letters, at other times he omitted repetitions. [Russian names are almost always rendered
in German transliteration.]
3. He stated monograms clearly in the music, giving their pitches in the proper order, usually
at the beginnings of movements or sections (Segall 2013b, 273).
32
Eras and techniques
Figure 1.3 Monograms employed in Schnittke’s works and monograms considered in compositional
sketches5 (Continued)
33
Eras and techniques
Figure 1.3 (Continued)
Schnittke’s approach was clearly modelled on Shostakovich’s use of his own D–S–C–H motto,
the monogram treated as a prominent motif and rarely transposed. But, as Ivashkin points out,
Shostakovich tended to add the monogram as an ‘engraved’ feature while composing the music,
whereas Schnittke more often employed monograms as the ‘real building material, the same as
a series’ (Ivashkin 1995, 262). That constructive role is most clear in the Symphony No. 3 and
Concerto Grosso No. 3.
Schnittke had previously sought a similar combination of structural function and covert sig-
nification in serial technique. He recalled: ‘Abandoning serialism, I did not abandon the idea of
structural ordering, I was just trying to subordinate it to the emotion. All the rigorous technique,
34
Eras and techniques
everything “hidden” in the music – monograms, symbols, proportions, references, allusions – is

still perceived. A composition without such a submerged dimension cannot create a sustained or
enduring impression’ (Ivashkin 2003, 62). Monograms provided the subtext that serialism lacked,
their covert character allowing them to operate as a ‘submerged dimension’ beneath the music’s
polystylistic surface.
Sketches for many of Schnittke’s works from the 70s and 80s show him beginning a project
by creating monograms, based on concepts linked to a work, or on the names of the intended
performers. Often these monograms do not appear in the finished work. Discarded monograms
figure large in the sketches for the Piano Quintet, Concerto Grosso No. 1, Symphony No. 2, A
Paganini (1982) and the String Trio (1985). In each case, Schnittke considers monograms out of
a technical or structural requirement, but eventually abandons them in favour of a different link
between the concept and the music, often a derivative of the cross figure.
Harmonic and contrapuntal techniques
Non-tonal triadic relations

Schnittke’s employment of tonal themes, motifs and harmonies for referential rather than struc-
tural purposes posed a variety of technical challenges. The composer needed to stand outside
of the musical worlds he was referencing, to retain a contemporary perspective on his historical
material. This meant retaining the diatonic character of his quotations and allusions while limiting
their tonal function. The most obvious way to achieve this was through chordal progressions
involving tonally distant triads. The common-mediant progression, discussed in ‘Funereal and
Religious Works’ above, was one of the techniques that Schnittke applied from the mid-1970s.
Two other progressions also proved valuable, between tonic major and tonic minor, and between
a major triad and the minor triad on its minor third degree. Christopher Segall discusses these
three progressions in neo-Riemannian terms, as S, P and M relations, respectively (Segall 2013a,
Chapter 4). As with the common-mediant (S) progression, the other two relations had previously
been used in prominent symbolic figurations. The tonic major/minor (P) progression was used
in The Glass Harmonica to harmonise a transposed B–A–C–H monogram, the motif representing
the transformative power of the eponymous instrument (see ‘Monograms’ above).The M relation
figured prominently in the Symphony No. 1 as A major/C minor, the chord pair harmonising
Schnittke’s initials, A–E♭, as one of the main motifs.
Segall points out that all three relations retain at least one common pitch from one chord to
the next, a fact that Schnittke exploits for smooth voice leading. All three move from major to
minor or vice versa. Other non-tonal triadic progressions are occasionally employed, but only S,
P and M are used for alternating harmonic chains, like the SMSM … chain discussed above in
the String Trio. These procedures govern Schnittke’s triadic practice from around 1974 to 1985.
Many of the related techniques, including the harmonic chains, are first explored in the Requiem,
while the Concerto Grosso No. 2 serves as a compendium of these relations, with all three of its
themes transformed using the three techniques (Segall 2013a, 137).
The [0,1,6,7] pitch set

Schnittke also opposed the tonal function of his diatonic sources by setting them against non-
triadic harmonies, most often the pitch collection [0,1,6,7]. This set (Forte number 4–9) has
several axes of symmetry, but is quite dissonant, consisting of perfect fourths/fifths and semitones,
or perfect fourths/fifths and tritones, depending on the voicing. The set played a significant role
35
Eras and techniques
Example 1.7 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1960), movement I, seven bars after Fig. 2
in the early history of post-tonal music. Bartók explored its properties in his String Quartet No.
4 (1928), and Leo Treitler named it ‘cell-z’ in his analysis (Treitler 1959). It also forms the basic
cell underlying the pitch structure of Berg’s Lulu (Perle 1977, 12). The collection was particu-
larly valuable for Schnittke in its normal form, as this encompasses a perfect fifth and resembles
a triad, yet its internal structure wholly opposes tonal harmony. It can therefore substitute a triad
to create an illusion of triadic harmony, but without suggesting any tonal function.
Speaking in 1976, Schnittke pointed out an early use of the collection in his Concerto for Piano
and Orchestra (1960) (Shulgin 2004, 36). The work makes much use of octatonic scales and har-
monies, as colouring devices in an otherwise tonal context, and the [0,1,6,7] set emerges as an
aspect of this; the collection is a partition of the octatonic set. For example, in the first movement
(seven bars after Fig. 2, Example 1.7), the piano’s left-hand descent is made up of alternating per-
fect fourths and fifths, each dyad pair describing the collection, and without overt dissonance.
Schnittke relates the non-tonal harmonies in the work, especially the quartal harmonies, to his
interest at the time in the music of Hindemith. Hindemith made extensive use of the collection,
for example in Trauermusik (1936), where, as in Schnittke’s later works, it is used to oppose and
distort the broadly tonal harmonic language (Schumann 2011, 16–26). Schnittke also relates his
use of the set to a theoretical description by Yuri Kholopov. This appears in his book on har-
monic innovations in the music of Prokofiev (Kholopov 1967, 27).6 Kholopov gives an example,
with the chord voiced, upwards from middle C, as C, F, F♯, B. He comments that, in this con-
figuration, the chord has a ‘hard, dry, edgy’ (zhestkii, sukhoi, rezkii) character, on account of the
prominent tritones, absent of any mitigating features. He then considers the same chord but with
the F moved down an octave.This version – F, C, F♯, B – has ‘maximum stability’ due to the per-
fect fifth between the bottom two pitches. The book postdates Schnittke’s concerto, but is based
on Kholopov’s postgraduate research, which Schnittke may have been aware of.
After the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, the set next appears in the solo piano work Prelude and
Fugue (1963). The piece is serial, but at the climax moves to harmonies based on stacked fourths
(another holdover from his earlier interest in Hindemith) and [0,1,6,7] chords. The final chord
is a clear C major, which Schnittke prepares with a series of openly spaced [0,1,6,7] chords, the
clarity of texture contrasting the earlier climax, which is dominated by semitone-heavy voicings
of the chord. The fugue is an arrangement of Schnittke’s 1959 String Quartet, later arranged as
Concerto for Electric Instruments (1960). In those works, a similar chord sequence prepares the final
C major. All the chords are similarly ambiguous, but not based on the [0,1,6,7] collection, which
is therefore an innovation of the 1963 piano arrangement.
36
Eras and techniques
In the 1976 interview, Schnittke says that the chord is found in his music up to the pre-
sent day. But, in fact, it is largely absent in his music of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The set
returns in Cantus perpetuus, the fully notated version from 1981, similarly voiced but with a
different derivation. The original graphic score of the work (1975) is a circular mandala figure
(Example 6.9), onto which Schnittke projects symbols derived from world religions, the notes
that they meet on the perimeter determining the background harmonies. Schnittke relates the
swastika to Hinduism, and derives two [0,1,6,7] collections from its application to the figure
(see Figure 6.6), one from each of the two crossing arms. In his 1981 realisation of the score,
these are presented as simultaneous chords in the two hands of the piano, the first example of
superimposed [0,1,6,7] sets in Schnittke’s music.
The set is virtually absent from Schnittke’s ‘quiet period’ and religious works of the late 1970s
and early 1980s. In 1985, Schnittke suffered his first stroke, and his musical style immediately
changed. Non-tonal triadic relations continued, but the [0,1,6,7] also returned as a prominent
stylistic feature. In the Cello Concerto No. 1 (1986), Schnittke again employs the device from the
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra of alternating perfect fourths and fifths to articulate the collection
with each chord pair (movement II, opening, clarinets). But the balance between tonal and atonal
elements has changed, and the [0,1,6,7] collection now opposes functional tonality. Non-tonal
triadic relations also continue to contribute, but to a much lesser extent than in the early 1980s,
with [0,1,6,7] the most prominent of a group of non-triadic sonorities taking on the role. The
set’s octatonic character is often exploited, in a (typically Russian) tension between octatonic
and tonal structuring. For example, in the Concerto Grosso No. 3, the stable tonality and Baroque
order of the opening are mirrored and opposed by the chaotic second half of the first movement,
where the tonal harmonies are replaced by [0,1,6,7] chords, diminished triads and major sevenths
(all octatonic subsets).
The Piano Quartet (1988) (later orchestrated as the second movement of the Concerto Grosso No.
4/Symphony No. 5) raises the status of the [0,1,6,7] collection to parity with tonality. The piece
is based on a fragment of an unfinished piano quartet by Gustav Mahler, and Schnittke sets his
own voice in dialogue with that of Mahler (see Dixon 2017a), opposing Mahler’s tonality with
the [0,1,6,7] collection. This signifier of authorial voice is used in every possible permutation,
governing voice leading and harmonies, both of which exploit its ability to generate both perfect
intervals and tritones, depending on the voicing. Schnittke often begins a phrase with a tonal
or quasi-tonal motif, but then erodes the tonal identity through increasingly dense applications
of the [0,1,6,7] collection. Example 1.8 shows the passage in bars 161–67. The chordal passage
at bar 161 suggests B♭ minor, but this tonality is immediately compromised by the [0,1,6,7]
arpeggios in bar 162. At bar 163, the chordal figure is repeated, but now with harmonies based
on two stacked [0,1,6,7] chords and chromatic clusters, as if to parody the tonal voicing of the
earlier figure.
The set’s symmetrical properties become increasingly important in Schnittke’s late period. In
the String Quartet No. 4 (1989), the set governs many aspects of the music’s highly symmetric
structure, especially the relations between the four instruments, which continually group into
pairs, one pair presenting a dyad, which the second pair then complements to complete the set
(see Durrani 2017). Significantly, this approach relies on the [0,1,6,7] operating as a referential
harmony in its own right, rather than as an opposing identity to the tonal triad.
But the set’s destructive or nihilistic character also continues into Schnittke’s very last works. In
Gesualdo (1994), a rising tritone in the vocal lines is employed as a Leitmotif for evil and deceit. In
the adulterous love scene between Maria and Fabrizio (Tableau IV scene 5), Schnittke emphasises
the effect by accompanying the tritone-based vocal line with the [0,1,6,7] chord of which it
is a subset (three after Fig. 4). And the opposition between tonal identity and non-identity, as
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Eras and techniques
Example 1.8 Piano Quartet, bars 161–67
embodied by the collection, returns in the Symphony No. 8 (1993–1994).The work’s main theme,
the passacaglia of the first movement, is in an extended, but still functional, E minor. The fourth
movement introduces themes from the first three, but now decontextualised and with their iden-
tity eroded. This erosion is most clear at Fig. 1, where the passacaglia theme returns, but now
without its melodic contour, or its tonal identity – we just hear its rhythms intoned as a series of
sullenly repeating [0,1,6,7] chords in the strings.
Schnittke stretto
One feature of Schnittke’s Baroque pastiche came to define his polystylistic aesthetic: close stretto
imitation. The technique is so idiomatic that it has been described as ‘Schnittkean stretto’, by
Kirsten Peterson (Peterson 2000, 94), a term I have simplified slightly here.The idea is most often
38
Eras and techniques
employed within the orchestral violins and involves tonal voice leading, with each voice entering
one beat after the last, and each transposed successively down one semitone. This has the effect
of ‘diagonalising’ the music, blurring the distinction between the tonal voice leading and the
cluster-based harmonies that result.
The idea of creating moving webs of sound through detailed counterpoint recalls the music
of Ligeti, his orchestral and choral scores from Apparitions (1958–1959) to Melodien (1971).
Schnittke’s approach resembles that of Melodien in balancing perceptions of contrapuntal detail
and homogenised sound mass. But it differs in his use of identical, and usually tonal, lines,
suggesting a stronger link to traditions of imitative counterpoint – a Baroque approach in place
of Ligeti’s more Renaissance technique.
Schnittke experimented with the technique as a student, although often with caution. The
Violin Concerto No. 1 (1957) originally contained a passage of close stretto canon as a hocket
effect in the woodwinds (movement I, Fig. 13), but this was removed in the 1962 final version in
favour of a simpler texture. Poem about Space (1961) also includes several stretto effects for textural
purposes. In the introduction (Fig. 4), stretto at the major seventh is introduced, with the voices a
beat apart, but this only involves two voices, clarinet and bass clarinet. At Fig. 46, a stretto device
is used with voices each entering a semitone lower. The voices enter a minim apart, but this is
an important precedent, as the effect cascades through the woodwind and then brass sections,
eventually expanding to 10 voices.
Stretto effects sat uneasily with Schnittke’s serialism of the 1960s, and do not return until the
early 1970s. Much of the Symphony No. 1 is made up of dense orchestral textures, but these are
rarely constructed through imitative counterpoint. Instead, stretto effects, such as at movement
I, Fig. 89, involve wider intervals of imitation and chromatic inversion between the lines –
holdovers from his earlier serial thinking.
In the Concerto Grosso No. 1 we see the final form of the idea taking shape (Example 1.9).
The Toccata second movement begins with stretto imitation between the two solo violins, soon
taken up by the orchestral violins, a total of 14 voices. The voices enter one beat apart, but
without transposition. As Schnittke develops this idea, he gradually moves to the same effect,
but with each voice entering a semitone lower. This is first heard as a repeating-note texture
in the violas at Fig. 7 and in the violins at Fig. 17. When themes from the Toccata and other
movements are reprised in the Rondo fifth movement, the imitation is always in stretto and
with transposition. At Fig. 27 (see Example 1.9(b)), the Toccata theme returns, but now with
the voices each entering a semitone lower. The experimental nature of this texture is apparent
from the fact that Schnittke writes a separate key signature for each part, a notation he soon
abandoned.
The significance of the Concerto Grosso No. 1 for Schnittke’s adoption of this stretto technique
is clear from two earlier works which he later returned to and applied stretto devices. Cantus
perpetuus was created in 1975 as a graphic score, but Schnittke also made an orchestral realisation
in 1981. Cyclical motion around the original graphic score is represented in the 1981 version
through a range of stretto devices, especially in the strings. The Piano Quintet was completed
immediately before the Concerto Grosso No. 1 and orchestrated immediately after, as In Memoriam
(1978). The orchestral version includes stretto canons in the third movement, which expand on
much simpler passages in the original, suggesting that Schnittke considered the effect to be more
textural than contrapuntal.
The version of the technique in which each voice enters a semitone lower was reserved almost
exclusively for Baroque pastiche: the Concerti Grossi Nos. 1–4 and the Symphony No. 3, movement
II. In Classical-era or Romantic pastiche, the imitation tends to be at unison or octaves, such
as in the Moz-Art series (where it is applied to quoted material), the 10 orchestral violins that
39
Eras and techniques
Example 1.9 Concerto Grosso No. 1 (a) movement II, Fig. 1; (b) movement V, Fig. 27 (violin II only)
accompany the third movement cadenza for the Beethoven Violin Concerto (second version,
1977) and the Rheingold pastiche that opens the Symphony No. 3.
In the early 1980s, Schnittke began to expand the idea to include counterpoint between
multiple stretto groupings. This idea again relates to Ligeti’s music of the 1960s, particularly the
vocal writing in his Requiem (1963–1965). A similarly vocal application is employed in Minnesang
40
Eras and techniques
(1980–1981), a choral work with stretto imitation within each of the voice groups. In Passacaglia
(1981), tonal four-voice counterpoint is constructed within each of the orchestral groups, but
Schnittke then adds an extra layer of complexity by also applying stretto delay within this process,
from Fig. 31. Ritual (1985) also applies stretto canon within orchestral groups but retains textural
clarity by clearly distinguishing one instrumental group from another.
The Schnittke stretto device was well suited to orchestral strings, but less so to the keyboard.
As Simon Smith writes, ‘what may be easy with ten violins is rather less so with ten fingers’
(Smith 2014). Nevertheless, Schnittke made several attempts to create dense keyboard textures
using stretto devices. Stretto appears in several early keyboard works but is always conceived in
contrapuntal rather than textural terms. In Improvisation and Fugue (1965), it appears in the knotty
stretto reprise of the fugue, with the four voices entering a quaver apart. It also appears in two
children’s pieces, the third of the 1960 set and ‘Melody’ from the 1971 set, where the two hands
are set in stretto imitation. Schnittke stretto becomes a textural device in the later Piano Sonata
No. 1 (1987) and Piano Sonata No 2 (1991–1992). In the Piano Sonata No. 1, the stretto takes on
an oppressive, mechanistic character at the climax of the second movement. In the Piano Sonata
No. 2, the stretto is more lyrical in the first and third movements, an element of the quasi-
Romantic discourse. But Schnittke realised that the stretto risked over-complicating the music.
In an early draft, the climax of the third movement is a passage of four-voice stretto, with the
transpositions of the voices based on the [0,1,6,7] set (Example 7.1). In the final version, this has
been replaced with a passage of improvisation.
These more widely spaced voice entries are indicative of Schnittke’s changing attitude to
the technique in his later years. In the orchestral scores of Schnittke’s late period, stretto within
instrumental groups continues, but the textures are less dense for the greater registral distance
between the voices. This approach is first employed in the Symphony No. 4, i.e. Fig. 4, where the
stretto is still at the crotchet, but the transposition intervals are now sevenths, the earlier minor
seconds now inverted to produce the same effect but in a broader textural space. As Schnittke’s
style became more diffuse in his final works, the tightness of the stretto gradually relaxed. So,
in the Symphony No. 7 (movement I, Fig. 6), there is a five-voice Schnittke stretto in the strings,
again with minor seventh descents between voice entries, but now at a distance of three and half
beats. Stretto textures also permeate the orchestral accompaniment of the Viola Concerto No. 2
(1996–1998) but are applied with much less rigour. Passages often begin with cascading stretto
entries, but the imitation that follows is rarely strict as if the stretto entry itself has become an
isolated reminiscence of Schnittke’s earlier style.
Structural innovations
Employing multiple styles within a single work posed significant structural problems for
Schnittke, especially given the composer’s determination to avoid functional tonal relations.
Schnittke’s earliest polystylistic works, the Violin Sonata No. 2 and Symphony No. 1, were closely
connected to his film work, and their structure relied on cinematic techniques of montage,
with abrupt shifts of style and mood articulating the form through bold contrasts. But in the
1980s, Schnittke began seeking connections between styles and highlighting those confluences
as goals within his works. Chigareva writes that: ‘The contrast of styles can perform the same
function as that of Classical tonal and thematic contrast, which is no longer perceived in our
time’ (Chigareva 2012, 33–34).
Such an approach is most obvious in works that apply stylistic contrast to Classical-era forms,
like the second movement of the Symphony No. 3. Here, a sonata form is articulated through the
contrast of a Mozart-like main theme and a Wagner-like second subject (alluding respectively
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Eras and techniques
to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K 414, and the Prelude to Das Rheingold). But the
sonata form itself becomes part of the Classical reference, and its functionality is deliberately
compromised. Schnittke explains, ‘The second movement of the Symphony No. 3 is in sonata
form but there are also important external factors – interaction of different themes and illusions,
fictive material, which may in fact be the most important material. It is as if the first and second
subjects are reversed’ (Ivashkin 2003, 53).
Alexander Ivashkin describes Schnittke’s approach to architectonic form as ‘morphological’
rather than ‘syntactical’. He argues that the relationship between form and content is governed
more by a desire to understand the material – the external references, quotations and allusions –
than to fulfil the structural obligations of the form. This approach is linked to the late works
of Shostakovich where Classical-era forms and genres continue to be employed, even as the
musical discourse increasingly ignores the contrasts and tensions that would previously have been
required in order for them to function.
Syntax is more and more eroded by morphology, by withdrawal into the depths of the
material itself, by the search for different points of view upon it – as it used to be in
the old variation form … the music of late Shostakovich and the works of Schnittke
demand a mobile point of view from the listener which does not allow the sense of the
whole to be seen except in its architectonics, or rather in the failure of architectonics
to conform with classical models.
(Ivashkin 1995, 265)
The result can be perceived as a sense of belatedness, especially as Shostakovich and Schnittke
conspicuously employ these genres long after most other composers have abandoned them, even
in Soviet Russia. From this perspective, the ‘failure of architectonics’ takes on important semantic
significance. Schnittke, far more than Shostakovich, treats the genres of symphony, concerto and
string quartet, and the sonata form associated with them, as referential elements of his musical
vocabulary. Like his Baroque and Classical stylistic allusions, they are from an earlier era, and
Schnittke’s employment of them is as much commentary as direct engagement.
Schnittke’s compromise to the functionality of his musical forms is felt at every stage as an
emphasis on the material rather than its development: expositions are clear, but development
sections are deliberately ineffective. As Ivashkin notes, ‘the idea of sequential development,
so typical of the Classical and Romantic symphony and concerto, although it is in fact
employed, is more often a negative image, a kind of “bad infinity” or a stupid-mechanistic
evil opposed to personality (for example, the first movement of the Violin Concerto No. 4)’
(Ivashkin 1995, 264). Recapitulations are often cursory or even entirely absent. When
discussing the ‘endless deviations’ from sonata form in his works, Schnittke pointed out that:
‘For example, in my Cello Concerto No. 1, there is no evidence of a recapitulation: it’s better
to say that the form is destroyed at the point of recapitulation, because the beginning of the
recapitulation is that edge to which it is possible to stretch a sonata form, but not further’
(Ivashkin 2003, 53).
The greatest challenge in employing Classical forms and tonal language, while limiting their
structural functionality, was to avoid their implicit sense of goal-orientation. Schnittke adapts
the role of the finale, often turning the last movement into a coda rather than a culmination, for
example in the Violin Concerto No. 3, Symphony No. 3 and Faust Cantata. Schnittke relates that
idea to Tchaikovsky and Mahler, ‘The finale which might explain everything no longer exists…
In my compositions, everything often goes into ellipsis or simply stops, ending without a finale.
This, in fact, came from Mahler and Tchaikovsky. There is the final Adagio of Tchaikovsky’s
42
Eras and techniques
Symphony No. 6 – when had there ever been an Adagio for an ending? This had never happened
before. Tchaikovsky displaced the finale, and then came the slow conclusions to Mahler’s sym-
phonies’ (Ivashkin 2003, 60).
Sonoristic cadences
Thematic ideas in Schnittke’s polystylistic music often begin with a strong tonal identity, but
this rarely continues to the end of a phrase. By avoiding cadential closure, Schnittke can frustrate
both the goal orientation within the phrase and the phrase hierarchy implied by different levels
of closure. Gordon E. Marsh proposes a schema for Schnittke’s polystylistic music, which maps
musical history onto the progression within works (Marsh 2017). The schema has three stages,
which he labels ‘incunabular’, ‘reticular’ and ‘terminal’. These evoke tonal, serial and Sonoristic
styles, respectively. Marsh demonstrates how individual phrases are structured along these lines in
the Concerti Grossi Nos. 1–2 and that in the Concerto Grosso No. 3, the entire work moves through
this progression: the first and second movements are Baroque, the third transitional, the fourth
dodecaphonic and the fifth Sonoristic (Marsh 2017, 130). The idea has many resonances for
Schnittke’s artistic outlook. It presents earlier styles, and historical music in general, as a point of
certainty, but also a point of departure, from which he moves into more interpretive and contem-
porary spheres. It also follows the trajectory of the composer’s own career, from the tonal music
of his student years, through the serialism of the early 1960s to the Sonorism of the late 1960s.
The idea that Polish Sonorism is invoked by Schnittke’s endings reflects their radical ambiguity,
combining semantic openness with structural closure. The music of Alban Berg is an important
precedent, particularly the endings of his Violin Concerto and Lyric Suite, which Schnittke uses as
the models for the conclusions to his Symphony No. 3 and the first movement of his String Trio,
respectively. Adorno wrote about the Lyric Suite ending:
Since the end of tonality and the formal genres bound up with it, the most difficult
question, just as in drama, has become how to conclude. The formal design itself no
longer guarantees a definite end, and cessation based purely on the individual compos-
itional context almost always carries with it the taint of randomness, as if the piece had
just broken off and could as easily keep going. The extent to which Berg’s imagination
was preoccupied with that question is demonstrated in the Lyric Suite, which forsakes a
conclusion and divines the shape of the ending out of that very impossibility.
(Adorno 1991, 103)
A tendency towards open endings is apparent throughout Schnittke’s early career. A set of four
unpublished works for violin and piano from 1960 finds the young composer challenging the
tonal conformity of his recent student compositions, with each piece wandering freely from
its home key. The final piece has a particularly ambiguous resolution (Example 1.10), with
the textures gradually dissipating as the accompanying lines descend. Nevertheless, the process
re-establishes the home key of D minor. Similarly ambiguous conclusions often appear in
Schnittke’s serial works – the gradually receding arpeggios at the end of the Violin Sonata No. 1
(1963), the diverging ppp glissandos that conclude the String Quartet No. 1 (1966).
The textural devices for closure that Schnittke developed in the 1980s also allowed cadential
rhetoric to return, but now as referential figures, rather than as closing gestures.The String Quartet
No. 3 (1983) opens with three themes from Lasso, Beethoven and Shostakovich. The Lasso is
a cadence figure, but its presentation, at the very start, wholly opposes cadential functionality:
It becomes a subject of the work rather than an element of its harmonic structure. Similarly, a
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Eras and techniques
Example 1.10 Four Early Pieces for Violin and Piano (1960), No. 4, ending
Classical cadential figure appears in the String Quartet No. 4 (1989), movement II, Fig. 2. Samuel
Wilson discusses this motif as a marker of selfhood in the work. He argues that evocations
of closure allude to musical self-sufficiency and therefore to the consolidated identity of the
composer as performing subject. The cadential figure is again treated as a musical subject, and
challenged through negative development, for example at Fig. 23. But this is made possible by the
fact that the music is shaped through more abstract means, and that the polystylism compromises
the functionality of the cadence. ‘To say that closure comes at the end seems tautological; it is
the result of a process, after all. However, Schnittke’s figures of closure intersperse this movement.
They no longer perform their previous closing function. Rather, they are objectified as markedly
“historical” through contrast with other musical materials’ (Wilson 2014, 327).
Coda as exposition
Schnittke’s opposition to constructive, progressive development is demonstrated in many works
of the 1970s and 1980s where the main theme is not stated directly until the very end. This idea
solves many of the structural problems that result from Schnittke’s morphological approach.
Such an ending is paradoxical, but by functioning as an exposition, it ceases to be conclusion or
climax in the traditional sense, and any sense of goal orientation is frustrated – the music merely
progresses to its starting point. This is particularly evident in the Piano Quartet, which is based
on a short fragment by Gustav Mahler. Rather than continue the fragment, Schnittke places it
at the end of his work, and retains the fragment’s highly ambiguous ending. Schnittke described
the form as, ‘At first the attempt to remember and then remembrance itself ’ (Borchardt 2002,
29) (see Example 6.8).
Works structured in this way can be heard as a series of variations, but with the theme only
presented at the end. This transforms the status of the variations and elevates the source material.
As in Ivashkin’s description of the morphological approach, the music ‘withdraws into the depths
of the material itself ’ and the variations become ‘the search for different points of view on it’.
This elevation of the source material has precedents in Schnittke’s serial music. Music for
Chamber Orchestra, the Violin Concerto No. 2 and pianissimo… are all based on series that are only
presented in unadulterated form at the end of the work.This demonstrates how Schnittke treated
serialism as a subtext as much as a structuring principle, the series becoming a hidden message
for the music to reveal. Canon in Memoriam Igor Stravinsky (1971) treats its subject in a similar way.
The work is based on a monogram derived from Stravinsky’s name, but this is only presented in
full at the end, as if the earlier music were exploring the structure of the monogram, as opposed
to elaborating on it.
In the mid-1970s, several other Soviet composers experimented with structures that delayed
the exposition to the coda: Rodion Shchedrin (Piano Concerto No. 3, 1973), Bronius Kutavičius
(Dzūkischen Variationen, 1974), Vytautas Barkauskas (Toccamento, 1978) (Savenko 1990, 136). The
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Eras and techniques
Shchedrin Piano Concerto No. 3, which is subtitled ‘Variations and Theme’, was the subject of a
short article by Schnittke. He wrote:
You can, of course, escape from reality in the secure area of traditional academic
thematicism or in the monastic calm of intervallic alchemy. Or you can recognize
how critical the situation is and look for a way out. And this, in any case, is present
in Shchedrin’s Third Concerto – a reflection of the crisis, an objectively tragic situ-
ation, and a desire to break this vicious circle. The variational transformation of the
concerto’s initially ‘encrypted’ musical image leads to its melodic purification, crystal-
lisation towards the end of the composition of the noble main theme.
These ideas of encryption then purification became the guiding principles for Schnittke’s use of
this technique in the late 1970s. He mostly applied the approach to religious works, and the final
revelation was often of one or more hymn settings. In Hymn No. II for Cello and Double Bass, String
Quartet No. 2 and Symphony No. 4, the final epiphany is analogous to Shchedrin’s ‘mysterious
manifestation of some new power’.
In several works of the era, including the Concerto for Piano and Strings and the Concerti Grossi Nos.
1 and 2, the main themes are presented at the start, but return at the very end, little changed but
perceived differently. The same process is at work, with the implication made even more explicit
that the ending is in fact the beginning. But Schnittke was adamant that, in each case, the ending
had come about as a result of the composing process, that the conclusion was never the goal. ‘Each
time, this material must appear as an inevitable gift at the end of a composition. It could not have
appeared unless we had gone through all this. It would be false and would not produce the right
impression. First I must go this way and live this path’ (Ivashkin 2003, 66).That quasi-religious aspect
of enlightenment through experience gives a spiritual dimension, even in otherwise secular works.
The idea continues into Schnittke’s late works, the String Quartet No. 4 and Five Fragments to Paintings
by Hieronymus Bosch (1994).The ending of the quartet is hymn-like, but in both cases, the feeling is
more of culmination than transcendence, a moment of clarity, but with the illumination achieved
through the journey rather than through any inherent quality of the music at the destination.
Late style 1985–1994

On 21 July 1985, Schnittke suffered a severe stroke. At the end of September, he returned to
composition, but his music changed: thematic working became less rigorous and structure more
intuitive. The basic elements of Schnittke’s musical language continued, but in a more contem-
plative form, including polystylism, which was now expressed through fleeting and transient
stylistic allusions.
The stroke damaged the left hemisphere of Schnittke’s brain (Zagvazdin 2015).This is the part
that governs perception of patterns and processes, in musical terms: rhythm, tempo and form.The
right hemisphere is the creative side, the part of the brain that conceives an idea in its totality and
that is responsible for understanding and creativity. The right side of Schnittke’s brain continued
to function after the stroke and was not damaged to the same extent as the left.
Schnittke later understood the change in his perceptions as a transformation of his understanding
of time. He began discussing time as a continuum rather than as a regulated process. This per-
ception of time originated in childhood, he said, and being able to return to it was a revelation:
‘This new feeling that time is once again expanding has been of great benefit to me … I do not
feel that each second is a momentary grain of sand. It is a segment of time, something in itself …’
45
Eras and techniques
(Schnittke 2002, 5). Timna Mayer compares Schnittke’s new perceptions of time with those of
Jill Bolte Taylor, who survived a similar stroke. Taylor experienced both the sense that time was
expanding and slowing down, and the sense that time had transformed from a metric regularity
to a continuous flow:
When the time keeper in my left hemisphere shut down, the natural temporal cadence
of my life s-l-o-w-e-d to the pace of a snail. As my perception of time shifted, I fell out
of sync with the beehive that bustled around me.
I … lost the clock that would break my moments into consecutive brief instances.
Instead of having my moments prematurely stunted, they became open-ended, and I
felt no rush to do anything.
(Bolte Taylor 2008, 71, 68)
The change had a profound impact on Schnittke’s approach to musical form. He recalled:
Previously when I composed, I started with the form, seen as it were from above, and
gradually filled it up with details, but now I compose more with the feeling that every
moment is living and changeable. The endlessness of each second, the quality that I
always strove for, but never achieved, was revealed to me. The timelessness of the thread
appeared. I know that a work can be formally concluded, but in reality it is never
finished. There is no final full stop.
When Schnittke suffered the stroke, he was mid-way through composing Peer Gynt, and had
just begun the Cello Concerto No. 1. Both works demonstrate Schnittke’s sudden change in tem-
poral perceptions, especially in their concluding movements. The ballet’s first act was completed
before the stroke and is the most formally structured and narrative part. The Epilogue, like the
Largo fourth movement of the Cello Concerto, leaves the temporal sphere of the preceding music,
moving into a nebulous, dreamlike realm and ending with a transcendent, mystical coda.
Schnittke’s enthusiastic embrace of this new conception of time suggests that the change in
style was as much a result of changing artistic focus as it was of the stroke. Gidon Kremer has
argued that the change in Schnittke’s music in the late 1980s was not a direct consequence of his
illness, saying that the String Trio anticipates many of the changes: ‘in the String Trio, I find the
quintessence of his suffering, or even the whole of his struggle to find some unearthly power
that might enable him, if you like, to overcome the force of gravity. Written before his illness,
the String Trio has a lucidity that anticipates the definite sense of luminescence of later works’
(Schnittke 2002, 234). From this perspective, the late style can be heard as a continuation of the
‘quiet period’ in the late 1970s, continuing the Romantic, lyrical impulse and meditative mood
of Schnittke’s funereal works, although avoiding their sense of deliberate simplicity. The straight-
forward attribution of the late style to Schnittke’s illness is also complicated by the fact that many
of his works from the late 1980s do not easily fit into that category. The Concerto Grosso No.
4/Symphony No. 5 (1988) is a rigorously constructed large-scale work.The Concerto for Piano Four
Hands (1988) and String Quartet No. 4 (1989) employ sophisticated thematic processes and struc-
turing principles that look back to Schnittke’s serial period. Clearly, the mystical and intuitive
approach that characterised Schnittke’s late style was, at least in part, a conscious choice.
Although Schnittke’s music became less rigorously structured, the heightened attention on the
moment led to a greater focus on individual events. Chigareva writes: ‘The weight, the signifi-
cance, of each separate second leads to a deformation of the stream of sound, which divides into
46
Eras and techniques
separate “instants”, separate musical elements. Attention is focused on details: sounds, intervals,
and chords all become musical events, as though newly discovered’ (Chigareva 2017, 189–90).
That has an impact on Schnittke’s stylistic references, which become increasingly fragmentary.
The idea of contrast between styles, which had already been drastically reduced in Schnittke’s
music of the early 1980s, is now almost absent, and the brief stylistic allusions fit seamlessly into
the musical continuum.This reflects Schnittke’s changed perception of the external world, which
had also become less structured and regulated. He recalled:
Three years ago I had a stroke, and what I have written since and am writing now is
different from before. It used to seem that what was outside of me, as it were, had a
crystalline, determined structure, a kind of perfect form. Now it is different: I no longer
perceive this crystalline structure, but one that is infinitely variable and fluid.
(Makeeva 2001, 42)
This perception of a fluid environment also relates to the effects of the stroke. Jill Bolte Taylor writes:
My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate from
others. Now, released from that restrictive circuitry, my right hemisphere relished in its
attachment to the eternal flow. I was no longer isolated and alone. My soul was as big
as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea.
(Bolte Taylor 2008, 69)
On 19 July 1991, Schnittke suffered a second stroke. This was less severe than the first, a cerebro-
vascular lesion, localised in the cerebellum (Ivashkin 1996, 202). The cerebellum is a structure at
the back of the brain. It controls motor and cognitive functions, and is also thought to play an
important role in regulating emotions (Turner et al. 2007). Again, he recovered quickly, and was
working again by September. The following three years were the most productive of Schnittke’s
career, resulting in a series of large-scale works – three operas (plus Homage to Zhivago, an opera
in all but name), two concerti grossi, three symphonies, four sonatas and numerous small-scale
orchestral, chamber and choral works.
All of the changes in Schnittke’s style that had occurred with the first stroke became even
more emphatic after the second. The most obvious effect of the damage to Schnittke’s cere-
bellum was a deterioration in his musical handwriting, and the process of composition clearly
became harder with a significant decrease in articulation, dynamic and phrase indications. His
music continued to play out on a large scale, but the number of notes decreased, with orchestral
scores mostly made up of small instrumental ensembles and virtually no tuttis.The change is clear
from Life with an Idiot (1990–1991), begun before the second stroke and completed after it. Act II,
scene 2, which was written after the stroke, is much more sparsely orchestrated, with the voices
typically accompanied by just a single orchestral group.
The difficulties that Schnittke faced in composing after the second stroke are also reflected
in a drastically reduced musical vocabulary. However, many of Schnittke’s signature motifs – the
circulatio figure, the [0,1,6,7] collection, Schnittke stretto – continue in these late-period works,
and the composer increasingly relies on their symbolism, their significance heightened as the
textures reduce.
Silences take on a new role in this late music. By isolating the ideas in short cells, the silences
between become a symbol for absence. Hans Twitchell writes of the Piano Sonata No. 3 (1992),
movement II, ‘The music builds an impression of omission, which creates an imposing nega-
tive image corresponding to what has not been stated. This generates considerable intensity and
47
Eras and techniques
illustrates one of the paradoxes of late Schnittke, namely, that the sparser the music’s texture, the
greater is its inherent tension’ (Twitchell 2006, 7).This heightened role of silence is most apparent
in the Symphony No. 6 (1992) and Symphony No. 7 (1993). The autograph score of the Symphony
No. 6 shows that Schnittke originally experimented with an even greater role for extended
silences. After the first performance, he decided that the silences were excessive, and removed
general pause bars from 19 different places in the score.
Ivashkin links the style of Schnittke’s last works with the theories of Josef Matthias Hauer
(1883–1959). Hauer was an Austrian composer who devised a 12-tone method contempor-
aneously with Schoenberg. Unlike Schoenberg, Hauer did not impose a rigorous order on the
pitch classes, taking a more spiritual approach, in which the 12 pitches were in constant circula-
tion, and perceived through contemplative listening (Covach 2003, 198). Schnittke was initially
sceptical of Hauer’s approach for the obviousness of his 12-tone theory and the rhythmic uni-
formity that supported his meditative sound. But in 1980, he visited Vienna and heard Hauer’s
music performed live for the first time: the Apocalyptic Fantasy and one of the Twelve-Tone Game
pieces (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 215). The experience of hearing the music live was com-
pletely different, and Schnittke compared the result to Bach, for its spiritual power, and Webern,
for its uniform intensity.
[I] had a feeling that I had encountered – in a different way – something that is also found
in Webern’s music. I encountered a sense of calm, organic in nature and based on the
music’s crystallised and well-balanced structure … it is of course both symbol and music –
it lives, as it were, on the verge of the real and the unreal, on the verge where unquestion-
ably tangible values … meet those that cannot be implemented in the real world.
That uniformity became a primary goal in Schnittke’s late music, an ‘even tension’ transcending
surface-level contours. Twitchell writes that the effect of the first movement of the Piano Sonata
No. 3 is of deferred resolution: ‘One waits to see this negative energy resolved later in the sonata,
but it is not. And although subsequent tempi and dynamics vary, the texture remains thin to
the end’ (Twitchell 2006, 8). Schnittke also employs technical elements of Hauer’s vocabulary.
Hauer’s early music is often structured through short cells, appearing in both horizontal and ver-
tical form. Ivashkin points out that the Cello Sonata No. 2 often uses this principle: ‘The effect of
this technique is striking: the cello theme is given an additional acoustic resonance through its
harmonic support from the piano’ (Preface to Collected Works, Series II,Volume 2).
Harmonic uniformity is also achieved through the use of stacked intervals, usually perfect
fourths or major sevenths. These are used primarily to indicate absence, both of tonal function-
ality and of modal contour. Sometimes this also invokes their symmetrical properties, as in the
Bosch Fragments, where stacked major thirds and perfect fourths are mirrored between treble and
bass in exact inversion. The sense of melodic and modal negation is also evident in the Concerto
Grosso No. 5 (1991). The thematic interplay here is between a turn-like main motif and a sec-
ondary idea based on stacked fourths. The two motifs recur throughout the work, with the
fourths-based motif continually opposing and negating the stronger melodic identity of the turn.
The idea of stacked intervals emphasising melodic absence also returns in the Symphony No. 8.
The first movement is a passacaglia, the theme of which recurs throughout, apart from in one
passage, Figs. 18–22, where its absence is highlighted by the appearance of a simpler melodic line
based on stacked fourths.
Despite the austerity of Schnittke’s final works, an intimate and expressive element remains
in the often vocal-like quality of the melodic lines. Accompaniment is usually modest, focusing
48
Eras and techniques
attention on a single instrumental voice, and the short phrases often resemble vocal interjections.
Twitchell says of the Piano Sonata No. 3, second movement, ‘The contour of the left-hand line,
with its long note values, combines with the sometimes speechlike rhythms and declamatory
character of the right-hand line to give the piece the semblance of a recitative, suggesting the
humanization of the musical line in the voice of the “reciter”; a musical persona is created’
(Twitchell 2006, 7).
That personal voice focused the semantics of these late works on the composer himself, and
his by then well-documented struggles with illness. Yet the music’s abstraction ensures that the
engagement is always on a spiritual level. Open endings often suggest transcendence, with the
melodic line ascending to the heavens. Schnittke had previously used this idea in Peer Gynt
(1986) and the Cello Concerto No. 2 (1990). The Peer Gynt Epilogue is made even more intimate
and personal in the transcription that Schnittke made in 1992 for cello, piano and tape. And the
idea reaches its most ethereal form in the final movement of the Symphony No. 8, the movement
an epilogue, consisting solely of a rising line, each note sustained to create a gradually accumu-
lating diatonic cluster, fading to silence, even as it expands.
On 2 June 1994, Schnittke suffered a third stroke. Like the first, this was a major stroke,
affecting the whole of his brain. The stroke paralysed the right side of his body, and he could no
longer walk or talk. But he learned to write with his left hand and managed to produce a small
number of scores in the last years of his life. (His death, on 3 August 1998, was also caused by a
stroke.) Of these final works, the Sonatina for Piano Four Hands is an 18th-century pastiche for
family performance. The other three works – Viola Concerto No. 2, Variations for String Quartet and
Symphony No. 9 – further extend the late style. Each piece is monothematic, with the theme only
developed to the extent of becoming the basis for polyphonic textures. The polyphony is gener-
ally homorhythmic, and the harmonies are mostly based on pandiatonic/white-note sonorities
and clusters. The radical use of silence in the early 1990s is abandoned in favour of a more con-
tinuous discourse, in the case of the Viola Concerto an uninterrupted span of around 20 minutes.
But the focus is still the same, on the ‘even tension’ that Schnittke had admired in Hauer’s music.
Textures are now even more uniform, and themes and harmonies are stripped of their identity,
inviting the listener to hear beyond the music’s quantifiable values, beyond the real world. The
effect resembles Schnittke’s description of hearing Hauer’s work, ‘it is of course both symbol and
music – it lives, as it were, on the verge of the real and the unreal, on the verge where unquestion-
ably tangible values … meet those that cannot be implemented in the real world’.
Notes
1 For more detail on Schnittke’s use of the cross figure in the Piano Quintet and in the Symphony No. 2, see
Eberle 1994 and Medić 2017a, respectively.
2 Juilliard sketch 396. This sketch is reproduced in Medić 2017a, 12.
3 Schnittke may also have been aware of another article on the subject, Tiftikidi 1970.
4 Schnittke revised this paper several times. Four different versions survive today: Schnittke’s initial draft
(Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive), the transcript of his 1971 talk, an expanded version published in 1988
(Schnittke 2004, 67–101) and a further edited version published in 1990 (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990,
327–31). The English translation published in A Schnittke Reader is of the 1988 version, and Schmelz
2021, 355–57, gives an English translation of the 1971 transcript. In the 1990 version, Schnittke replaces
the name of Henze with that of Górecki (see Schmelz 2021, 51–60).
5 This is based on similar tables in Segall 2013b, 256–57, 258, 260–62, with additions and amendments.
Segall also lists the secondary sources that identify each monogram.
6 I am grateful to the late Dmitri Smirnov for help in locating this reference.
49
2
STAGE WORKS
Ballets
Introduction
By the late 1980s, Schnittke had become a significant ballet composer with several major works
for companies in Russia and Germany. But his path towards ballet was indirect. In his earlier career,
he compared his own music to dance, saying that both convey connections between the personal
and the universal but added that he had little interest in writing for dance (Shulgin 2004, 93).
Even so, choreographers were drawn to Schnittke’s music, and each of his ballets – Labyrinths,
Sketches and Peer Gynt – was instigated by the respective choreographer.
Schnittke’s earliest dance music was for multidisciplinary projects. The Eleventh Commandment
(1962), an abandoned early opera, was to involve ballet and mime, along with opera and melodrama
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 10). Der gelbe Klang (1973–1974) also involved mime and dance,
in line with Kandinsky’s libretto. Labyrinths (1971), the first work Schnittke wrote specifically as a
ballet, coincided with the composer’s move towards polystylism. The stylistic diversity is limited,
contrasting tonal and atonal movements, but the score demonstrated how selective employment of
tonal themes in non-tonal contexts could have significant narrative potential for the ballet stage.
By the 1980s, Schnittke’s concert works were also being adopted for ballet. Polystylism proved
attractive to choreographers for its regular evocation of dance genres. Those dance episodes are
often integrated into longer dramatic spans, lending the music to narrative dance treatment.
Schnittke’s most popular concert works for ballet have been his most overtly polystylistic: the
Concerto Grosso No. 1 (Othello, John Neumeier, 1985; Frauen – Männer – Paar, Birget Scherzer,
1991; Titanic, Frédéric Flamand and Fabrizio Plessi, 1992), the Moz-Art series (Fenster zu Mozart,
Neumeier, 1991; Moz-Art, Beate Rygiert, 1992), and the Symphony No. 1 (A Streetcar Named
Desire, Neumeier, 1983) (Peters 1994, 68–69). John Neumeier’s use of Schnittke’s music led
directly to his collaboration with the composer on Peer Gynt. A ballet by Valery Panov, Dreyfus –
J’Accuse, created in Bonn in 1994, exploited the choreographic potential of polystylism further,
employing nine of Schnittke’s concert works.
Peer Gynt was one of the pivotal works of Schnittke’s late career, but John Neumeier’s approach
brought the project closer in conception to opera, exploring philosophical themes and complex
emotional relationships through a symbolic musical language more often associated with singing.
DOI: 10.4324/9780429274046-2 50
Stage works
The success of Peer Gynt encouraged Schnittke to explore further ballet projects, but his illness
in the 1990s meant that none of these went beyond initial planning. He planned to write a
one-act ballet for the Salzburg Festival on the subject of John the Baptist, as a companion piece
to Stravinsky’s The Soldiers Tale. The character fascinated Schnittke: ‘John the Baptist is a very
enigmatic character. He is more difficult and inscrutable than Jesus Christ’ (Schnittke 2002, 34).
Schnittke and Neumeier also considered a further collaboration, a ballet based on Narcissus and
Goldmund by Hermann Hesse (Peters 1994, 72).1 This project never materialised, but their col-
laboration was later memorialised in Sounds of Empty Pages, staged at the Mariinsky in 2001. The
ballet, created by Neumeier and danced to Schnittke’s Viola Concerto, takes the last years of the
composer’s life as its subject, and is dedicated to his memory.
Meanwhile, Schnittke’s music for films has entered a high-profile dance repertoire – that of ice
skating. His theme for The Butterfly (1972, the theme known here as Butterflies are Free), the Tango
from Agony (1974/1981) and the ‘Flight’ theme from A Tale of Travels (1983) have become staple
numbers for competitive figure skating, especially among the Russian skaters who continue to
dominate the sport.
Labyrinths
In 1971, Schnittke was approached by Vladimir Vasiliev, a dancer at the Bolshoi Theatre, to write
music for a new ballet, to be presented at the All-Union Ballet Master’s Competition in 1972
(Shulgin 2004, 57). Vasiliev provided the title, Labyrinths, and the scenario: a sequence of five
movements, in which two dancers, a man and a woman, separately navigate an imaginary maze.
The music for the competition was recorded at the Bolshoi, but only the chamber orchestra was
available, so Schnittke scored the work for solo strings, plus percussion and keyboards. Due to
time constraints, only the first movement was presented at the competition. In 1978, the ballet
was revived as a concert work, and Dmitri Kitayenko prepared a new edition of the score, the
solo string parts replaced with a string section, a change that Schnittke endorsed (Kholopova &
InVasiliev’s scenario, the first movement represents harmony between the man and woman.The
second is a quarrel between them. Movement three represents the mechanised and automated
environment of everyday life. The fourth movement portrays delirious hallucinations. The laby-
rinth idea comes into focus in the fifth movement, with the man and woman engaging in a
ritualised search. They finally find each other and triumphantly escape.
The score is in two distinct styles. The first movement and the final Maestoso sound tonal,
while the inner movements are written in ‘a kind of free thematic atonalism’ (Shulgin 2004, 58).
Both styles are remarkably free of stylistic dogmas or disciplines. In the first movement, we
hear triad-like sonorities overlaid in different tuned percussion instruments, and similarly con-
sonant held harmonies in the strings, supporting a lyrical but atonal melody. The movement also
includes a brief historical allusion, a stately dance with ornamented cadences. Schnittke called
this ‘a kind of reverence to the spirit of the 18th century’, but he also admitted that, had he been
involved in rehearsals, he would have removed it (Shulgin 2004, 58).
The ‘free thematic atonalism’ of the inner movements often involves wedge accumulations
around a central pitch and short, aphoristic phrases often leading into textural passages for untuned
percussion. Schnittke said: ‘There is a specific group of intonations, a group of thematic motifs,
and all the material is woven from these. There are no triads, nor traditional tonal sequences
formed. There is not even a [pitch] centre. The verticals are mostly seconds and clusters –
this was an attempt to introduce clusters as a kind of intonational system’ (Shulgin 2004, 59).
51
Stage works
The meeting of the man and the woman is anticipated with a musical build-up of ascending and
descending lines and increasingly dense clusters. The meeting itself, at the Maestoso, is a radiant
resolution to F octaves, and the ending is dominated by bells.
Der gelbe Klang

Der gelbe Klang (The Yellow Sound) was written in 1973–1974, in response to a request from
Gennady Rozhdestvensky for a contribution to his planned concert ‘Music and Painting’
(Shulgin 2004, 70). Rozhdestvensky suggested that Schnittke take inspiration from the paintings
of Paul Klee, but the composer turned instead to Der gelbe Klang, a libretto for an experimental
theatre piece by Wassily Kandinsky.The work had originally been created in 1909 with music by
Thomas de Hartmann, although it was never staged in Kandinsky’s lifetime. In 1912, Kandinsky’s
libretto was published in The Blue Rider Almanac (Marc & Kandinsky 1912). Schnittke conceived
a work that could be presented either as a theatrical staging, as Kandinsky envisaged, or as a con-
cert with paintings by Kandinsky, in line with Rozhdestvensky’s plan. In the event, the concert
did not take place, and Schnittke’s setting was premiered in France in 1975. In 1983, Schnittke
revised the score for the Moscow staging conducted by Alexander Lazarev the following year.2
Kandinsky’s libretto was for a ‘tone-colour drama’, an abstract stage work involving dance, music
and lighting. Kandinsky attached spiritual significance to colours, with white representing life and
black representing death. He also perceived a symbolic contrast between yellow and blue, yellow
signifying the Earth and warmth, blue the heavens and coldness.Yellow is the most powerful and
energetic colour. Kandinsky wrote:‘It leaps across boundaries, disseminating its force into the envir-
onment – similar to the qualities of any physical power, which unconsciously throws itself upon an
object and aimlessly spreads itself in all directions’ (Ivashkin, programme note held at the Ivashkin-
Schnittke Archive). He also envisaged yellow as a sound, ‘like the increasingly loud sound of a pier-
cing trumpet, or a fanfare climbing ever higher’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 88). The libretto
and Schnittke’s setting are made up of an introduction and six scenes. Colours are embodied by
unnamed characters: five giants in yellow, a child in white, a very fat man in black. Simple settings
and actions are indicated, and there is a small amount of sung text (which Schnittke translated from
German to Russian), but the libretto goes into greater detail about the lighting effects and music.
The music is described mostly in terms of timbre, for example in scene 1: ‘a chorus, without
words … produces an entirely wooden and mechanical sound, without feeling’ (Knopf 2015,
150). Occasionally, pitches are specified: in scene 2:‘The music is shrill and tempestuous, with oft-
repeated A and B and B and B-flat’ (Knopf 2015, 151).The duality of A and B recurs throughout
the libretto, a musical polarity as symbolic as the colour contrasts. The libretto refers to an
orchestra, but Schnittke writes for a chamber ensemble: single brass and woodwinds, keyboards,
percussion and an offstage chorus, including solo soprano (substituting Kandinsky’s tenor soloist).
Otherwise, Schnittke follows the directions of the libretto closely.The offstage chorus ‘must be so
arranged that the source of the singing is unrecognizable’ (Knopf 2015, 149), an effect Schnittke
achieves through electronic amplification.
The symbolism and dramaturgy of Kandinsky’s libretto, as Schnittke interpreted it, were
intended to be intuitively perceived (Shulgin 2004, 71). Accordingly, his score is freely composed,
a ‘colour-light game’ without formal calculations, instead drawing on the descriptions in the
libretto to ‘illuminate [the sounds] from within’ (Shulgin 2004, 71). His conception of the dance
was similarly abstract, the dancers representing the interaction of colours. When asked about the
dramatic basis of his work (as opposed to Kandinsky’s libretto), Schnittke replied, ‘It is based on
a completely traditional conflict of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness … My primary con-
cern was to find a path towards the embodiment of this eternal dualism: I mean the connection
52
Stage works
between plastic arts and light-colour, as presented through static and dynamic forms of Sonoristic
movement, that I had not yet explored’ (Shulgin 2004, 71).
Der gelbe Klang is Schnittke’s most Sonoristic score, drawing on many ideas from the Polish
avant-garde. This is evident from the opening, which passes undefined stacked-third sonorities
around the instruments as Klangfarbenmelodie, in response to Kandinsky’s instruction ‘Some inde-
terminate chords from the orchestra’ (Knopf 2015, 149). But a theme emerges, clearly defined at
the start, becoming more ambiguous and aleatoric, but regaining its melodic identity at the end.
This symmetrical structure is made explicit by the return, in scene 5, of rhythms from scene 1,
and the opening of scene 2 (scene 5, Fig. 28). The thematic erosion and restoration also corres-
ponds with Kandinsky’s conception of the dualism of yellow and blue, as outlined in his 1911
manifesto On the Spiritual in Art (Kandinsky 1911). There, yellow is characterised as a centrifugal
force, and blue centripetal (Gage 1993, 207). Schnittke represents these properties by associating
yellow with music that diverges from the thematic source and blue with music that returns to it.
The identity of the theme is nebulous throughout. Kholopova identifies a 12-note row, not strict,
based on the tubular bell part at the opening of scene 1: C, E♭, G, C♯, F♯, E, F, D, B♭, G, B, G♯. But
this is heard simultaneously with a nine-note row in the piano left hand: C, E, G, G♭, D♭, E♭, B♭,
F, D, which recurs more frequently, including previously in the Introduction, vibraphone, Fig. 1. A
common feature to both rows is an ascending major triad, followed by a semitone descent from the
fifth (this appears in retrograde in the first row), and this becomes the primary motif in the work.
Serial thinking is evident in the rhythm and timbre: Schnittke identifies rhythm series in scenes 1,
2, 5 and 6 (Shulgin 2004, 72). For example, the grace note flourishes in the piano right hand at the
start of scene 1 are each made up of a different number of notes between 1 and 12. Meanwhile,
the themes in the other four parts repeat, expanding from one note to two, then three, five, seven:
a ‘tone counting canon’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 322). The passage at Fig. 3 can be heard as
a timbre row, with each of the instruments appearing in succession. But these ideas are presented
without any serial rigour, as if held over from Schnittke’s earlier serial phase, but now applied in a
consciously irrational way to correspond with the intuitive nature of Kandinsky’s libretto.
Gogol Suite and Sketches

In 1978, Schnittke wrote incidental music for The Census List (Revizskaia skazka), a play by
Yuri Lyubimov, staged at the Taganka Theatre in Moscow. The play is about Nikolai Gogol
and features scenes and quotations from several of his stories: The Overcoat, The Portrait, Dead
Souls, The Inspector General (Revizor), Diary of a Madman, Testament and Selected Passages from
Correspondence with Friends (Popova 2001, 112). Rozhdestvensky conducted the music, and in
1980 he arranged eight of the numbers as Gogol Suite. Even without the staging, the influence
of Gogol’s absurdist comedy is everywhere apparent, with raucous marches, stilted waltzes and
mock-serious Romantic outbursts, along with fragmentary quotations from Beethoven, Haydn
and Tchaikovsky. The conductor has a small speaking part, reading from Diary of a Madman
against a musical backdrop, the absurdity of the text highlighting the mock-tragic tone of the
music beneath, a particularly Gogol-like juxtaposition.
The ballet Sketches (Eskizy) was devised by Rozhdestvensky and choreographer Andrei Petrov
for the Bolshoi Theatre, where it was first staged in 1985. The scenario was loosely based on The
Census List with Gogol again at the centre of the action. Rozhdestvensky compiled the ballet
score from his earlier Gogol Suite, the numbers now arranged for larger orchestra. Of the ballet’s 15
movements,3 the Gogol Suite is used as the basis for Nos. 2–4, 7, 9 and 12. Gogol’s story The Nose was
not included in The Census List, and this accounts for No. 6 in the ballet score.The Suite had been
performed at a Moscow concert conducted by Rozhdestvensky in 1982 that also included music
53
Stage works
by Denisov and Gubaidulina. The three composers, plus Rozhdestvensky himself, all collaborated
on a march to be performed at the concert, and this appears as the opening and closing numbers of
the ballet. The ballet score also includes music that Schnittke composed for two television dramas
on Gogol’s Dead Souls (1984) and Pushkin’s Evgenii Onegin (1981). Schnittke’s participation in the
ballet was minimal, limited to extending or shortening passages as Petrov required.
Schnittke described the ballet as a ‘fantasy after Gogol’. He explained, ‘The well-chosen idea
of the choreographer was reflected in the title itself. The goal was not just to “sketch out” the
ideas, but to let them run smoothly together, like the course of a river. Many of the stories were
not dramatised directly. Instead, a succession of scraps of plots creates the illusion that, when one
of them is no longer apparent, it continues on invisibly somewhere else. This creates a multidi-
mensionality …’ (Ivashkin 1985, 22).
The plot strands are brought together in the ‘Ball’ movement, where all the characters meet.
The music here evokes waltz, tango and Orthodox chant.The culmination (a separate movement
in Ivashkin’s listing, ‘The Author’s Uncertainty’, based on the ‘Testament’ movement of the Suite)
quotes the Ukrainian folk song The Cock Crows (Piiut pitukhi) – Gogol himself was Ukrainian. In
the song, the cock crows before dawn, which comes as reality is restored, and Gogol ‘crosses out’
his creations: ‘The grotesque carnival phantasmagoria disappears – and the author is left alone
with his thoughts’ (Ivashkin 1985, 21).
Although Schnittke’s participation in the ballet project was slight, he came to understand the
music in a new light through the choreographic setting. Rozhdestvensky and Petrov create
the dramatic tension of the finale out of a radical diversity, both of the characters onstage and
the musical styles. For Schnittke, Gogol’s crisis in the finale is a collision of the sublime and the
base, caused by the carnivalesque world that he has created. Between writing the incidental music
and Rozhdestvensky’s arrangement of it as a ballet, Schnittke had begun employing popular
styles to convey a link between the demonic and the banal, most notably in the tango of the
Faust Cantata. Revisiting the music, Schnittke came to understand how Gogol had influenced
that perception (See Chapter 1: Representations of evil).
Peer Gynt
Schnittke’s most ambitious and conceptual ballet, Peer Gynt, was instigated by the choreographer
John Neumeier, who specialises in evening-length narrative ballet productions exploring philo-
sophical themes. Prior to Peer Gynt, Neumeier had used Schnittke’s Symphony No. 1 in A Streetcar
Named Desire (Stuttgart 1983) and Concerto Grosso No. 1 for Othello (Hamburg 1985). Around the
time of the Othello premiere, Neumeier visited Moscow, where he met Schnittke. He suggested
a collaboration, based on either Chekhov or Peer Gynt. Schnittke recalled:
[P]eer Gynt caught my interest at once, and I will tell you why.There are some subjects
that seem to have only one possible realization, and once realized, are at once exhausted.
And there are other subjects with an endless number of realizations, and none of them is
ever completely exhausted. In this sense the subject of Peer Gynt reminds me of Faust –
it is something with a limitless periphery. And it seems to exist at any point on that
periphery, even though it’s the periphery and not the whole thing.
The Faust legend was still at the forefront of the composer’s mind since the Faust Cantata in 1983.
As well as their ambiguity and openness to interpretation, the two stories have a similar outline.
Ivashkin writes: ‘Like Doctor Faust, Peer Gynt travels, encounters evil spirits and finally returns
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Stage works
home and repents’ (Ivashkin 1996, 193; see also Kovalevsky 2011). Such abstract connections
required a generalised narrative, with the characters becoming symbolic archetypes, an approach
that corresponded closely to Neumeier’s conceptual philosophy. Schnittke began work on the
ballet in 1985 but had only completed the first act before he suffered his first stroke (Kholopova
2003, 210). The ballet was eventually staged in Hamburg in 1989.
The ballet is ‘freely based on Henrik Ibsen’s play’ and outlined in a verse synopsis by Neumeier.
The setting is updated to the present day, but otherwise Neumeier’s first act is a faithful précis of
Ibsen’s acts I – III. In Norway, we meet Peer with his mother, Åse (No. 1). Åse hopes that Peer
will marry Ingrid, but Peer desires Solveig, and Ingrid is engaged to another. Peer goes to Ingrid’s
wedding and abducts her (No. 2). Peer enters the troll world (No. 4) and encounters the Bøyg
(Der Krumme, No. 5), a malign presence that Schnittke associates with all the negative aspects of
the story. Peer encounters the Woman in Green. In Ibsen’s play, she is the daughter of the Troll
King and carries a child, supposedly fathered by Peer. Neumeier’s description is vague:‘Intrusion –
the past catches up with Peer/He cannot stay.’ The act ends with the death of Åse.
Neumeier’s second and third acts correspond to Ibsen’s fourth and fifth. In Ibsen’s play, Peer
travels to Africa. There he becomes a slave trader, and seduces Antira, a chieftain’s daughter. He
then travels to Egypt, where he addresses the Sphinx, believing it to be the Bøyg, and is eventu-
ally confined to a mad house, where he imagines he is crowned Emperor, but is instead crowned
‘emperor of the self ’. Neumeier reinterprets the scenario as a venturing out into a world of
illusions. Peer travels to Hollywood and becomes a film star. The events in Ibsen’s Africa act
become the subjects of Peer’s films, ‘Peer as Slave Trader’ (No. 12) and ‘Emperor of the World’
(No. 15). But the madness proves all too real, and the act concludes with ‘Peer’s Mad Dance’ (No.
18) and mock coronation (No. 19).
The third act is entitled ‘Return’ in Neumeier’s synopsis: Ibsen has Peer return to Norway,
but Neumeier explores more abstract notions of return. Ibsen opens the act with a shipwreck: In
the ballet, Peer recalls this event from a distance (‘Peer’s Memories’, No. 21). Ingrid has died and
is buried (No. 22). Solveig reappears (No. 23), and Peer is redeemed through her love. But Peer
cannot distinguish the other women he remembers (‘Peer Surrounded by his “Aspects”’, No. 24).
By evoking their eternal feminine power, he peels away the layers of his own being (‘The Onion’,
No. 26), but finds nothing essential, ‘Peer looks for himself/And finds Peer Everyman’. After a
final torment and release (‘Despair and Escape’, No. 27), the ballet ends with a long Epilogue, an
‘endless adagio’ in Neumeier’s words.
For Neumeier, the three acts embody different ‘Kreise’ (circles, spheres), different modes of
perception and being. Hence, the Prologue is entitled ‘Into the World’, and introduces the cor-
poreal sphere of the first act. Neumeier described the narrative of act I as ‘relevantly anecdotal’,
while Schnittke acknowledged that the music here ‘still sounds like ballet music, even if it tries
to avoid all stereotypical formulations’ (Kostakeva 2005, 69–70). The second act, ‘Out in the
World – Illusions’, is more abstract. The narrative becomes less linear, jumping between film
scenes and backstage, as well as a return to Norway for ‘Solveig’s Dance’. In act III, ‘Return’,
Peer returns to Norway, yet both Peer and Norway have changed. We have moved to another
‘sphere’, a world of memories and abstract concepts. The Epilogue is yet another ‘sphere’, and
the distinction here is greater still. The three acts play out a narrative of life and death, but the
Epilogue stands outside of that cycle. Neumeier conceived the ‘endless adagio’ as a counter-
weight, giving the third act the emotive power to balance the first two. But Schnittke took the
idea further, a ‘fourth dimension’, outside of time: ‘the epilogue at the end of the third act is a
fourth kind of reality. Everything that has happened is repeated, re-experienced, but at a new
level … The idea of a fourth dimension momentarily breaks through into clear consciousness
and immediately vanishes again’ (Schnittke 2002, 36).
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The greater significance that Schnittke gave to the Epilogue was indicative of a tension between
composer and choreographer. When Neumeier approached Schnittke with the idea of collabor-
ation, Schnittke was attracted to Neumeier’s attitude to the relationship between dance and music:
Neumeier does not choreograph note for note … Music and dance remain two
dimensions, the music being the shadow of the movement, and at the same time the
movement being the shadow of the music … Now, when not everything is paralleled, a
consciousness of the music arises that stands independently – perception extends itself.
One now senses, sees, hears – two worlds.This strange feeling of the non-synchronicity
of the two processes with each other is for me very important.
(Quoted in liner note to BIS-CD-677–78)
In Peer Gynt, the relationship between music and dance becomes increasingly distant as the work
progresses. Neumeier’s verse libretto is shorter for each successive act, as the drama becomes
more abstract and conceptual. So each perceptual sphere is characterised by a different level of
meaning and symbolism, and by a different relationship between music and dance. The trad-
itional number structure of the first act becomes tenuous in the second and is absent in the third.
Schnittke also applies a formal structure to the music, translating the outline of Neumeier’s syn-
opsis into a purely musical form. As well as the Epilogue, the work also has a significant Prologue,
‘Into the World’. Together, they frame the three acts. Similarly, the first and third acts, both set
in Norway, frame the ‘World of Illusions’ act II. The structure can therefore be understood as
symmetrical, or even as a sonata form (Kostakeva 2005, 71). But the formal proportioning only
serves to highlight the progressive changes from one sphere to the next, embodied by the quali-
fied ‘Return’ in the third act, and the progression towards the Epilogue, which stands outside the
cycle.That tension of linear and cyclical, resolved through transcendence, suggests instead a spiral
form, ascending from one perceptive realm to the next with each sphere (Kostakeva 2005, 69).
The ballet is scored for large orchestra, and Schnittke’s music is expansive, expressive and
Romantic, although rarely tonal. That Romanticism suggests that Schnittke was comfortable
with the inevitable associations with Grieg. The overture to act II alludes to Greig’s ‘Morning’
in its woodwind textures and pastoral mood, although without direct quotation. (This overture
later became the basis of Schnittke’s Hommage à Grieg.) Schnittke initially avoided writing a solo
dance for Anitra in act II, perhaps fearing direct comparison with Grieg’s famous version. But the
dance was required, so Schnittke wrote one shortly before the premiere.
Other stylistic allusions are employed, often in keeping with the Grieg-era aesthetic. The ‘Pas
de deux: Solveig-Peer’ (act I, Fig. 65) opens with a languorous Tristan-like cor anglais solo. By
the second act, the listener has become accustomed to the rich orchestral textures. This allows
Schnittke to evoke the ‘illusory’ film world through solo piano numbers, a ragtime for ‘Audition’
(No. 10) and a blues in ‘Rainbow Sextet’ (No. 11, Schnittke called this number ‘Stepp-Quartett’).
Neumeier identifies seven ‘aspects’ to Peer: Anima, Childhood, Travel, Eroticism, Recklessness,
Aggression, Doubt. Each becomes an alter-ego, with a separate dancer.The abstraction is significant:
as the ballet moves towards more universal signification in the third act, Peer’s aspects are revealed
to be the universal characteristics of all men, ‘Peer looks for himself/And finds Peer Everyman’.
The female characters are similarly archetypal in Neumeier’s conception, as competing feminine
influences on Peer’s soul. Solveig represents eternal love. The other three women each carry nega-
tive connotations. Ingrid embodies guilt, Antira the superficial, and the Woman in Green deceit.
But these ideas stand outside of Schnittke’s conception, and in his music, these three women are
largely conflated. In 2015, Neumeier directed a second production of the ballet in Hamburg, taking
into account his own re-reading of Ibsen’s play, but also Schnittke’s music. The seven aspects/alter
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egos of Peer were reduced to four: Innocence,Visionary, Ambition, Doubt. In the first production,
the three other women had been performed by a single dancer, but in 2015, Neumeier took that
conflation further, combining them into a single, collective ‘Other’ (Shirinyan 2016).
Schnittke’s music identifies and interrelates the characters differently. They are linked through
thematic connections, but the thematic working remains nebulous, acknowledging the com-
plex and multidimensional nature of each, and especially Peer. The work opens with a six-note
motif, E♭, D, E♭ – E♭, D, C♯, on tuned gongs. Each note is accompanied alternately by harp-
sichord and harp, playing extended harmonies based on E♭ minor and D minor, respectively
(see Example 2.1(a)). This is the theme of the Bøyg (Der Krumme), a connection Schnittke
makes explicit by reprising it unchanged in the ‘Der Krumme’ scene (No. 5). This contradicts
Neumeier’s choreography for the Overture, which introduces Peer’s seven aspects, already part
Example 2.1 Peer Gynt: (a) Bøyg theme, opening (excerpt); (b) Peer theme, act I, three bars after
Fig. 19 (flute I); (c) Peer theme, act I, Fig. 35 (violin I); (d) Solveig theme, act I, Fig. 70 (oboe I, violin I);
(e) Woman in Green theme, act II, Fig. 67 (trombone I, horn I)
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of his being, even as he enters ‘Into the World’. But the juxtaposition suggests that the Bøyg
is also part of Peer. The motif becomes the kernel of the entire ballet, giving the Bøyg a cen-
tral role in the musical characterisation. A thematic analysis by Richard Traub, paraphrased by
Ronald Weitzman in the liner note to BIS-CD-677/678, identifies 24 different themes, but
connects most of them through three motifs: the two three-note cells of the Bøyg theme, and
a chromatic turn motif, C, B, A, B♭. The Bøyg theme is also significant for its timbral identity:
mournful funereal bells, drawing us into a dark dreamworld. When Solveig enters, in ‘Entrance
of Solveig and her Parents’ (act I, Fig. 59), her status as a redeeming force, in opposition to the
Bøyg, is represented through the inversion of these opening textures, bell sounds again, but now
in a brighter high register from tubular bells, glockenspiel and vibraphone.
Given Schnittke’s association of Peer with Faust, the musical significance of the Bøyg suggests
a connection with Mephistopheles, but the Bøyg is a more generalised representation than the
personifications of Mephistopheles in Schnittke’s Faust Cantata. No new themes are introduced in
‘The Troll World’ (No. 4), and unlike Grieg, Schnittke plays down the malign agency of the trolls
and the drama of this section (an addition to the score from Fig. 135 suggests that more drama
was added later for choreographic purposes). So the Bøyg, introduced in the following number,
becomes a malign presence rather than a characterisation of evil. As well as becoming the basis
of most of the later themes, the Bøyg theme also returns independently in Mephistopheles-like
evocations of malign forces, especially in the second act: ‘The Audition’, ‘The Rainbow Sextet’,
‘Peer’s Mad Dance’ and ‘Peer’s Coronation’. In the third act, the motifs appear in the Overture,
the ‘Scene with Solveig’ (as one side in a confrontation between good and evil) and in ‘The
Onion’, the culmination of the negative side of the story.
Peer is associated with two motifs (see Examples 2.1(b) and 2.1(c)), a turn (both chromatic and
diatonic versions) and a rising major seventh, often prefixed with a rising major sixth.Traub associates
the turn motif with ‘Peer’s reactions to the feminine’. The rising major seventh is an inversion
of the falling semitone that opens the Bøyg theme, implying opposition between the characters.
The thematic representation of the female characters is more nebulous. Solveig is associated
with a motif of a descending fourth followed by a rising third (see Example 2.1(d) – this is also
the basis of the Tristan motif at Fig. 65). A descending scale pattern is also associated with Solveig,
but for both motifs the quasi-diatonic character is equally important. The Woman in Green
theme (see Example 2.1(e)) recalls but opposes Solveig’s theme. The opening perfect fourth is
inverted, and the second phrases of the two themes are also in approximate inversion. But the
themes are linked by the motif of an ascending minor third and descending semitone, implying
that each character in some sense contains their opposite.
All the previously heard themes recur in the Epilogue as distinct recollections. This highlights
the new treatment of musical time and syntax, the fourth ‘sphere’ outside of the life-cycle
embodied by the three main acts. Neumeier’s skeletal narrative, ‘Solveig recognises Peer/Peer
recognises Solveig’, focuses attention on the two main characters. The other characters return in
the choreography and the music but as ghostly reminiscences, contrasting the ‘real’ world of the
earlier acts but also suggesting that each is an alter-ego of Peer or Solveig.
The sense of expanded time in the Epilogue can be linked to Schnittke’s new perceptions
following his stroke in 1985. Like the Cello Concerto No. 1, Peer Gynt was conceived before the
stroke but completed afterwards. In both works, the music moves from a focused thematic struc-
ture towards a nebulous and dreamlike conclusion. Schnittke considered the Epilogue the most
important part of the work, saying that all the earlier music acts as a preliminary to this final
sphere (Köchel 1994, 83). The slow tempo has the effect of completing the break between the
two: ‘Everything that happens on stage appears painfully slow, as if in a different time frame than
the music; thereby increasing the “cloud” quality of the sounds …’ (Kholopova 2003, 212–13).
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Although the orchestra does not introduce any new themes in the Epilogue, an important
addition is made in the form of a tape-recorded choir, singing an eight-bar vocalise, in a clear D
major. The recording is replayed around 50 times. The effect is of resolution, but this is achieved
by introducing new tensions, more abstract than the earlier narrative conflicts. The stasis of
the choir opposes the continuing thematic activity in the orchestra. The D major of the choir
conflicts with both the atonality of the earlier music and its C♯ pitch centre. In the Epilogue, the
music vacillates between the two, with the string parts gradually adopting the D major key signa-
ture as they move into alignment with the chorus. But the influence also works in the opposite
direction, and Schnittke explains ‘because the music of the orchestra is constantly changing, the
illusion is created that the music of the choir is changing too. The choral music is coloured by
the orchestral’ (Schnittke 2002, 36).
The result is an other-worldly frame of perception, creating new perspectives on the musical
themes, the drama and the relationship between choreography and music. Schnittke explained
that, in the three main acts, you perceive what is happening from the narrow perspective of a
person involved, but in the Epilogue, the same events are perceived from an all-encompassing
perspective. ‘It doesn’t exist in real life’, so we must move into a world of unreality. Hence the
music transcends the narrative, into a sphere beyond verbal description: ‘There are two words
in the libretto, “endless adagio”, nothing else.You can’t say more, it says it all’ (Köchel 1994, 83).
Operas
Introduction
Schnittke only embraced opera late in his career. Several years before embarking on his three
mature operas, he stated that he was not interested in vocal music, nor in stage compositions, pre-
ferring large-scale instrumental forms (Shulgin 2004, 92). But opera eventually proved an ideal
arena for his late style, with the subdued polystylism of the late 1980s and early 1990s adapting
well to dramatic scenarios and historic scene setting. His progression towards the opera stage is
illustrated by two works from the 1980s, Three Scenes for Soprano and Ensemble (1980) and the
Faust Cantata (1983). Schnittke described Three Scenes as ‘a short sketch for an opera’ (Ivashkin
2009, 21), and its hybrid form – with actions but no words, and performed on a concert stage –
shows a reluctance to cede control of the musical drama to staged and sung narrative. Similarly,
the Faust Cantata, although conceived as part of the fully staged opera, is a concert work, the
drama again confined to the music. But, as with Schnittke’s ballets, the composer’s propensity
for collaboration proved an important motivation, and each of the three late operas came about
through the collective energies of creative teams, with conductors, librettists and stage directors
all feeding into the composer’s creative processes.
Schnittke spent a year and a half at the start of his professional career on an opera project. In
the early 1960s, Schnittke was courted by the Composers’ Union, who organised commissions
for him from two Moscow opera houses. One opera was to be African Ballad, about the fight for
independence in African countries, and the other, for the Bolshoi, was The Eleventh Commandment
(also known as The Lucky Man (Schastlivchik)). Little music for African Ballad was composed, but
The Eleventh Commandment was completed in piano score. The libretto by Marina Churova,
Georgy Ansimov and Schnittke himself is about the American pilot Claude Robert Eatherly
(1918–1978), who was involved in the Hiroshima bombings and who was later overcome by
remorse, sending money to survivors and attempting suicide. The opera was the first work
in which Schnittke consciously mixed different musical styles. Contrary to his later practice,
Schnittke associated tonality with the story’s good side and dodecaphony with the bad.
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The committee of the Bolshoi Theatre cancelled the production, but Schnittke later reused some
of the material for Prelude and Fugue (1963), where the pilot’s Morse code remains a prominent
motif. The official repercussions from the Eleventh Commandment project raised practical obstacles
to Schnittke composing any further operas. Opera was the most high-profile and ‘official’ musical
genre in Soviet Russia, and so the two commissions brokered by the Composers’ Union were
symbolic of the desire to have the composer work within the official sphere. The Arts Council at
the Bolshoi demanded that Schnittke scale back the work’s experimental language, but the com-
poser refused. Ivashkin writes that the result was an immediate blacklisting of Schnittke by the
Composers’ Union, which continued until the mid-1980s (Ivashkin 1996, 75–76). Peter J. Schmelz
has pointed out that this exaggerates the level of official stricture, as Schnittke’s music continued
be published and performed (Schmelz 2009c, 188 fn). But it marked Schnittke out as an ‘unofficial’
composer, effectively ruling out further commissions for Soviet opera houses. When Schnittke’s
opera career finally resumed, in the early 1990s, it was outside of Russia, and all three of his mature
operas were written for the West: for Amsterdam,Vienna and Hamburg.
The Eleventh Commandment also had the effect of bolstering Schnittke’s Modernist stance.
Unsatisfied with this early experiment in stylistic diversity, he devoted the following years to
exploring serial techniques instead. When Schnittke eventually returned to mixing styles within
works, the morality was reversed, with popular styles now representing evil and a Modernist lan-
guage for virtue and truth. This configuration aligned with the fictional Apocalypse Cantata in
Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus that Schnittke read in the late 1940s, and so Schnittke’s Faust Cantata
was an important consolidation for this moral/aesthetic alignment. Such reflections on morality
became more significant when Schnittke completed the opera, with the cantata as its final act, in
1994. By then, opera had become Schnittke’s principal medium for exploring moral conflicts. Faust
and Gesualdo, the two major works of Schnittke’s late career, are both explorations of personal mor-
ality, the main character in each engaged in a struggle between good and evil. Medieval settings
provide the abstraction and distance for both works to play out in such philosophical terms, while
the subdued but powerful drama of the music demonstrates how distinctive Schnittke’s approach to
opera had become through his decades-long reconciliation with the genre.
Life with an Idiot

Schnittke’s first completed opera, Life with an Idiot, was a huge success from its first staging, in
Amsterdam in 1992, with other productions soon following across Europe. It marked a signifi-
cant departure for the composer, his first work of social or political satire outside of film music.
But Schnittke’s polystylism, and especially his ability to integrate Soviet songs and marches,
proved ideal for the project. It also demonstrated his surprising affinity with an unlikely collab-
orator, librettist Viktor Yerofeyev.
Yerofeyev (born 1947) was significantly younger than Schnittke. In the 1970s, he organised
a literary magazine, published in samizdat to avoid censorship, and as a result was expelled
from the Writers’ Union and banned from publication until 1988. Instead, Yerofeyev gave
private readings in his Moscow home. Schnittke attended one such reading, in the early
1980s, accompanying Gennady Rozhdestvensky, where Yerofeyev read his story Life with an
Idiot (McBurney 1995, 381).
Schnittke was not immediately drawn to the idea of setting the story as an opera, but the
project was stimulated several years later, in 1988, when Schnittke visited an installation at the
Feldman Gallery in New York, ‘10 Characters’ by Ilya Kabakov.4 Yerofeyev’s story is a satire on
Soviet life, with the personal impact of state privations demonstrated in a small, overcrowded
flat. Kabakov employs a similar metaphor, recreating a communal Soviet flat, a kommunal’ka.
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Schnittke recalled ‘he recreated the idiotic “Soviet” environment. You go into a room in which
there is an indistinct murmur from neighbours, which swings between a fracas and a drunken
embrace. You hear that they speak Russian, but not what they say. You don’t hear swearing, but
something on the verge’ (Ivashkin 2003, 161). This idea became the first important element of
the opera, that when the characters fall asleep, we immediately hear the neighbours’ conversation.
The creative team for Life with an Idiot was assembled by Pierre Audi, then Artistic Director
of Dutch National Opera, on the basis of Schnittke’s idea. Rostropovich would conduct
and Boris Pokrovsky, long-serving chief stage director at the Bolshoi Theatre, was chosen
to direct. At the time of the Amsterdam staging, Pokrovsky was 82 years old. Ilya Kabakov
designed the sets.
Work on the opera was interrupted by Schnittke’s second stroke, in 1991. He had completed
act I, and the first scene of act II. A date appears in the manuscript at the end of this scene, July
1991, the month of the stroke.The effects of the stroke are apparent in the unsteady handwriting
and in the style of the music: the final scene is much more sparsely orchestrated, with the voices
typically accompanied by just one instrumental group or just a solo instrument.
The opera is structured as two acts, each with two scenes. There is also a substantial sung
Prologue, and an intermezzo between each scene. The narrative is disjointed, as if I and Wife, the
unnamed principal characters, were telling it in retrospect. At the opening, a group of friends
gather in I and Wife’s flat to celebrate that they have accepted an ‘idiot’ to live with them.
The narrative then cuts to near the end of the story – the idiot, Vova, bursts on the scene and
decapitates Wife with a pair of kitchen shears, an act that sexually stimulates I. The second scene
cuts back to the start, with I visiting a lunatic asylum and choosing Vova. When he brings Vova
home, Wife is appalled, especially as he can only say a single word, ‘Ech!’
In the second act, the three are living together in the flat.Vova becomes more disruptive and
violent, destroying furniture and books, including Wife’s copies of the works of Marcel Proust,
who then appears as a minor character. I and Wife retreat to the second room, where they
quarrel. But Vova forces his way in and has sex with Wife. I fetches a knife, intending to kill Vova.
In the second scene,Wife is pregnant by Vova, but aborts the child.Vova begins a relationship with
I and rejects Wife. When Wife attempts to win back Vova, he decapitates her with the kitchen
shears. This again sexually stimulates I, who now becomes the idiot himself.
The absurdist plot is in the tradition of Gogol, particularly with its theme of dismemberment.5
But the subjects of the satire are distinctly Soviet.The story continually subverts the social norms
of Soviet life, with the depictions of violence, sex and especially homosexuality at odds with the
censorship of the time.Yerofeyev’s story was written in 1980, the Brezhnev era, while the writing
and production of the opera spanned the last days of the Soviet Union. Pokrovsky said of the
opera, ‘From my perspective, it is the only work that could be called a “Soviet Opera”. Schnittke
reveals the psyche, the spirit of Soviet man.This opera could appear only at the moment of pere-
stroika’ (Samokhvalova 2011, 289).
Yerofeyev’s libretto has a polystylistic quality, with modes of discourse from Soviet mass
communication and propaganda parodied, but as snatches of expressions or vague allusions.
For example, when the chorus sings ‘drink tomato juice’, the tone echoes Soviet-era adver-
tising. And the slogan ‘I’ve swapped a bird for a pizza’ (Ia ptitsu promenial na pitstsu) (act II
scene 1) is an absurdist satire of ‘beat their swords into ploughshares’ (perekuiut mechi svoi na
orala) (Lukomsky 1999, 436). Similarly, Schnittke includes brief quotes and allusions to Soviet
songs: Comrades, let’s bravely march (Smelo, tovarishchi, v nogu), Baikal the Glorious Sea (Slavnoe more,
sviashchennyi Baikal), The Red Flag and Warszawianka. These are made to sound absurd and banal
through angular instrumental combinations: the Internationale is played by trombone and glock-
enspiel (in the Prologue, four bars after Fig. 2) and breaks off after just one bar. Baikal the Glorious
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Sea is a 19th-century folk song associated with convicts exiled to Siberia. Here, it appears as a
homoerotic duet (act II scene 2, Fig. 156).
Dance episodes also appear regularly: tangos and waltzes. The extended tango episode in act I
scene 1 is based on Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 (originally from Agony). This was a later
addition – it replaces a shorter, seven-bar tango in the manuscript, Fig. 58 – and was presumably
added at the suggestion of Rostropovich, who played the upright piano here in the first produc-
tion as well as cello solos later in the work.
Even with the self-quotations, the polystylism in the score, like the rhetorical references in the
libretto, refers exclusively to Russian and Soviet sources. But the Soviet focus of the satire proved
controversial at the first production. In particular, Vova was presented as a caricature of Lenin, a
link suggested in Yerofeyev’s libretto, although not made explicit. I describes Vova (act II scene 2) as
having the ‘bulging head of a polemicist’, and taking ‘five steps forward … five steps back’, a ref-
erence to Lenin’s One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. Among the creative team, Kabakov promoted
the idea that Vova should be modelled explicitly on Lenin, and Vova appears in his early design
sketches (reproduced in the Amsterdam programme) with receding red hair and goatee beard.
Pokrovsky opposed the depiction. He felt that the management of Dutch National Opera were
putting pressure on the team to make the satire more explicitly anti-Soviet. A consensus emerged
that Vova should be understood as a more general satire of dictators and tyrants. Schnittke said ‘He
must be both Lenin and some Lao sage; he cannot be made to be only Lenin – this would kill
everything’ (Ivashkin 2003, 161). And when Rostropovich was asked if Vova represented Lenin, he
replied ‘of course’, but added ‘Vova is also Hitler or Saddam Hussein … Any dictator with an idée
fixe’ (Rockwell 1992). Pokrovsky later directed a production of the opera in Vienna and Moscow,
with his own Moscow company, where the resemblance to Lenin was played down.
Another important model for Vova is the Russian tradition of the ‘Holy Fool’, the yurodivy (see
Flechsig 2017). In Orthodox traditions, a yurodivy is an ascetic figure, a ‘fool for Christ’, who
deliberately appears foolish to do God’s bidding, freed from social norms. One such holy fool
appears in Boris Godunov, and in Part 4/act IV of Mussorgsky’s opera, he becomes the focus of
the story’s morality, singing songs of lament and offering prayers for Boris. In Life with an Idiot, I
describes the fool he intends to choose as having ‘a blessed, holy fool-type pathology [iurodivoi
patologii], national in form and content’. Schnittke sets these words with a clear allusion to the
bell effects in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, act I scene 1, Fig. 35. But, unlike Boris’s fool,Vova has
no spiritual wisdom. He becomes an ‘anti-yurodivy’, his influence wholly negative.
The influence of Vova is intensified by the passivity of I and Wife, who have been made
indifferent and anonymous by the oppressive environment of the kommunal’ka. Schnittke
said: ‘All roles (with the exception of the insane Vova) are ambiguous: They are naturalistic,
active and at the same time poetically distant’ (Köchel 1994, 78). The anonymity of the main
characters is also emphasised by their interchangeability. Initially, musical characteristics
are associated with I, Wife and Vova, but in the second act, these are redistributed. In the
Intermezzo leading into act II, Vova initially sings intervals characteristic of his part, rising
tritones and sevenths (Fig. 1). From 2 bars before Fig. 3, I sings a descending chromatic line,
again associated with his own part. But at Fig. 4, the two ideas are transferred, Wife sings the
descending chromatic line and I sings the rising tritones and sevenths: Wife has become I,
and I has become Vova (see Example 2.2) (Martinez no date, 10). To increase the anonymity,
I and Wife sing without words. I’s next line is ‘And now I will tell you how I became his’
(Fig. 6).
This leads directly into the second act, where the ‘possession’ of I by Vova plays out as a transfer
of Vova’s musical characteristics to I. In the first act, I’s vocal line is most often accompanied by
the string section, and Vova’s by the winds. But in act II, I is increasingly accompanied by the
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Example 2.2 Life with an Idiot, Intermezzo (vocal parts only)
wind instruments. This plays out in microcosm at the opening of act II (Kostakeva 2005, 151),
where I is initially accompanied by solo violin and harpsichord, both previously associated with
I. But these are soon replaced with the winds and percussion previously linked with Vova.
The depersonalisation is also emphasised through the disrupted narrative. Like the characters,
the events become interchangeable, a stream of consciousness, hence the appearance of Marcel
Proust. Communication between characters is limited, the characters’ words often seeming more
like inner monologue.That paradox, of close proximity creating social distance, was a key element
of Schnittke’s conception of the opera. He envisaged a chamber opera, but performed in a large
theatre, allowing distance between the performers. Onstage, the singers should be surrounded by
empty space, with the settings behind mere ‘Audible and visible “shadows”’ (Köchel 1994, 78).
‘The stage behaviour of the three characters should be as if they are very crowded on a very large
stage. However, there is nothing real to clutter the scene. It is only psychological’ (Ivashkin 2003,
162). The orchestra is small, but should be distributed over the whole of the orchestra pit. In act
I scene 2, Schnittke extends the idea with eight wind players positioned around the auditorium.
Yerofeyev’s satire is unrelentingly cynical, but Schnittke also adds an element of Christian mor-
ality. The opening is a clear allusion to the first chorus of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, and the B-A-
C-H motif recurs, usually transposed, throughout the opera. Schnittke also emphasises the Christian
tradition of the yurodivy more than Yerofeyev: In the asylum scene, act II scene 2, I asks the guard
‘But do you have any holy fools?’, and the guard replies dismissively ‘Well, they are all holy fools.’
When I continues that he is searching for a ‘holy simpleton’, he is accompanied by an organ
(Fig. 25), the liturgical allusion in the music far more emphatic than the brief reference in the text.
This moral critique of state-imposed ideology echoes Schnittke’s response to the Lenin Prize
Committee in 1990 (Schnittke 2002, 41–42). He declined the nomination on the grounds that his
Christian faith was incompatible with Lenin’s ideology. Similarly, Life with an Idiot can be under-
stood as an ‘inverted passion’ (Flechsig 2017, 60), with Vova demonstrating this incompatibility as
a redeemer figure, but one representing a corrupt ideology, whose influence can only be negative.
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Amrei Flechsig relates this passion model to Berg’s Wozzeck. Adorno argues that Wozzeck has a
passion character because: ‘The music does not suffer in man, does not take part in his act and his
emotion itself: it suffers over him; this is why it is able to illustrate every affect like the old Passion
music, without being bound to choose the masque of one of the characters of the tragedy.’ In Life
with an Idiot, the distanced personas emphasise this distinction, with the music expressive, but the
characters not. Berg achieves a similar effect in Lulu, which Schnittke acknowledged as a model
for Life with an Idiot (Kholopova 2003, 220): Berg’s characters there are negative and flawed, but
positive emotions – faith, hope, love – are expressed independently by the music.
This balance between characters and music is taken to its most negative extreme at the end
of the opera. Vova sings the Russian folk song A Birch Stood in a Field (Vo pole bereza stoiala) in
absurd falsetto, act II scene 2, Fig. 202.Wife and I, now as mad as Vova, also sing the song but soon
degenerate into nonsense syllables.The tune signifies I’s increasing madness: it is first heard in the
asylum scene. But at the end, it is presented without instrumental accompaniment – the three
voices independent of each other and alone, the depersonalisation completed by the withdrawal
of the orchestra and the emotional world it had previously provided.
Gesualdo
Gesualdo was written for Vienna State Opera, where it was premiered in 1995, conducted by
Mstislav Rostropovich. The opera traces the events of Gesualdo’s life between 1586 and 1590:
marriage to his cousin, Maria d’Avila; Maria’s affair with Fabrizio Caraffa; the murder of Maria
and Fabrizio at Gesualdo’s behest; his contrition and finally Gesualdo murdering his baby son,
thinking him to be the child of Fabrizio.
Schnittke’s interest in Gesualdo coincided with a revival of the Renaissance composer’s music
in the early 1990s. English vocal groups recorded much of his music at the time, and Mark
Lubotsky recalled Schnittke asking him to obtain these recordings for him. On one occasion,
Schnittke commented ‘And you know, through this we could have had completely different
music today!’ (Lubotsky 2015, 100), imagining, so Lubotsky thought, a musical history where
Gesualdo had the central position occupied by Bach.
The opera was instigated by librettist Richard Bletschacher, dramaturg at Vienna State Opera
and also a scholar of Renaissance music. Correspondence between Bletschacher and Schnittke
began in 1990.6 Bletschacher proposed several topics, but Schnittke was immediately attracted to
the subject of Gesualdo. Schnittke’s second stroke, in 1991, meant that Bletschacher had to take
charge of the planning stages. It later transpired that composer and librettist had different visions
for the opera, Bletschacher envisioning a large traditionally structured work, directly referencing
Gesualdo’s music; Schnittke taking a more aphoristic approach to the narrative, and a greater
stylistic distance from the composer.
Schnittke worked fast, but his third stroke, in 1994, brought composition to a halt, with the
score incomplete. The opera is in 32 scenes, organised into seven tableaux. Schnittke’s score runs
continuously up to the penultimate scene of the Fifth Tableau.The remaining pages contain brief
passages, fully orchestrated but discontinuous. They include a climax section for the final scene,
the whole of the choral epilogue and orchestral interludes, written at Bletschacher’s request to be
interpolated earlier in the score (Bletschacher 2008, 251). The version for Vienna was prepared
by Marc-Aurel Floros. He composed most of the music for the last two tableaux and elaborated
Schnittke’s sketches for the orchestral interludes. Floros employs more lavish orchestration,
which brings a suitable sense of drama to the Seventh Tableau, especially the continuously tolling
bells through the final scene, even if this sits uneasily with the more ascetic textures earlier in
the work. Many of Schnittke’s later-written orchestral interludes were omitted from the first
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production.When the staging was revived in Vienna in 1996, conductor Ernst Marzendorfer and
Bletschacher revised the performing score, returning Schnittke’s interludes. Conductor Valery
Polyansky later returned to Schnittke’s manuscript and created a new performing version, with
Russian translation of the text by Aleksei Parin, for a concert performance in Moscow in 2000
(Kholopova 2003, 224).
Schnittke initially struggled to find a suitable dramatic arc for the opera. His breakthrough
was to model the work on Berg’s Wozzeck (Kostakeva 2005, 114–15). Both are tragedies
involving multiple murders, but Berg demonstrates how human emotions can drive the drama,
in spite of the lurid subject. Schnittke wrote to Bletschacher that the ending of Wozzeck, where
Marie’s son contemplates her recent murder, is the most powerful scene in the opera. This
parallels the ending of Gesualdo, where the prince murders his son, an act even more brutal
than the earlier murders.
The love triangles are another parallel, the relationships between Wozzeck, Marie and the
Drum Major reflected in those between Gesualdo, Maria and Fabrizio. Schnittke models the
role of Maria on Berg’s Marie (Ivashkin 2000). In both operas, the tragedy could play out simply
through the recklessness or indifference of the heroine, but Schnittke, like Berg, presents a more
complex character, highlighting her hopelessness and desperation.
Gesualdo also draws on other operatic models. Maria’s loveless marriage is symbolised by
Gesualdo’s palace, in which she feels imprisoned. Tableau I scene 4 alludes to Bartók’s Bluebeard’s
Castle, emphasising the oppressive darkness inside the palace. The action is inverted to create an
even greater sense of psychological imprisonment: Where Judith insists all the doors be opened,
to shed light, Maria instead complains when Gesualdo opens a window, being blinded by the
light (Figs. 55–56). Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov is evoked by the extensive use of choral music
and of church bells. Kholopova observed that the translation of the text for the Moscow per-
formance had the effect of highlighting the Russian roots of the choral writing, while the Italian
colouring of much of the music recalls Glinka’s ‘Spanish’ style (Kholopova 2003, 228).
The opera’s seven tableaux present the story as follows:
1. Gesualdo and Maria marry. Gesualdo shows Maria his palace, but she is intimated by the
darkness.
2. A spring celebration given by the Viceroy of Naples. Maria meets and falls in love with
Fabrizio, brother of her former husband, and married to Donna Maddalena, Princess of
Stigliano.
3. Gesualdo hears of the infidelity. He attempts, but fails, to kill Fabrizio in a staged hunting
accident.
4. A group of singers perform a new madrigal by Gesualdo, expressing his grief. Maria and
Fabrizio communicate by letter (the letter scenes are based on Maria and Fabrizio’s actual
correspondence). He suggests they separate to save Maria’s life; she instead insists they admit
to their love, and they arrange to meet.
5. Gesualdo pretends to leave for a hunt, but instead hides in wait.When the couple meet, they
anticipate their own deaths, and are murdered by Gesualdo’s men. Maria’s maid, Silvana, flees
with Maria’s child.
6. The Cardinal and Viceroy hear of the murder, and innocent Neapolitan bystanders are
forced to confess. Gesualdo is in hiding in his castle. Donna Sveva d’Avalos, mother of Maria,
laments her daughter, and Donna Maddelena wears clothes of mourning.
7. Gesualdo does penance in his castle chapel. His hunting companions flog him while monks
sing the De profundis. But he is haunted by the sound of a baby’s cries. He imagines his son
to be fathered by Fabrizio and, in his rage, swings the baby to its death.
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Choral music appears regularly and is used to structure the narrative. The opera opens and closes
with madrigal-like a cappella episodes, and another appears mid-way through, the concert at the
start of Tableau IV.Three liturgical settings are also employed, a Gloria and Sanctus at the wedding
of Gesualdo and Maria (Tableau I scenes 1 and 3), and the De profundis as Gesualdo does penance
(Tableau VII scene 1).
The position of the three madrigals creates a symmetrical structure. The opening and closing
madrigals act as a meditative frame, presenting the drama more as a commentary than a literal
rendering of historical events (Khannanova 2006, 239). But the concert episode at the start of
Tableau IV also returns to this meditative level.The result is a symmetry, around this central mad-
rigal, with the drama of Tableaux IV–VII complementing that of Tableaux I–III.The De profundis,
Tableau VII scene 1, shadows the choral celebrations of the wedding in Tableau I.The preparation
for the hunt, Tableau III scene 1, comes to a symbolic fulfilment with the murder, by the same
characters, Tableau V scene 6. And Donna Sveva’s aria anticipating the murder and lamenting the
transience of life, Tableau I scene 2, is reflected in Silvana’s lament, Tableau V scene 1.
Although the tableaux present the events in chronological order, the structure within each is
more complex. Schnittke requested cuts to the original libretto, reducing its length and dividing it
into seven tableaux rather than six.The result is more sectional and aphoristic. Several tableaux play
out two narratives at once, the cross-cutting giving the drama a cinematic quality and increasing
the narrative tension.This is particularly the case in the Sixth and Seventh Tableaux, which build in
intensity (especially in Floros’ completion), thus disrupting the symmetry of the opera’s structure, a
symbolic act of destruction in a story where a Renaissance Music-of-the-Spheres approach to art
is set against the weaknesses and immorality of those who create it.
The music is in Schnittke’s late style, austere, economically scored and with only brief
and nebulous stylistic allusions. The clearest reference to Gesualdo’s music is the Epilogue,
which briefly quotes the madrigal ‘Io parto’ e non più dissi, che il dolore (1611, see Example 2.3)
(Diachkova 2006, 63).
Although not in Gesualdo’s original, Schnittke’s movement here, from A major to the har-
monically distant, and dissonant, B major with flattened seventh, is representative of his style.
Similarly, the madrigal in Tableau IV is based on an alternation of F minor with added second
and a diminished seventh on E, but with the F held. The diminished seventh is later (Fig. 162)
Example 2.3 (a) Gesualdo, Epilogue, opening; (b) Gesualdo, Madrigal ‘Io parto’ e non più dissi, bars 47–51
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replaced with a – symbolically and stylistically appropriate – Neapolitan second, although now
with the F and A♭ suspended. Schnittke employs several instruments of the era to add period
flavour: harpsichord, guitar, mandolin, theorbo, harp and organ. The organ and theorbo are used
to accompany the chorus, and the mandolin and guitar play a tarantella in the seduction scene
between Marie and Fabrizio (Tableau II scene 4). The dance is appropriate: an Italian Baroque
form associated with courtship and danger. But its sinister connotations are at odds with the
upbeat character of the theme, a similar tension to that in the tango in the Faust Cantata.
The tritone is a pervasive Leitmotif. As a harmony, it often appears as a held string pedal
supporting the vocal line, as in the love scene between Maria and Fabrizio, Tableau IV scene 5,
like a pared-back Tristan chord. Here, it expands to the [0,1,6,7] collection, another sonority used
to counter the tonal implications of the melodic lines. As a melodic device, the rising tritone sets
words of particular dramatic importance. It is used in the wedding scene, when the Cardinal says
Gesualdo’s name, Tableau I, Fig. 47. And after the madrigal concert, when Gesualdo seeks con-
solation in music, the word ‘Mus-ik’ is set to a rising tritone, Tableau IV, Fig. 175. It is associated
with Maria in the first half of the opera, but in the second half, it virtually disappears from Maria’s
vocal line, and is instead heard predominantly in Gesualdo’s part. It therefore creates a continuity,
representing Maria’s inner conflict and her adultery, then carrying over to a similar conflict for
Gesualdo as he contemplates revenge, and then the consequences of his own actions.
Historia von D. Johann Fausten

Schnittke’s Faust opera, Historia von D. Johann Fausten, grew out of the Faust Cantata, Seid nüchtern und
wachet … (1983), which became the third and final act of the opera, as had been Schnittke’s intention
when writing the earlier work.The libretto, like that of the cantata, is derived from Das Volksbuch vom
Doktor Faust published in 1587 by Johann Spies, adapted by the composer and Jürgen Köchel, here
working under the pseudonym Jörg Morgener. Unlike in the cantata, some of the text was reordered,
and some passages recast as dialogue. Köchel’s work on the libretto began in 1988, and Schnittke
completed the vocal score in the autumn of 1990. So the work spans three periods of the composer’s
career: act III (the Faust Cantata) was written before his first stroke, the music of acts I and II after that
stroke and the orchestration of acts I and II after his second stroke in 1991.
The first act covers Faust’s birth and studies, then his pact with Mephistopheles. The second
presents the 24 years of youth that Faust is granted in the pact. To create the sense of ordinary
time as opposed to magical time, a contrast is established between a historical musical language
of the first act and a contemporary language in the second. Schnittke explained that the first
and third acts should have an oratorio character, while the second should be more operatic
(Kostakeva 2005, 100). The historical dimension of the music of the first act is limited to the
quasi-continuo harpsichord and allusions to Baroque choral genres: the opening chorale and
the canon to the words ‘Was zum Teufel will …’ in the first scene. But Schnittke also suggested
that historical musical instruments could be added to the orchestra here (Ivashkin 2001, 14).
For the contemporary soundscape of the second act, two synthesisers are employed (Schnittke
mentions the Korg Wavestation in a note on the manuscript, p. 66b). For the Hamburg premiere,
Schnittke’s son, Andrei, assisted with the electronic sounds.
The ritualistic, oratorio dimension of the work is apparent in its symmetrical structure (Bevz
2003, 96). The opera opens with a chorale, similar to that at the end of the cantata, a framing
prologue and epilogue. The outer acts each have six scenes (the cantata’s 10 movements are
regrouped as 1–3, 4–5 (beginning), 5 (conclusion)–6, 7–8, 9, 10), and there is an interval mid-
way through the second act, dividing the work roughly into halves.This interval also corresponds
with a six-year gap in the story.
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The dramatis personae is expanded, with several small roles added in the second act. Two counts
and a Bavarian duke appear in the wedding scene (No. 13), and an old man, an embodiment of
Faust’s conscience, appears in scene 19. There are also brief solo roles for three of Faust’s students
in the ‘Schöne Helene’ scene (No. 18).
But most of the musical characterisation concerns Faust and Mephistopheles, and a musical
contrast is established by associating Mephistopheles with diabolus in musica tritones, and Faust
with permutations of the B-A-C-H monogram. These musical associations appear in the com-
mentary on the characters as much as in their own lines, including in the tritone-laden ‘Was
zum Teufel will …’ canon. They also inform the harmonic writing, and the words ‘devil’,
‘Mephistophiles’ and ‘hell’ are often harmonised with tritone sonorities.
The representations of Faust and Mephistopheles play out as fractured and compromised
musical identities. The themes associated with the characters in the cantata do not appear in the
first two acts, but the musical representations are similar in spirit. After the opening chorale, the
narrator introduces Faust, relating his birth and studies. The music of the solo line is similar to
the Faust theme at Fig. 24 in the cantata, although motivically distinct (see Example 2.4). Both
begin with movement within a narrow range, like the B-A-C-H monogram, before expanding
into wide intervals, a representation of the compromise to Faust’s identity that will result from
the pact with the devil. Melisma and triplet movement, often against a duple time melody, are
also recurring elements of Faust’s compromised musical identity.
Schnittke expands the idea of the devil appearing as multiple characters. In the Faust Cantata,
this represents the idea that evil erodes identity, with the devil appearing in male and female
forms: Mephistophiles and Mephistophilia. In the opera, Mephistophiles is introduced as a coun-
tertenor voice, as in the cantata. But when he finally reveals his name to Faust, he is represented
by the chorus, singing in imitative four-part harmony. This idea may have been inspired by
Busoni’s Doktor Faust, where a polyphonic male chorus occasionally represents the devil. The
triplet crotchets in close, dissonant harmony here also allude to one of the Mephistopheles motifs
in the Faust Cantata, first heard 1 bar after Fig. 6. In the second act, in the scene ‘Doktor Faustus
wishes to wed’, No. 8, the role of Mephistophiles returns to the countertenor, while the chorus
sings a separate role of Luzifer. Mephistophilia is introduced in the act II, part 2, initially disguised
as a Bavarian countess (No. 8), but then in demonic form in ‘The Mocking Jests of the Devilish
Spirits’, No. 17. This is a rhythmic parlando duet between Mephistophiles and Mephistophilia,
with a single line alternating between the two voices. It establishes the dichotomy between the
two manifestations, diverging and leading to the more elaborate interplay in act III.
Schnittke originally conceived the second act as a hybrid of opera and ballet. Both the Walpurgis
Night scene and the ‘Schöne Helene’ scene were intended as ballets, which Schnittke hoped that
John Neumeier would choreograph (Weitzman 1995, 29). This plan was not realised, although the
autograph score includes several ballet numbers included as an appendix. For the transition to the
already composed Faust Cantata, Schnittke originally planned simply to ‘cut’ the action and include
Example 2.4 (a) Faust Cantata, one bar after Fig. 24, bass only; (b) Faust opera, No. 1, Narrator only
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an unexpected interval before the last act (Ivashkin 1996, 208). The move from the second act to
the third remains abrupt, with occasional rising minor triads in the vocal lines the only stylistic link
between them. The ballet music in the appendix is closest in style to the cantata, and unlike any of
the other music in the first two acts, it alludes to the cantata’s key centre of C, as well as employing
the parallel triadic movement that is one of the cantata’s distinctive musical features.
The second act has proved particularly problematic in performance. For the first production,
in Hamburg in 1995, conductor Gerd Albrecht drastically restructured the score of the first
two acts, apparently with the composer’s blessing (Weitzman 1995, 28). Albrecht cut 503 of the
libretto’s 1216 lines and rearranged many of the scenes – the most radical cuts and reordering to
act II, part 2. In 2009,Vladimir Jurowski conducted a semi-staged version of the opera as part of
the London Philharmonic’s Between Two Worlds Schnittke festival.This performance presented the
whole first act, apart from one incidental music number, but again involved significant cuts to the
second act, which has yet to be performed complete.
Theatre music
Schnittke composed music for 12 theatre productions, although not all were staged. All were
orginally in the Russian language and, with the exceptions of The Possessed and Homage to
Zhivago, all were written in the 1960s and 1970s, the years when Schnittke was most prolific as
a film music composer. As with Soviet film studios, many Moscow theatres were able to provide
substantial instrumental ensembles,7 which Schnittke employed to increasingly adventurous ends.
In 1961, the year that he completed his studies, Schnittke was asked to write music for Modern
Tragedy by Rezo Ebralidze at the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow. This was a high-profile
commission, one of several from a short ‘romance’ between Schnittke and the Composers’
Union, as the authorities attempted to establish him as an ‘official’ composer. That attempt failed,
but Schnittke continued to write music for the theatre, although on a lower profile. Later in the
1960s, he wrote scores for productions at the Mossovet Theatre in Moscow, as well as one for a
production of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov in Novosibirsk.
The connection with the Mossovet Theatre proved valuable, as it facilitated Schnittke’s Requiem,
a work written in memory of Schnittke’s mother, as was the closely related Piano Quintet. Schnittke
recalled,‘At the time, I was asked to write music for the play Don Carlos by Schiller at the Mossovet
Theatre [staged 1975]. At first, I refused, and then suggested to the director the following idea:
the bulk of the music for the play would be a Requiem in Latin. He agreed. So I postponed the
Quintet and tackled this Requiem, which I wrote quite quickly’ (Shulgin 2004, 79).
Although Schnittke characterised the Don Carlos project as simply a convenience, to get the
Requiem performed, the play required more music, and the score also gave rise to the concert
work Eight Songs from Don Carlos. The Mossovet Theatre Orchestra was set up as much for
popular music as classical, and Schnittke exploited the electric guitars and drums to introduce
rock and popular styles. In the Requiem, the electric guitars and drum kit find their way into the
concert hall via the pit band of the theatre staging.
The Eight Songs from Don Carlos also demonstrate that Schnittke was experimenting in this
period with choral and solo vocal numbers performed by actors. To support the voices of
untrained singers, the accompaniments usually double the vocal line, allowing Schnittke to write
at a high level of musical sophistication. This would become a key element of Schnittke’s theatre
scores in the following years, with the singing actors closely aligning the music to the drama.
Schnittke’s most important collaboration in spoken theatre was with Yuri Lyubimov (1917–
2014), an experimental director and head of the small Taganka Theatre in Moscow. Lyubimov’s
work was controversial throughout the Brezhnev era, and many of his productions were banned
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or closed. But the director’s innovative approach to the relationship between music and drama
proved significant for Schnittke, who drew several concert works from the scores. Their first col-
laboration was on Brecht’s Turandot in 1973. The production was abandoned mid-way through
preparations, because Brecht’s widow heard of the plans and launched an official complaint.
Schnittke later assembled 10 Songs from Turandot as a concert work (see Chapter 4).
A second collaboration with Lyubimov was also closed down before it opened. In 1977,
Lyubimov, Schnittke and Gennady Rozhdestvensky planned a production of Tchaikovsky’s
The Queen of Spades in Paris. Lyubimov envisaged it taking place at the gambling table in the
final scene, with the earlier story presented in flashback. The performance was to be sung in
Russian, but would stop intermittently in ‘freeze frame’, when an actor would read passages from
Pushkin’s text in French, bringing the libretto more in line with the original story. Schnittke’s
role was to rearrange and reorchestrate some of Tchaikovsky’s score, as well as to write harpsi-
chord interludes based on the themes from the opera to accompany the recitations of Pushkin’s
text. But the production attracted the ire of the Lithuanian conductor Algis Žiūraitis, who was
working in Paris at the time. Returning to Russia in early 1978, Žiūraitis wrote an article in
Pravda attacking the production.The article was titled ‘Planning an Outrage’ and reminded many
of the ‘Muddle Instead of Music’ affair in the 1930s. The production was abandoned, and the
incident caused a major scandal in Russia. This had the effect of increasing Schnittke’s anti-
establishment credentials to the extent that, in the mid-1990s, Alexander Ivashkin wrote: ‘Since
the time of The Queen of Spades all concerts of Schnittke’s music have sold out’ (Ivashkin 1996,
148). The Lyubimov production was finally staged in Karlsruhe in 1990.
Later in 1978, Schnittke, Lyubimov and Rozhdestvensky collaborated again, on The Census List, a
dramatisation of several short stories by Nikolai Gogol.The play included scenes and quotations from
The Overcoat, The Portrait, Dead Souls, The Inspector General (Revizor), Diary of a Madman, Testament and
Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends. Gogol was depicted at the centre of the action, in line
with Meyerhold’s dictum that a performance should not merely present a play but also embody ‘the
whole author’.The music in this production was particularly significant, because Lyubimov opted for
a minimal stage design – just a huge semi-circular drape to represent the eponymous overcoat – and
relied instead on the music to set the scene for each tale. Schnittke explained:
Music plays an important functional role in Lyubimov’s performances. It recreates the

space and the time of the action. The stage of the Taganka Theatre is small and narrow,
so full sets are impossible, they can only be symbolic. Therefore it is necessary to create
an illusion of space with music and sound effects.This imaginary soundscape, extending
the real and visible, has a great advantage over the latter: It is capable of breathing,
of instantly growing and contracting, and thus evokes in the viewer’s perception the
illusion of a change of scene.
(Rozhdestvensky 1980)
This approach required a large quantity of music, and another common feature of Schnittke’s
collaborations with Lyubimov was that music was heard almost continuously through each of
their productions. Rozhdestvensky later created the Gogol Suite from the score, and from that the
ballet Sketches, which follows a similar narrative to the original play.
The Census List was the only collaboration of Schnittke and Lyubimov to reach the stage
in Soviet Russia, and their following project, based on Dostoevsky’s The Possessed (Besy) was
also banned, although the production was staged in London in 1985. Schnittke drew a three-
movement suite from the music, Music to an Imaginary Play – imaginary in the sense that Russian
audiences had not seen it. The suite, made up of stilted pastiches of Russian folksongs, is scored
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for a small, disparate group of instruments – flute, trumpet, mouth organ, guitar, percussion,
piano and vocal soloists performing with comb and paper. Schnittke described the group as the
‘remainder’ or ‘survivors’ of an orchestra (Ivashkin 2009, 21).
Although Schnittke wrote no more music for spoken theatre in the 1980s, he became increas-
ingly interested in staged projects through the decade, particularly ballets and then operas, which
came to dominate the last years of his career. This was also reflected in a final collaboration with
Lyubimov, Homage to Zhivago,8 a production by the Taganka company, staged in Vienna in 1993.
As with Schnittke’s earlier Magdalena’s Song (unrelated to this project), Lyubimov’s production
focused on the poems included as an appendix to the novel.The resulting narrative was therefore
abstract but also ideally suited to an extensively musical treatment.
Schnittke, already frail, flew from Hamburg to Moscow to work with the company. He was
particularly interested in the singing abilities of the actors, and tailored their individual vocal parts
accordingly, even writing instrumental parts for some of them to play. Although a pit ensemble
is employed, including guitars and button accordion, the music is dominated by choral singing
performed by the cast. The music is heard almost continuously throughout the two hours of the
play. Interactions between music and drama are close and often innovative. In one scene, Marina
and Zhivago cut wood with a saw to the accompaniment of a musical (bowed) saw. But this is also
a parody, as the melody on the saw imitates Lara’s Theme from the David Lean film (by Maurice
Jarre). Despite the abstraction of telling a story through poems, Schnittke’s score is highly illustrative,
with a range of vocal styles and dance genres, an overt polystylism that he had otherwise abandoned
by the 1990s.
The score for Homage to Zhivago is one of the major works of Schnittke’s final period, similar in
scale and dramatic ambition to his operas of the time. Lyubimov described the production as an
opera, but Schnittke disagreed, calling it instead ‘a performance with a lot of music’ (Kovalenko
1998). That reluctance may have reflected the radical heterogeneity of the music itself, not a
musical structure in the operatic sense, but one based on the texts, to which the music closely
aligns.The work forms a fitting culmination to Schnittke’s collaboration with Lyubimov, the two
artists continually pursuing an ever-closer alignment of words, music and drama, and in this final
project combining them in a sophisticated new performance genre.
Notes
1 Ivashkin, however, says that this was planned as an opera rather than a ballet (Ivashkin 1996, 208).
2 An audio recording is available on Schnittke Discoveries, Toccata TOCC 0091.
3 There are 15 movements listed in the Sikorski 2019 catalogue. Ivashkin’s work list (Schnittke 2003,
260–61) divides the ballet into 11 movements, most with different titles. A 2011 recording on the
Brilliant Classics label (9215) divides the ballet into 22 numbers, generally following the Sikorski listing,
with additional subdivision of the Nose story.
4 http://www.kabakov.net/installations/2019/9/15/ten-characters (accessed 5 April 2021). See also
Stooss 2003.
5 Kostakeva also draws parallels between the act I scene 2 finale in Life with an Idiot and the act III culmin-
ation of Shostakovich’s The Nose (Kostakeva 2005, 151).
6 Correspondence between Bletschacher and Schnittke was reproduced in the programme for the Vienna
production under the title ‘Die Entstehung des Gesualdo’ (The Creation of Gesualdo). See also Bletschacher
2008, ch 8.
7 In one of Schnittke’s sketches for his music to Schiller’s Don Carlos (Juilliard Sketch SCHN_COLL_009),
he lists the instruments of the orchestra at the Mossovet Theatre, a pit ensemble of woodwinds, percus-
sion, lead and bass guitars, keyboards and strings.
8 For the Moscow staging, the title was changed to Zhivago (Doktor).The title of the book was avoided for
copyright reasons (Beumers 1997, 266).
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3
CHORAL WORKS
Introduction
Schnittke’s music for chorus makes up only a small part of his output but includes several of his
most important large-scale works. Even though he had little experience as a singer, the course
of his career led him repeatedly towards choral composition. Choral conducting dominated his
early music education. His first commissions as a professional composer were for Socialist Realist
cantatas. And when he turned to religious themes in the 1970s, choral music again became
important, with Schnittke writing both religious works for choirs and instrumental works based
on choral sources.
At the age of 14, Schnittke enrolled at the October Revolution Music College (the school
has since been renamed after Schnittke), in the Choirmasters’ Department, as he did not have
the instrumental skills to enrol as a playing student. There, he gained an early grounding in
choral skills: conducting, the choral literature and reading choir scores. When he completed his
studies at the college in 1953, he was qualified to conduct adult and children’s choirs, as well as
to teach choral singing up to secondary school level. At the Moscow Conservatory, Schnittke
wrote many choral pieces. A short setting of words by Lermontov, Gornye vershiny (‘Mountain
Peaks’), was probably composed in 1954–1955, as were the three choruses, Winter, Wherever
You Go and Lullaby – written to texts by ‘official’ Soviet poets Alexander Prokofiev, Mikhail
Isakovsky and Alexander Mashistov.1 Around 1956, Schnittke also completed a short, wordless
Vocalise. Although these pieces are conventional in style, Ivashkin points out that Wherever You
Go, a lament at the grave of a soldier, contains vocalise effects that anticipate similar ideas in
his religious works of the 1970s (Ivashkin 1996, 63). These resemble prichet mourning chants in
funereal folk rituals and may have been inspired by Schnittke’s study of Russian folk music at the
Conservatory. Schnittke’s graduation work, Nagasaki, was another choral piece, broadly following
officially approved styles, as was Songs of War and Peace, a follow-up from his postgraduate years.
He later returned to choral writing via incidental music. The short vocalise works Voices of
Nature and Chorus (1974) derive respectively from the films I vsyo-taki ya veryu … (‘And Still
I Believe …’) (1971) and Autumn (1974). Chorus originally set the Lermontov poem ‘I set off
alone on the road’ but was sung wordlessly on the soundtrack (Ivashkin 2003, 104). Even the
Requiem started out as incidental music, for a production of Schiller’s Don Carlos. But the Requiem
signalled an important shift in Schnittke’s musical focus, following the death of his mother and
DOI: 10.4324/9780429274046-3 72
Choral works
the start of a gradual adoption of the Christian faith, which would be expressed through choral
music in the 1970s and 1980s.
Schnittke’s increasingly fervent faith led to a greater interest in the history of choral music, espe-
cially from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This proved far-reaching, taking in Orthodox
chant in his Hymns for Cello and Ensemble (1974–1979), Gregorian chant in the Requiem and
Symphony No. 2 (1979) and secular songs of the Middle Ages in Minnesang (1981).Yet Schnittke
lacked confidence in choral writing, particularly with his word setting. He considered the Faust
Cantata (1983) a breakthrough, saying, ‘Finally, I have learned how to handle words, which has
always been a difficulty … Now I am able to guide words and melodies between atonality and
tonality; it has become clear how this is done’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 295).
That reticence suggests Schnittke considered his choral training to be a burden, that he had
been overly conditioned by his early immersion in the world of ‘official’ Soviet choral music.
Schnittke’s next major choral work, the Choir Concerto (1984–1985), would be another important
step towards stylistic independence. But when conductor Valery Polyansky first approached
Schnittke to write for his choir, he responded by saying that he had a terrible secret – he did not
like choirs, precisely because of his choral background (Polyansky 2003, 263).
Schnittke’s major choral works of the 1980s, the Choir Concerto and Psalms of Repentance
(1987), as well as his Three Sacred Hymns (1984), all came about through Polyansky’s perseverance.
Polyansky’s ensemble, the USSR Ministry of Culture State Chamber Choir, performed at the
Pushkin Museum in Moscow, and Schnittke regularly attended. These concerts were particularly
significant for Polyansky’s audacious programming of religious and early music, which nurtured
Schnittke’s growing interest in choral traditions.
Polyansky’s determination to perform religious music also played a significant role in Schnittke’s
sacred choral works of the 1980s. The Choir Concerto was given its first performance in Moscow
in 1986, but that event was only made possible through Polyansky negotiating a series of bur-
eaucratic obstacles. But attitudes were changing fast with perestroika, and just two years later
Polyansky was able to give the premiere in Moscow of Schnittke’s Psalms of Repentance as part
of state-wide and officially endorsed celebrations for the millennium of Christianity in Russia.
Nagasaki
In 1958, Schnittke completed his undergraduate studies at the Moscow Conservatory, with
Nagasaki as his graduation piece. The work is a memorial to the victims of the atomic bombing
in 1945, a large-scale oratorio scored for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra. The music is
in a broadly tonal idiom, although Schnittke employs Modernist techniques to illustrate the
bombing attack in the third movement. That combination led to a mixed reception. It satisfied
the Conservatory committee, allowing Schnittke to graduate, but the score was later rejected by
the Composers’ Union when Schnittke submitted it for a young composers’ festival.
The oratorio genre and the large scale were prescribed by the Conservatory. Schnittke
envisaged a work that would express sympathy for the suffering and dying. His first idea was to
set the myth of Oedipus (Bychkov 2013, 12), but he was later drawn to the poem Kyol’nskaya
yama (‘Cologne Pit’) by Boris Slutsky, about the suffering of Russian prisoners of war during
the Second World War. Schnittke’s composition teacher, Evgeny Golubev, disapproved of the
choice and recommended another poem in the same collection Nagasaki by the official state poet
Anatoly Sofronov (Shulgin 2004, 33).
Schnittke makes selective use of Sofronov’s poem, setting less than half the lines in the first and
third of the oratorio’s five movements, but retaining the narrative arc from ruin and grief to hope
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Choral works
and new life (Schmelz 2009a, 417). Schnittke also includes three poems translated from Japanese:
in the second movement Utro (‘Morning’) by Toson Shimazaki (1872–1943), and in the fourth
Na pepelishche (‘On the ashes’) and Bud’ vechno prekrasnoy reka! (‘River, always be beautiful!’). The
latter two are by Eisaku Yoneda (1908–2002), a survivor of the Hiroshima attack (Kholopova &
A number of stylistic influences are apparent in Nagasaki. Carl Orff ’s Carmina Burana had
recently been performed in the Soviet Union for the first time, and had made a significant
impression on Schnittke. The composer also acknowledged the influences of Bartók and
Shostakovich, particularly in the use of ‘liner tonality’ combined with ‘atonal passages based on
polytonal chords’ (Shulgin 2004, 34). The voices of Prokofiev and Stravinsky are also evident.
The work opens with ‘Nagasaki, City of Grief ’, reminiscent of the opening chorus of Bach’s
St Matthew Passion, both movements employing a repeated-note bass line to create a sombre
processional effect. The movement has recently been the subject of debate about how closely
Schnittke conformed to Socialist Realist doctrines. Ivashkin argues ‘By no means is this music
Soviet or even Russian; there are no clichés of “socialist realism” whatsoever!’ (Liner note to
BIS-CD-1647). Peter J. Schmelz, on the other hand, points out that Socialist Realism was never a
fixed aesthetic and argues that the tone of the opening movement is ‘officious’ and comparable to
the Socialist Realist cantatas and oratorios of Prokofiev and Shostakovich (Schmelz 2009a, 428).
The score originally contained a movement between the first and what became the second,
a ‘lyrical nocturne’ (Shulgin 2003, 33). This was removed by the composer during preparations
for the first recording, made for radio broadcast in 1959. Schnittke described the following
movement, ‘Morning’, as ‘cheerful and infused with daylight’, pointing out that the fourths-based
melodies and light rhythmic fluctuations create a pastoral atmosphere (Shulgin 2004, 33). The
pentatonic melodic lines also give the music an oriental quality reminiscent of Stravinsky’s The
Nightingale and Three Japanese Lyrics.
The third movement depicts the dropping of the bomb. The movement is mostly orchestral,
with the chorus only entering towards the end, singing ‘On that painful day’ (the de facto title
of the movement; the third and fourth movements are untitled in the score). The music is more
Modernist, and influences are apparent from Shostakovich (Symphonies Nos. 6 and 8) and from
Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, especially in the rhythms and harmonies of the fugal episode, from
Fig. 30.The sound of aircraft engines is represented with trombone glissandos and horn trills (see
Example 3.1).The moment of the bomb blast is depicted at Fig. 47 by an eight-note chord made
up of superimposed triads of D minor, A♭ major and B minor.
This harmony gradually fades into silence, introducing the lamenting fourth movement,
setting the poem ‘On the Ashes’. The mezzo-soprano solo here is reminiscent of the ‘Dead Field’
Example 3.1 Nagasaki, Fig. 41, brass ensemble 2
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Choral works
movement in Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky. Schnittke adds bowed saw as an obbligato accom-
paniment (alternatively, theremin may be used), echoing the vocal line and emphasising how
‘everything around is dead and the echo too is also lifeless, inhuman’ (Shulgin 2004, 33).
The final movement was originally a mournful orchestral culmination, combining all the themes
and ending with a reprise of the opening. But when Schnittke presented the oratorio to the
Composers’ Union, it was harshly criticised, in part for the Modernist style of the third movement,
but also for the pessimistic conclusion. So Schnittke revised the finale, changing its tone and struc-
ture.The first movement material, which had originally concluded the work, was moved to the start
of the last movement and replaced at the end with a grand, optimistic finale. Schnittke approached
Georgy Fere, son of the composer Vladimir Fere, to write lyrics for the chorus to fit the already
composed music, and the resulting movement was entitled ‘The Sun of Peace’.
Songs of War and Peace

Songs of War and Peace, a large-scale cantata for soprano, chorus and large orchestra, was written
in 1959 while Schnittke was a postgraduate student at the Moscow Conservatory. The work was
commissioned by the Union of Composers, an act of compensation, so it seemed to Schnittke,
for their harsh criticism of the Nagasaki oratorio (Shulgin 2004, 17).
The cantata is unique among Schnittke’s works in being based almost entirely on folk music,
with all the themes but one derived from the folk sources from Soviet states collected at the
archive of the Moscow Conservatory.This proved ideal for the ‘official’ nature of the commission
and linked with a drive to promote folk music research as a way of uniting the Soviet empire and
discouraging independence movements (Ivashkin 1996, 72). Even so, Schnittke took a genuine
interest in these folk sources, particularly the unusual syncopations in the song that opens the
second movement and the modal ambiguity of the theme in the third.
Having selected the source melodies, Schnittke had a libretto written by Anatoly Leontyev and
Andrei Pokrovsky. The result was a four-movement structure, similar to the Nagasaki oratorio,
moving from depictions of war to lamentation and finally rebirth and hope for the future.
Movement I, ‘Golden meadows on ancient barrows … He left for a harsh journey’, is a sop-
rano solo, framed by military calls from brass and timpani. Movement II, ‘War Thunders in the
Fields’ (the original melodies Pesnia 27-i (‘Song of the 27th Division’) divizii and Kak rodniia
menia mat’ provozhila (‘How My Mother Escorted Me’)) is a similarly militaristic depiction, this
time of battle itself. A large percussion section is employed, and the strident choral statements
are accompanied and interspersed with high woodwind flourishes reminiscent of Shostakovich.
Movement III, ‘Oh, how my bitter heart groans’ (based on the song Zakhotel mel’chik zhenit’sia
(‘The Boy who Wanted to Marry’)), is the work’s mournful climax, again richly orchestrated, but
with a sense of grief expressed through the individual choral parts separated and each singing a
descending minor-key melody. Movement IV,‘The Storms in our Skies have Subsided’, is an opti-
mistic conclusion. The orchestration continues to be imaginative, opening with a duet between
two trombones, which then continues into other duets in the woodwind and brass. Schnittke’s
only original melody appears as the second theme (two bars after Fig. 83, see Example 3.2).
Schnittke pointed out the influence of Carl Orff on the cantata and particularly this theme in its
harmonies and varying metre. The ending brings back the melody of the opening (Fig. 96), now
sung in triumphant unison, a classic device of Socialist Realism, although Schnittke attributed
the effect to the influence of Georgy Sviridov (Shulgin 2004, 35).
Songs of War and Peace was the first of Schnittke’s works to be published: a piano reduction
by the composer appeared in 1964. The work was also performed at the Great Hall of the
Moscow Conservatory in 1960. Shostakovich was present, and congratulated the composer on
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Choral works
Example 3.2 Songs of War and Peace, movement IV, two bars after Fig. 83, chorus only
‘A remarkable work’, and although this was his standard response, Schnittke got the impression
that he liked it (Ivashkin 1996, 72). Schnittke himself was less enthusiastic, describing it as ‘super-
ficially constructed’, ‘overly academic’ and ‘the worst of my works’, although he acknowledged
that it was successful in improving his relations with the Union of Composers (Shulgin 2004, 35).
Voices of Nature
This short work for five sopranos, five altos and vibraphone was written for the soundtrack to
Mikhail Romm’s 1971 documentary film I vsyo-taki ya veryu … (‘And Still I Believe …’), the pro-
ject that also gave rise to Schnittke’s Symphony No. 1. It is a serene choral movement, heard during
the reflective ending, over aerial images of nature – seascapes, flying pelicans, gambolling deer – at
the climax of which, words appear on the screen ‘Eto nasha zelmlia’ (‘This is our world’).The work
is based on a single melodic line, with the individual vocal parts entering successively on the same
note in a micropolyphony-like effect. Schnittke explained that the canon device was to erode the
outline of the theme. In the film, this was designed to complement the aerial footage: ‘it is like the
sensation of flight, from which the same view is visible all the time but from different angles – it is
as if the theme casts some kind of shadow on the ground (Shulgin 2004, 64).
A copy of the score for the soundtrack version is held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive.The music
is a minor third higher than in the later concert version, without key signature. It is for 10 sopranos,
rather than sopranos and altos, and also includes parts for three trumpets, horn and organ.The brass do
not appear on the film soundtrack, and the organ used there is electronic and only heard at the climax.
In the concert version, the music has a key signature of B♭ major/G minor, although the ton-
ality is only implied by the single line. The line moves in sequence, with three to five note cells
repeated, each time a diatonic step higher.The climax is a C minor triad moving to a diminished
seventh, before resuming the micropolyphonic sequences and ending on a D. This implies a B♭
tonic without a root or an unresolved dominant of G minor.
Requiem
Schnittke’s Requiem was one of a series of funereal works written in the 1970s following the death
of the composer’s mother in 1972. His immediate response to the bereavement was to begin his
Piano Quintet. Schnittke originally envisaged a movement in the Quintet which would include all
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Choral works
the traditional parts of a requiem in instrumental form (Shulgin 2004, 79). But he soon realised
that this music was taking on a vocal character, and so two separate works emerged. Schnittke
was then approached to write the incidental music for a staging of Schiller’s Don Carlos at the
Mossovet Theatre in Moscow and decided this would suit a full setting of the Requiem Mass.
So he put the Piano Quintet to one side to focus on his Requiem setting. Don Carlos, with its plot
of religious subterfuge in 16th-century Catholic Spain, offered a fitting context for Schnittke’s
music, as well as a foil for the state censorship of religious music. But Schnittke stressed that his
Requiem was conceived as a concert work, and that the theatrical commission only facilitated the
project (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 108).
The setting is short (Schnittke also considered the title Missa Brevis, Ivashkin 1996, 132) but
closely follows the spirit and metre of the text. Schnittke recalled that his relationship with the
texts had been much like meditation on a Buddhist mantra, an appeal to the deities (Kholopova
2003, 124). It is scored for five soloists (three sopranos, alto and tenor), chorus and an ensemble
of brass, keyboards, electric lead and bass guitars and percussion. The electric guitars and drum
kit were inspired by the initial conception for the Don Carlos staging, which was to have a rock
band performing live on stage, and Schnittke also wrote songs for this combination as part of
the project (these became Eight Songs for Baritone and Piano, 1975). A sketch, now in the Juilliard
Collection (SCHN_COLL_009), indicates that the theatre orchestra also included a string
section, which Schnittke chose not to employ, his focus on keyboard and percussion sonorities
possibly influenced by the ‘Postludio’ final movement of Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles.
The Requiem was written at a fast pace, due to every movement apart from the Sanctus and Credo
elaborating music already written for the Piano Quintet (Shulgin 2004, 79). But Schnittke also
reported a feeling that the music was pouring out of him as if given from an external source. In the
case of the Sanctus, Schnittke claimed the music had come to him in a dream (Tevlin 2013, 160).
The result was a simpler and more direct style than in Schnittke’s previous works. Most of the
music is diatonic, but Schnittke pointed out that the tonal foundations are often compromised
(Shulgin 2004, 80). The Sanctus, for example, has a melody in B♭ minor, but the harmonies
beneath are more ambiguous and give a modal flavour. Other movements combine common-
mediant triad pairs, a legacy from the Piano Quintet.These are intended to ‘neutralise’ the sense of
harmonic direction, and instead give the music a ‘confessional’ quality (Schnittke, quoted in liner
note to BIS-CD-497). Schnittke’s earlier serial techniques are sometimes apparent, as melodies
and harmonies often tend towards the 12-note aggregate. The Kyrie, for example, opens with a
12-note theme, and the Lacrimosa, while nominally in the key of C minor, progressively fills in all
of the intervening semitones within its triadic harmonies.
Schnittke also creates a sense of completion and unity by mirroring themes in exact chromatic
inversion. In the Dies irae, the pitch sequence of the second phrase is a chromatic inversion of
that in the first, but transposed to create a complementary set, the two phrases together covering
every pitch within a perfect fifth. A similar relationship is evident between the opening phrases of
the Lacrimosa. Elsewhere, harmonies are constructed through simultaneous chromatic inversion
between the upper and lower parts, as in the guitar and vibraphone at bar 31 of the Dies irae, the
organ and chorus in the Recordare and the chorus in the Domine Jesu. The technique of creating
answering phrases through inversion would later be used extensively in the interaction between
the two violin soloists in the Concerto Grosso No. 1, while simultaneous inversion would go on to
form the basis of Schnittke’s cross representations in the Symphony No. 2.
The Requiem is not overtly polystylistic, but does make reference to Gregorian chant, especially
in the Credo, and to Mozart’s Requiem. The Mozart is recalled in the rising minor sixth at the
opening of the Lacrimosa and in the falling octave on the words ‘de profundo lacu’ in the Domine
Jesu. Also, the rhythm of the setting of ‘Mors stupebit et natura’ in the Tuba mirum is very close to
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that of the Mozart (Kazurova 1999, 131 fn). The work ends with a recapitulation of the opening
Requiem aeternam movement, another borrowing from Mozart’s Requiem (in Süssmayer’s com-
pletion). There is also a reference to the B–A–C–H monogram at the opening of the Recordare,
although only in transposition.
Schnittke is faithful to the ordering of the text and to the traditional mood of each movement,
although he sets the traditionally major key Sanctus in the minor mode and omits the final Lux
aeterna. In its place, he includes a setting of the Credo before the return of the opening movement.
The Credo is a key feature of the Mass Ordinary but is not usually included in Requiem settings.
Schnittke explained, ‘I had long felt a miscalculation in the dramatic structure of the canonical
Requiem. There was a lack of development towards the end that began to weaken the whole
form’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 112).
The movement only uses about one-third of the Credo text, yet it functions as a powerful
and affirmative climax, the high Cs in the top soprano part the highest sung note in the work.
This climax is accompanied by a driving rock beat from a drum kit, an idea that may have been
influenced by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar, which was hugely popular in Russia
at the time (Schmelz 2019, 12).The allusion to rock music does not yet have the association with
evil that it would soon take on in Schnittke’s music, particularly in the Symphony No. 3 and the
Faust Cantata.
The Mossovet Theatre production of Don Carlos, directed by Evgeny Zavadsky and Nikolai
Aleksandrovich, was eventually staged without live music, accompanied instead by a recording
of Schnittke’s Requiem, which was made in Tallinn in February 1976, conducted by Tõnu
Kaljuste (Shulgin 2004, 80). A video of the staging from 1980 shows that instrumental versions
of several movements were also made, and excerpts of these, along with the choral originals,
were used as incidental music.2 An instrumental version of the Credo finale ends the first half
(end of act III), and the full choral version ends the second, although the drum kit is omitted
both times.
Sonnengesang
Sonnengesang was composed in 1976 and, like the Requiem, it explores liturgical styles of the
Middle Ages, with vocal writing modelled on Gregorian chant. The text is St Francis of Assisi’s
Canticle of the Sun (translated into German), a prayer also set by Messiaen in his contemporan-
eous opera and by Gubaidulina in 1997. The religious theme is typical for Schnittke’s work of
the mid-1970s, but the prayer also evokes nature, rarely a focus in Schnittke’s music. When asked
if he was a man of nature or a man of culture, Schnittke lamented that his lifestyle gave him no
contact with nature, but concluded, ‘while I have respect for culture I would give priority to
nature’ (Schnittke 2002, 11).
Sonnengesang demonstrates that sense of distanced respect. Like St Francis, Schnittke embraces
nature as an embodiment of God’s creation, but, as his setting demonstrates, he treats it as a
totality. And where Messiaen dramatises St Francis in the act of prayer, Schnittke presents only
the prayer itself – simultaneously subject and object (Bertoglio 2010, 118). The idea of nature as
an embodiment of creation is presented through a process of gradual accretion and consolidation.
The piece is structured as a canon in 10 sections. The canons build, one voice growing to four.
Written dynamics also increase systematically, from pp at Fig. 1, to ff at the climax, Fig. 9.
The atmosphere is liturgical, and the word setting strict.The choir is accompanied by organ as
well as a percussion ensemble of celesta, vibraphone, bells, tam-tam and timpani.The work begins
with bell chimes from the vibraphone, which also appear between the choral phrases, gradually
expanding through the addition of the other percussion instruments.
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The word setting follows the style of Gregorian chant, with one note to a syllable, but also melis-
matic elaboration at phrase endings. In keeping with the medieval tradition of instruments doubling
vocal lines, the organ plays only the pitches of the vocal parts, although it holds these as continuous
clusters.The vocal phrases use narrow pitch ranges, each phrase made up of three pitches separated
by wholetones – only the Fig. 9 climax diverges, with a tone–semitone pitch cell. Further harmonic
complexity is introduced through the canons, with each of the voices using a different transpos-
ition of the three-note cell. Canon by inversion is introduced from Fig. 3. Medieval antiphony is
employed, with the singers divided into two choirs, singing in call and response.
The climax, at Fig. 9, and coda, Fig. 10, represent unity and completion, symbolising the
entirety and perfection of God’s creation.The increasingly complex canons introduce ever-more
pitch classes, but the full chromatic is only achieved at Fig. 9. It continues to be represented in all
the following harmonies, even as the textures disperse in the coda.The two choruses are united at
Fig. 9, and within each of the voice groups, the melody is sung in parallel motion, the three voices
each a wholetone apart. This, too, can be interpreted polyphonically, as a ‘null’ canon (Akishina
1999, 158), another demonstration of the symbolic unity this climax represents.
Minnesang
Minnesang is a work for 52 voices,3 based on troubadour songs of the Middle Ages and completed
in 1981. The work resembles Sonnengesang, written five years earlier. Both are simply structured,
homogeneous works based on medieval sources – here music as well as words. Schnittke sets
songs from the ‘Minnesingers’, German lyric poets of the 12th to 14th centuries: the Monk of
Salzburg (c. 1350–1410), Friedrich von Sonnenburg, Meister Alexander, Heinrich von Meissen
(died 1318), Neidhart von Reuental (c. 1180–1240), Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170–1230)
and Wolfram von Eschenbach (died c. 1220). Schnittke originally planned to incorporate the
themes into a violin concerto but decided that the vocal character of the music would be better
served through voices (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 101). In deference to medieval traditions
of solo singing, he wrote for each singer as an individual voice and sought to avoid a choral
character as much as possible. He envisaged outdoor performance, with the singers grouped on
balconies (Akishina 1999, 162). In the concert hall, the singers are to be widely distributed on
and around the stage.
‘I set the task to limit myself to only montage work without changing any note of these
songs’, Schnittke wrote. He did not intend to recreate medieval performance practice, but rather
to evoke the atmosphere. ‘I wanted to create an image of a magical act, which is based on this
music. And the Middle High German text, incomprehensible now even for Germans, which I
left unchanged, has no importance here – it is transformed into phonemes, and does not tell a
story, but rather creates a mood’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 101).
The texts are secular, songs of love, but Schnittke creates a quasi-liturgical atmosphere for
this ‘magical act’. The work opens with a group of altos singing Palästinalied by Walther von der
Vogelweide (see Example 3.3), but Schnittke simplifies the melody (taking advantage of the pro-
portional rhythm notation), slows the tempo to a semibreve pulse and repeats both the music and
the text of the opening line unchanged.The result seems like a cantus firmus, a ritual incantation
on which the music builds. The second half of the phrase is given to a second group of altos, and
overlaid mid-way through the first.
The work is in a rondo form, with tutti refrains (Figs. A, C, E, H, K) interspersed with episodes
dominated by two SATB solo groups (Figs. B, D, I).The source themes are distributed among these
sections, usually appearing simultaneously, although separated by voice group with stretto canon
within each. A more conventional crotchet pulse speed is adopted for most, although Palästinalied
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Choral works
Example 3.3 (a) Walther von der Vogelweide Palästinalied, as recorded in the Münster fragment;4
(b) Schnittke Minnesang, opening
retains its slow pace, and in the second tutti, Fig. C, it appears in inversion.The climax is approached
through a more complex combination of textures. It is prepared at Fig. F by a section of new the-
matic material, Das Nachthorn by the Monk of Salzburg, distributed evenly across the now tutti
chorus. The climax, Fig. G, overlays the textures from both the tutti refrain and solo episodes.
The main part of the work is entirely made up of ‘white-note’ music with no accidentals or
key signatures. This allows the modal character of the themes to dictate the pitch content, pre-
dominantly in the Dorian mode, with D and A pitch centres. In the coda, Schnittke introduces
a G minor key signature, and transposes the themes to C and G pitch centres. New pitch classes
are introduced, but there are no cadential or tonal implications as the modal character is retained
through direct transposition downwards by a wholetone of the themes. The ending is open, and
the final phrase, Fig. K, introduces another medieval technique, mensural canon, with Palästinalied
repeating at three different tempos as the music fades away.
Seid nüchtern und wachet … (Faust Cantata)

The legend of Faust was important to Schnittke throughout his career. He was first introduced
to the story through Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus, which he read in German in the late
1940s. Schnittke felt a particular resonance with Mann’s framing of the legend as a story about a
modern-day composer, and several of Schnittke’s most important works were closely linked with
the novel. In 1959, he planned an opera based on Apocalypsis cum Figuris, the Apocalypse Cantata
written by Adrian Leverkühn, the book’s hero. Apocalypsis later became one of the models for
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Schnittke’s Symphony No. 1, but the Faust Cantata (its full title Seid nüchtern und wachet …) and
the opera that Schnittke later based on it, Historia von D. Johann Fausten, went further, setting the
same text as that used in Leverkühn’s fictitious work.
The text, Das Volksbuch vom Doktor Faust, was published by Johann Spies in Frankfurt in 1587.
Schnittke favoured this over Goethe’s more famous treatment. He explained:
I am not concerned with Goethe’s Faust. Goethe idealized him. But in the original
Faust there revealed itself precisely that duality of the human and the diabolical in
which the diabolical predominates. If we take the whole history of Faust, it becomes
obvious that what was human about him reveals itself only when he, beginning to
understand where it is all leading, starts to lament, to weep, to grieve. In his last days he
became a human being who realized what he had really done.
Schnittke’s cantata focuses on those last days, setting the last two chapters of Spies’ text (67
and 68): Faust’s confession to his students (movement IV), the disingenuous consolation from
Mephistophiles (movement VI), Faust’s hideous death (movement VII) and a moralising epilogue
(movement X, from which the title is taken). The key phrase for Schnittke’s conception comes
when Faust reflects on his own human nature: ‘I die both a bad and a good Christian: a good
Christian for that I am pertinent, a bad Christian for that I know the Devil will have my body’.
In Doktor Faustus, Leverkühn sets the 12 syllables of ‘Ich sterbe als ein böser und guter Christ’ as
an all-interval tone row, which forms the structural basis of his Apocalypse Cantata (Mann 1999,
511–12). Curiously, this phrase is omitted in the Faust Cantata. But when Schnittke came to
employ the cantata as the final act of his Faust opera, the only change he made was to add a reci-
tative setting of these lines (No. 45b).
Mann’s historical engagement – linking the Faust legend not only to the history of the German
people but also to German musical culture – would also have a significant bearing on Schnittke’s
polystylism. In Doktor Faustus, the narrator, Zeitblom, describes the aim of the Apocalypse Cantata
as ‘to subsume within it, as it were, the life-history of music, from its premusical, elemental, magic-
ally rhythmic stages on up to its most complicated perfection …’ (Mann 1999, 393). Significantly,
this is a moral obligation, to show ‘how close aestheticism and barbarism are to each other …
how aestheticism prepares the way for barbarism in one’s own soul’. Clearly, the image of human
culture, imbued with Christian morality, that is presented in the Symphony No. 1, follows Mann’s
model. In the Faust Cantata, Schnittke goes further in realising this still-fictitious work, using
popular music styles to represent the demonic. Zeitblom also says of the Apocalypse Cantata:
Adrian’s powers of sardonic imitation, deeply rooted in the melancholy of his own
nature, become productive here in parodies of the diverse musical styles in which hell’s
insipid excess indulges: burlesqued French impressionism, bourgeois drawing-room
music,Tchaikovsky, music hall songs, the syncopations and rhythmic somersaults of jazz –
it all whirls round like a brightly glittering tilting match, yet always sustained by the
main orchestra, speaking its serious, dark, difficult language and asserting with radical
rigor the work’s intellectual status.
(Mann 1999, 395)
Schnittke also acknowledged the influence of Henri Pousseur on his musical conception of
Faust. Pousseur’s opera Votre Faust updates the legend through a network of musical quotations.
It also complicates the narrative with characters represented by multiple performers, as Schnittke
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does with Mephistopheles. Pousseur’s influence was more significant to Schnittke’s theoretical
conception of polystylism, but Votre Faust, which Schnittke cites in several essays on the subject
(Schnittke 2002, 88, 128–29, 149), adds a moral dimension as well as a specific link between
Schnittke’s polystylism and the Faust legend.
Schnittke was first approached to write an opera based on Goethe’s Faust by Yuri
Lyubimov of the Taganka Theatre in Moscow. The idea of setting Goethe did not appeal,
but later, the organisers of the Vienna Festival approached him with a commission for a
concert work. Choir and organ were stipulated in the commission, the choir to mark the
125th anniversary of the Vienna Singakademie, and the organ because a new organ had just
been installed at the Vienna Konzerthaus where the premiere was to take place (Weitzman
1995, 27). The theme of that year’s Vienna Festival was Faust, so this became the subject of
Schnittke’s work. A Russian-language version of the libretto was also prepared, translated by
Schnittke’s brother Viktor. Rozhdestvensky, who conducted the Vienna premiere, originally
intended to premiere the work in Moscow, and plans were made for the famous pop star Alla
Pugacheva to sing the role of Mephistophilia. But the authorities intervened and banned the
performance. Pugacheva also withdrew, not wanting to be associated with the demonic char-
acter (Schmelz 2017). Meanwhile, the idea of a full opera based on Faust continued. Just as
Schnittke was beginning work on the cantata, he was contacted by Christoph von Dohnányi
about a project for Hamburg Opera, and the cantata would eventually form the final act of
the opera that resulted, Historia von D. Johann Fausten. Dohnányi soon left the Hamburg post,
and the project was taken over by Frankfurt Opera. They abandoned it when the Frankfurt
opera house burned down. It was eventually taken up again by Hamburg, where the opera
premiered in 1995.
Schnittke understood the cantata as a kind of Passion, but a ‘negative Passion’, as it deals ‘not so
much with an Antichrist as with a “bad” Christian’ (Köchel 1994, 127).The Passions of Bach and
Schütz serve as a model for the structure, although the relationship is always complicated by that
negativity.The story of the cantata is told by a tenor narrator, analogous to Bach’s Evangelist.The
chorus takes several roles, including abstract, moral commentary, again as in Bach. But Schnittke
blurs the lines that structure Bach’s settings, making no clear distinction between action (recita-
tive) and reflection (arias, choruses).
The work is stylistically diverse, each style carrying specific moral significance. In Doktor
Faustus, Zeitblom says of the Apocalypse Cantata, ‘the entire work is governed by the paradox (if
it is a paradox) that its dissonance is the expression of everything that is lofty, serious, devout,
and spiritual, while the harmonic and tonal elements are restricted to the world of hell or, in
this context, to a world of banality and platitudes’ (Mann 1999, 394). Schnittke follows suit,
evoking hell through tango and waltz. But elsewhere, a more neutral stylistic profile is required,
neither lofty nor diabolical, and Schnittke finds this balance in the extended tonality of the
Austro-German late Romantics and early Modernists. So the Tristan chord appears in the har-
mony, for example, at Fig. 87 in the bassoons and saxophones. The style of dramaturgy often
suggests Berg’s Wozzeck, at Figs. 12 and 47.The balance between tonality and dissonance is also
maintained through tonal harmonies used in non-tonal contexts, often linked through parallel
fifths and parallel triads.
Mephistopheles and Faust are each represented in the music by a group of themes (see
Example 3.4). But both have ambiguous identities: Mephistopheles, in Goethe’s words, is ‘der
Geist, der stets verneint’, the spirit of negation, and, as in the third movement of the Symphony
No. 3, Schnittke represents that negation through the erosion of thematic identity. Faust dies
‘both a bad and a good Christian’, so his musical representation is not in opposition to that of
Mephistopheles, but sufficiently distinct to articulate the drama.
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Example 3.4 Faust Cantata. Mephistopheles themes (a) opening; Faust themes (b) Fig. 9 (tenor solo only),
(c) Fig. 24 (bass solo only)
The first movement introduces the Mephistopheles themes. The words anticipate Faust’s
‘hideous and frightful end’ and so Schnittke introduces the music of the climax, a tango. All
of the themes associated with Mephistopheles are introduced in counterpoint at the start
(see Example 3.4 (a)): the tango rhythm in the tam-tam and piano, the rising minor scale figure
in the organ left hand, and the tango theme in the piano right hand. The opening chorus also
demonstrates Schnittke’s conception of the cantata as a ‘negative Passion’. The 12/8 time signa-
ture recalls the opening chorus of Bach’s St Matthew Passion (as does the compound metre in the
opening chorus of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, another model for Schnittke’s opening). The wood-
wind entry at Fig. 2, a rising minor arpeggio, recalls the first choral entry in the Bach. But the
opposition to Bach’s message is clear from the continuation of the woodwind theme, which rests
on a suspended seventh before resolving to the octave, and by the fact that this theme is merely a
background accompaniment to the Mephistopheles themes as they are transferred to the chorus.
The two themes associated with Faust (see Examples 3.4(b) and 4(c)) are introduced at Fig. 9
(movement II) and Fig. 24 (movement IV). Both employ rising minor scales, although the Fig. 24
theme is considerably more chromatic – Faust’s ‘good Christian’ and ‘bad Christian’ sides.
Mephistopheles appears as two separate characters: Mephostophiles and Mephistophilia, the
former a sweet and servile seducer, that latter a cruel chastiser (Ivashkin 1996, 178). Musically,
the two roles are related but distinct. They are sung by countertenor and alto, with the latter
amplified, creating timbral distinction, but within the same vocal range. Mephistophilia first
appears in movement VI, the final confrontation between Faust and Mephistophiles before
Faust’s death. In Leverkühn’s cantata, ‘the Evil Spirit besets the aggrieved Faust with curious,
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mocking jests and bywords’ (Mann 1999, 513). Here, Mephistophiles sings his address to Faust,
while Mephistophilia vocalises in approximate imitation; Mephistophiles’ own words are subject
to ‘curious, mocking jests’.
At Fig. 63, 12 fateful chimes of a clock are heard, leading to the scene of Faust’s death, the
climax of the cantata (movement VII). Schnittke originally wrote this scene with ‘aggressive glis-
sandos, chaotic aleatory [sounds] and sharp dissonances’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 192). But
he was concerned that this musical depiction of pain did not create the correct moral impression.
Returning to Thomas Mann, he found that the Devil there characterises the torments of hell not
through pain but through humiliation:
Thereto … is linked the element of mockage and extreme ignominy that is bound
up in the torment; for this hellish bliss is much the same as a most pitiable taunting
of the immeasurable suffering and is accompanied by fingers pointed in scorn and
whinnying laughter – whence the doctrine that the damned must bear mockery and
shame together with their agony, indeed, that hell is to be defined as a monstrous
combination of derision and entirely unbearable sufferings that are nonetheless to be
eternally endured.
(Mann 1999, 261)
This inspired the tango climax, from Fig. 66, with Faust’s humiliation played out through the
banality of the music. In the tango, the amplified voice of Mephistophilia replaces that of the
narrator, a symbolic change, but also one of several allusions to popular music: saxophones
and electric guitars are also employed. The textures build through parallel fourths and
fifths from Fig. 80, and reach a climax at Fig. 82, where tango and waltz themes are heard
simultaneously.
The last three movements of the cantata, from Fig. 84, are an elided reprise of all the previous
sections, with each of the themes reintroduced, albeit in less dramatic form. Movement VIII
(Fig. 84) tells of the return of Faust’s students to Wittenberg, where they meet his famulus,
Wagner, whose name Schnittke accompanies with a quote from Tristan und Isolde, recalling a
similar self-quotation in act III of Die Meistersinger.
Although the work ends with a ‘moral’ (movement IX, Fig. 90), followed by a similarly moral-
istic Epilogue (movement X, Fig. 98), the music remains ambiguous and reserved. Movement IX
is whispered rather than sung by the chorus, and movement X includes several stylistic allusions,
a Lutheran chorale, but with a waltz sporadically reappearing in the piano. The Faust themes are
also played under the chorale by the cellos one bar after Fig. 99, a reminder of the character’s
humanity. That also suggests a ‘negative passion’, and the final movement can be heard as a pas-
tiche of the chorale that concludes Bach’s St John Passion, ‘Ach Herr, lass dein lieb Engelein’
(Kostakeva 2005, 99). The last sound in the cantata is a woodblock imitating a ticking clock
and eventually fading to silence, an effect similar to Zeitblom’s description of the ending of
Leverkühn’s Apocalypsis:
Just listen to the ending, listen with me: One instrumental group after the other steps
back, and what remains as the work fades away is the high G of a cello, the final word,
the final sound, floating off, slowly vanishing in a pianissimo fermata.Then nothing more.
Silence and night. But the tone, which is no more, for which, as it hangs there vibrating
in the silence, only the soul still listens, and which was the dying note of sorrow – is no
longer that, its meaning changes, it stands as a light in the night.
(Mann, 1999, 515)
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Three Choruses
The Three Choruses (so titled by Schnittke, but published posthumously as Three Sacred Hymns)
were written for Valery Polyansky, whose initial request was made at the Moscow premiere of the
Faust Cantata (Hinke 2016, 12). Schnittke was reluctant but eventually agreed, completing the
three short works in a single night (Ivashkin 1996, 160).
The choruses set three prayers from the Orthodox Church prayer book (in Church Slavonic,
but with modern orthography). In the West they are known as: I: Ave Maria, II: The Jesus Prayer,
III:The Lord’s Prayer.The Ave Maria and The Jesus Prayer are connected with the Rosary prayer
sequence, which was also the inspiration for the Symphony No. 4, on which Schnittke was then
working. Schnittke writes within the traditions of Orthodox chant but with occasional late
Romantic harmonies.
Hymn I is set for double chorus, the second imitating the first down a diatonic third. The
result is an E♭ major/C minor bitonality, but the strictly consonant writing within each chorus
means that the only extended harmonies are the augmented and diminished intervals that result
from the juxtaposition.
Hymns II and III are more metrically varied, following the Orthodox practice of struc-
turing musical phrases in accordance with the text. Hymn II begins quietly, and within the
range of an octave, but gradually grows, expanding to over two octaves at the climax. Hymn
III is the longest and most elaborate. The melody and counterpoint draw on the descending
scale at the end of Hymn II. The music moves between distant key areas from the opening
E♭ major. Hymn II closes with a tierce de picardie, a concession to Western conventions, but
Hymn III goes further into 19th-century harmony, employing diminished and dominant
sevenths, and ending with a complex cadence: E♭ major–C major–F minor–C minor–G
major♭9–E♭ major.
Choir Concerto
Schnittke completed his Concerto for Mixed Choir in 1985. The concerto grew out of a single-
movement work, first performed in Istanbul in 1984 by the USSR State Chamber Choir under
Valery Polyansky. Polyansky encouraged Schnittke to expand the composition, and the original
piece became the third movement.The complete concerto had its premiere, with the same forces,
in Moscow in June 1986.
There is no polystylistic interaction in the concerto, but its style is consciously archaic, ref-
erencing ancient chant traditions, as distilled through the Orthodox choral music revival of the
late 19th century. The genre of the choral concerto dates from the mid-17th century and is par-
ticularly associated with Ukraine-born composer Dmitry Bortniansky (1751–1825). The term
originally referred to a short work, in several movements, performed during the Divine Liturgy
while the clergy take communion. It was developed into a concert format in the late 19th cen-
tury, with Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov writing large-scale works in the form, and it is this
tradition that Schnittke continues.
The texts are by medieval Armenian poet Gregory of Narek (951–1003), the third chapter
of his magnum opus The Book of Lamentations. The prayers are written in classical Armenian,
but Schnittke uses modern Russian translations by Naum Grebnev (Grebnev 1972). The book
consists of 95 prayers, connected by psalms, which speak of seeking solace and hope in God. The
work draws on the rich traditions of poetry and philosophy that had developed in Armenia by
the end of the 10th century. A humanistic individualism informs the texts, with the poet directly
expressing emotions and often writing in the first person.
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An important stylistic source for the concerto was the book Questions on the History and Theory
of Armenian Monodic Music by Khristof Kushnarev (Kushnarev 1958), which Schnittke consulted
at the time of the work’s composition (Grigoreva 2001, 143). The strict, ascetic style of the third
movement links it most closely to Armenian chant traditions, suggesting that Schnittke’s first
efforts to set Gregory of Narek’s verses resulted in the greatest stylistic connection with the trad-
ition. Schnittke commented, ‘I wrote the music that the text invoked, not what I chose myself ’
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 238), and the close connection between words and music is clear
from the gradually changing harmonic language. At Fig. 6, Schnittke sets the words ‘If my song
inspires in some soul/Thoughts pleasing to you,/My heavenly Father,/Do not deprive me of
your grace’ in a bright D major. At Fig. 9, ‘If someone poor in spirit/Wavers in the holy faith in
a moment of grief ’ is set to more tonally ambiguous modal lines. And at Fig. 12, ‘If deadly fear or
doubt/Suddenly seizes someone’ is set as a highly chromatic 12-voice canon. Redemption comes
at Fig. 14, where D major is restored (Chigareva 2012, 101).
When Schnittke came to expand the single-movement work into the concerto, he maintained
close thematic connections between the movements. Each movement begins with a statement of its
main theme, and these are all closely interrelated, characterised by doleful descending semitones and
a descending scale/turn motif at the cadence of each first phrase, as if the third movement theme has
been compressed and stretched to form the themes of the other movements. The third movement
has a two-part structure, each part concluding with a loud homophonic chorale (before Fig. 14 and
last three bars). Similar chorale climaxes appear in the other movements but as part of a more varied
vocabulary. The first movement is a hymn of praise, ‘O Master of all living, bestowing priceless gifts
on us’, and the sombre chant of the opening is contrasted by a brighter ostinato theme, first heard in
the sopranos after Fig. 10, and later, after Fig. 17, presented in close two-part harmony to resemble
Orthodox bell ringing. The second movement, ‘This collection of songs, where every verse is full to
the brim with black sorrow’, is built on an insistent pulse in the basses.The textures are contrapuntal
but quickly increase in density, so that individual lines merge into a constantly varying background.
The fourth movement returns to the contemplative mood of the first, ‘Complete this work which I
began in hope’. We again hear austere chants set to carefully gauged narrow dissonances before the
texture finally distils into an ethereal major triad at the conclusion.
Psalms of Repentance
The Psalms of Repentance were premiered in Moscow in 1988 as part of the state-wide celebrations
to mark the centenary of Christianity in Russia. The event commemorated was the baptism
of Grand Prince Vladimir in 988, affiliating Kievan Rus to the Byzantine Church. Psalms of
Repentance reflect the Byzantine tradition of unaccompanied choral singing (instruments were
prohibited) and also engage with the traditions of chant-based Orthodox liturgical music.
Schnittke follows the melodic patterns of Orthodox chant: most melodies are confined to a
narrow range and move in stepwise motion.The text setting also follows the Orthodox tradition
of syllabic distribution, the rhythms modelled on those of spoken language. The choral writing
imitates the polyphonic techniques of early chant settings, with drone-like bass pedals, parallel
movement between the voices and occasional canonic imitation.
The texts are taken from a collection of poems for Lent, written in the second half of the 16th
century by an anonymous monk. Schnittke first encountered the texts when they were published
in Moscow in 1986 (Dmitriev & Likhachev 1986). The poems tell of the murder of Grand Prince
Vladimir’s youngest sons, Boris and Gleb, by their brother Sviatopolk in 1015. The brothers were
declared Russia’s first martyrs and saints. The murder is recounted in Psalm VI. The surrounding
movements are more abstract contemplations on human sin and longing for redemption.
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Schnittke maintains a quasi-liturgical atmosphere, but is always sensitive to the meanings of the
texts, which he occasionally illustrates directly. In Psalm VI, the pleas of the two brothers are set
in close imitation between two solo voices, two altos and then two sopranos. Similarly, when the
narrator, the anonymous 16th-century monk, writes of himself, his words are set for solo tenor
at the opening of Psalm IX, ‘My life as a cleric have I pondered – my sad uncertain life’, and of
Psalm XI, ‘I came into this wretched life a naked babe’.
Schnittke regularly extends the principles he derives from Orthodox traditions to create
more modern sounds. The text-derived rhythms are set in flexible metre, with asymmetric time
signatures and frequent time changes. Schnittke also employs a complex system of hemiolas
within these changing bar lengths.The textures of Psalm VII are particularly dense for the exten-
sive use of four against three subdivisions of the beat. Harmonies are often closely voiced and
tonally ambiguous, particularly in Psalm XI. Here the lines move in parallel motion a major
second apart, culminating in a chromatic tone cluster, fading away to illustrate the transience of
life, ‘Like flowers, like dust and shadows it doth pass away’.
The ending brings the music to a peaceful resolution. The tranquil final movement is textless and
sung bocca chiusa (with closed mouth). It begins with a D pedal, the basses divided in octaves. This
effect is employed at several significant points throughout the cycle, including the opening of the first
movement and when the monk’s narration is presented by the solo tenor in Psalms IX and XI. This
gives a sense that the textless music has been in the background throughout, coming to the fore in the
final movement. The choice of the note D is also significant: both the note and the key of D major
often represent the divine in Schnittke’s music. In the final passage, the first tenor part repeats the
B–A–C–H monogram, then moves to an alternating D/E♭, before coming to rest on Eb suspended in
a D major chord.The two notes here may be intended to spell ‘Deus’ (E♭ as ‘es’ in German notation).
Schnittke was initially reluctant for Psalms of Repentance and the Choir Concerto to be published
in the West (Ivashkin 1996, 161–62), feeling that only Russian choirs had the stylistic sensi-
tivity to perform them properly. The Psalms of Repentance were eventually published in 1995
by Belaieff in Germany. The conductor Hans-Christoph Rademann has compared the Belaieff
edition to the autograph and found numerous differences. He writes: ‘In the autograph, unlike
the printed edition, we found few indications concerning dynamics, almost no tempo markings
and virtually no breath marks at all. In addition, there are some divergences in the notes and
differences in rhythm from the published version’ (liner note to Harmonia Mundi CD HMC
902225). The edits appear to have been made by the composer Viktor Suslin, in his capacity as
editor for the publishing house. Schnittke’s failing health may explain the lack of markings, but
Rademann believes the omission was deliberate. Accordingly, he recorded the work, with the
RIAS Kammerchor, in the more austere style suggested by the autograph.
Opening Verse for the First Festival Sunday

Eröffnungsvers zum Ersten Festspielsonntag was written for the 1989 Lockenhaus Festival in Austria.
The festival was founded in 1981 by Gidon Kremer, and in 1989 featured several of Schnittke’s
works. Eröffnungsvers is for mixed chorus and organ, its 50 bars around two minutes in duration.
The text is a German translation of Psalm 47, verse 2,‘O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto
God with the voice of triumph’. Schnittke’s setting is highly chromatic, omitting only one pitch class
and organised in groups of three adjacent pitches, mostly corresponding to the three crotchets of each
3/4 bar. The voices build upwards from the bass, creating stretto canon at the fourth, with the lower
voices delayed by a beat each time to create imitation at the crotchet. The organ accompaniment
begins on a bright B major and ends on a more complex sonority, based on D♯ major in first inversion
but including the full pentatonic black-note collection.The organ accompaniment doubles the choral
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lines but also adds chordal accompaniment above.This is also tonally ambiguous but contributes to the
joyful sound with fragmentary ascending octatonic scales in the upper voice.
Festive Chant
Festive Chant was written in 1991 to mark the 60th birthday of Gennady Rozhdestvensky. In the
work’s Russian title, Torzhestvenny Kant, the word ‘Torzhestvenny’ means both solemn and festive,
leading to divergent translations into English and German: Festive Chant, Festive Canto, Solemn Canto,
Festlicher Cantus.The work is for solo violin and solo piano – for performance by Rozhdestvensky’s
son Alexander and wife Viktoria Postnikova – as well as large chorus and orchestra.
This is the only one of Schnittke’s works to feature a monogram based on Rozhdestvensky’s
name (GEnnADi roSCHDEStwenski = G, E, A, D, E♭, C, B, D♭/C♯). The monogram appears
at the opening as a bell effect in the tubular bells and horns, and from bar 3 his first and last
names are overlaid.The end of the first phrase is an entry by the trumpets, trombones and strings,
playing the complement to the set: F, G♭, A♭, B♭, concluding on C♭, which is included in both
sets (see Example 3.5(a)).
As in Dedication to Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich (another Rozhdestvensky
project), Schnittke also treats the monogram as an unordered pitch set. The main theme of the
work uses the notes of the Rozhdestvensky monogram but reordered and with many repetitions
to create a simple melody in G major.This is presented as a violin solo (Fig. 1, see Example 3.5(b)),
then as canons, between the violin and piano (Fig. 4) and between woodwind and piano (Fig. 6).
The chorus then enters (Fig. 6) with a variant of the melody in similar canonic exchange with
the strings. The choir sings in rhythmic unison throughout, declaiming a traditional Russian
birthday greeting Mnogo leta, Genadiiu Nikolaevichu Rozhdestvenskomu, mnogo leta! (‘Many more
years to Gennady Nikolayevich Rozhdestvensky!’).
Agnus Dei
This setting of the Agnus Dei was commissioned by the Nobel Peace Prize committee as part of a
collaborative Mass for Peace, first performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 1995.The other
composers commissioned for the project were Rolf Liebermann (Introitus),Yoritsune Matsudaira
Example 3.5 Festive Chant (a) opening, bells and violin I only; (b) Fig. 1, solo violin only
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(Kyrie), Gian Carlo Menotti (Gloria), Sergio Rendine (Alleluia), Armando Krieger (Credo), Lukas
Foss (Sanctus), Krzysztof Penderecki (Benedictus) and Tomás Marco (Laudamus te).
The setting is for three female soloists – two sopranos, one alto – female chorus and chamber
orchestra. The work opens with an unaccompanied statement of the theme; ‘Agnus Dei’, set to a
musical monogram of its constituent letters, A, G, E♭, D, E. The following music is based on the
shape of this theme and also on the semiquaver turn motif that concludes it. Most of the music
is written in two-part counterpoint, usually sung by two voice groups or played by two similar-
sounding instruments.
The orchestra is used sparingly, either to double the voices or for brief interludes reprising the
earlier-heard choral lines. The climax at Fig. 7 presents the main theme in augmentation over an
ascending chromatic scale in the lower strings and an A (‘Agnus’) pedal in the violins and horns.
The coda from bar 49 is a shortened version of the opening.
Lux aeterna
Schnittke’s 1994 setting of the Lux aeterna was written as part of a collaborative project, Requiem
for Reconciliation (Requiem für Versöhnung), instigated by the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart
and conductor Helmuth Rilling to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the ending of the
Second World War. Thirteen other composers contributed movements, including Luciano Berio,
Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm and György Kurtág.
Schnittke was already busy with other projects, so the fact that he accepted the commission
suggests a strong personal connection, perhaps a reflection on his own mortality given his failing
health. Schnittke left the score unfinished as composition was interrupted by his third stroke. It
was completed by Gennady Rozhdestvensky and included in the first performance of the Mass.
The score, as Schnittke left it, is a single A3 page, mistitled as Lux aeternam. It consists of four
choral phrases without instrumental accompaniment, although a nine-bar instrumental interlude
is sketched mid-way down the page. Schnittke’s first response on receiving the commission was
to request the relevant text and Gregorian chant melody (Duffek 2004, 243). But the melody
he employs is broader in range and more melismatic. In each of the phrases, the voices enter in
canonic imitation before moving to freer counterpoint in almost continuous hemiola.
Rozhdestvensky’s additions are discreet and sympathetic to the style of the choral writing.The
third phrase, ‘Requiem aeternam, dona eis, Domine’, is incomplete in the sketch, with just two
voices written out, so Rozhdestvensky had to complete this section. He also adds an orchestral
part, which opens and closes the work and links the choral phrases. The opening is a quiet string
cluster, giving way to a gentle marimba roll. The interludes between phrases are horn figures,
derived from the instrumental line in Schnittke’s sketch.The coda reprises the introduction, con-
cluding with an imitation of a typical Schnittke gesture, the choir’s opening arpeggio transferred
to the glockenspiel for an ethereal rise to the heavens.
Notes
1 When Compozitor came to publish these early works in 2015, the Mashistov Lullaby was not available,
so they published Three Choruses as the Lermontov, Isakovsky and A. Prokofiev settings.
2 https://www.culture.ru/movies/1725/don-karlos (accessed 14 September 2020).
3 Earlier versions of the score are for 46 and 48 voices (Akishina 1999, 160).
4 Münster, Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen/Staatsarchiv, Msc.VII, 51.
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4
SOLO VOCAL WORKS
Introduction
Schnittke wrote works for solo voice throughout his career, but his motivations at each stage
were different. Four songs for voice and piano date from his student years (1953–1955), the
result of Schnittke’s teacher Evgeny Golubev encouraging him to explore a wider range of
genres (Ivashkin 1996, 63). These are conventional in style – tonal with broad, lyrical melodies
for the voice and repetitive accompaniment – although the textures in ‘Beryozka’ are particu-
larly rich.
Schnittke’s later works for solo voice are predominantly with larger instrumental ensembles.
Two song cycles from the 1970s, the 10 Songs from Turandot (1973) and Eight Songs from Don
Carlos (1975), grew out of theatrical projects. Although they are for voice and piano, the
accompaniments are reduced from larger instrumental combinations in the stagings. At the same
time, Schnittke began to explore using a solo voice with ensemble to create musical drama,
but unstaged – the drama in the music itself, as in Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire. Der gelbe Klang
(1973–1974) approaches this ideal, and Three Scenes (1980) comes closer still.
Schnittke’s songs show him continually inspired by the act of setting texts. ‘Poem’, or closely
related words, appear in the titles of Three Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (1965), Drei Gedichte von
Viktor Schnittke (1989) and also Verses Written in the Sleeplessness of the Night (1971). (The latter is
a short Pushkin setting for low voice and piano, originally written for a television programme.)
This connects with a Russian tradition of musical poems, as opposed to musical settings of poems
(Tsvetkova 2018, 17–18). The title was used for vocal works by Cui, Taneyev, Shostakovich and
Prokofiev. The tradition continues in Schnittke’s vocal settings: his songs are few, but in each, the
text is chosen carefully, and the music always aligns closely with the meaning and spirit of the
words.
Three poems of Marina Tsvetaeva

In 1964, Schnittke composed Music for Chamber Orchestra and Music for Piano and Chamber
Orchestra, his most thorough and rigorous explorations of total serial technique. But neither work
satisfied him, and he recalled that ‘it led me to the fact that I wanted to write a work completely
free from both the technical dogmas of serial technology and the mechanical dogma of tonal
DOI: 10.4324/9780429274046-4 90
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music – and so these romances were written’. The impetus for the settings came from violinist
Mark Lubotsky, who gave Schnittke a volume of poems by Marina Tsvetaeva and advised him to
compose a cycle for the Soviet Writers’ Union (Shulgin 2004, 41).
Marina Tsvetaeva (1892–1941) was an important poet in the first decades of the Soviet Union,
whose work documents a short and tragic life. Tsvetaeva’s writings span her career, and the three
poems Schnittke chose to set date from 1920, ‘My Bearing is Simple’ (Prosta moia osanka); 1916,
‘Black as a Pupil’ (Chernaia, kak zrachok); and 1934, ‘The Veins were Opened’ (Vskryla zhily).
Shostakovich, Gubaidulina and Sergei Slonimsky also wrote works to verses by Marina Tsvetaeva,
although all postdate Schnittke’s. Slonimsky’s Songs to Poems of M. Tsvetaeva (Pesni na stikhi M.
Tsvetaevoi, 1986), originally for voice and guitar and later arranged for mezzo or alto and piano,
also includes a setting of ‘My Bearing is Simple’.
Schnittke explained that the texts created the form in each of the three songs (Shulgin 2004,
42), a deliberate move away from the methodical structuring of serialism. ‘The word does
not sit well with dodecaphony’, he explained, ‘because the word itself determines everything’
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 33). The first and second poems are in regular stanzas, but the
third is more freely structured. The imagery is also significant. Tsvetaeva evokes night – the
moon, darkness – as well as homely metaphors – sleep, shelter, bowls and plates – to invoke grief
and suffering. The images are intimate and confessional, yet sufficiently abstract for Schnittke’s
expressionist sound world.
The piano part in Schnittke’s three settings is mostly played under the lid, and the score uses
19 different symbols for extended techniques, including plucking, striking and glissando effects.
Schnittke later described these effects as ‘amateurish’ and ‘naïve’ (Shulgin 2004, 42), but they play
an important role in diminishing the tone of the piano and allowing the voice prominence. This
increases the work’s recitational quality, as does the faithful setting of the text, without repeti-
tion and retaining the metric and rhythmic stresses of the lines as spoken. Aesthetically, the songs
resemble Volkonsky’s Laments of Shchaza (1960) and Denisov’s Sun of the Incas (1964), although
both earlier works employ serial technique.
In the first song, both the percussive piano sounds and the mezzo voice produce dark,
autumnal colours. (The cycle was originally written for mezzo or alto, but Schnittke also wrote
a version for soprano, with the vocal part transposed up a third, at the suggestion of soprano
Margarita Fateeva, Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 33.) Despite Schnittke’s assertion that the
work is free from the ‘technical dogma of serial technology’, the phrases in the first song each
seem to be based on a 12-note row, but with repetitions of individual pitches or note groups
deliberately added to oppose serial logic. These quasi-serial lines emphasise major seconds and
perfect fourths and fifths, creating an open sound. Mid-way through the third stanza, the voice
moves to Sprechstimme, giving a menacing quality to the words: ‘Our laws are simple: Written
in blood.’
Song II, ‘Black as a Pupil’ [of an eye], is an invocation of night, the piano part even more sparse
and the vocal line several times dropping through major seventh leaps into the lowest tessitura.
Tsvetaeva’s poem is structured as four regular couplets, which Schnittke follows. He also graph-
ically represents the descent into despair in the final couplet, ‘Night! I have looked too long into
human eyes!/Reduce me to ashes – Like a black sun, Night!’The first ‘Night!’ is set to a high G5,
the last on the lowest possible pitch.
The third song is darker still. The more radical agogic structuring of the text is reflected in
Schnittke’s erratic setting. Schnittke presents the poem as a tumult of uncontrolled, irrational
passions, ultimately building to a frenzied climax, the singer holding a top A♭5, the highest note in
the work, over a piano outburst.The instrument is now fully voiced and plays ordinario supporting
the final line, ‘the irreparable slashing of the verse’.
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10 Songs from Turandot

In 1973, Schnittke worked on incidental music for a production of Brecht’s Turandot, or the
Whitewashers’ Congress at the Taganka Theatre in Moscow. Brecht’s play was written in 1953, but
was left incomplete at his death.The first full production was given in Zurich in 1969.The play is
a satirical comedy about intellectual corruption. It is set in China, where a group of intellectuals
try to justify high cotton prices, despite a bumper crop. The planned Moscow production was
instigated by Yuri Lyubimov. At the end of the original play, the Emperor is expelled, but in light
of the ongoing Cultural Revolution, Lyubimov felt that this associated the work too closely with
Chairman Mao, so, in his ending, the people themselves leave the state instead.
Lyubimov approached Schnittke to write songs and incidental music, the first collaboration
between the director and composer. He also enlisted poet Boris Slutsky and the singers Vladimir
Vysotsky and Marina Vlady (Ivashkin 2003, 168). Schnittke wrote nine songs to lyrics by Slutsky,
as well as one, ‘My Century is Approaching Sunset’, to words by Andrei Voznesensky. In addition,
Vysotsky set lyrics by Slutsky for ‘Song of Gogher Gogh’ (the character is a parody of Hitler).
But the project was abruptly halted by objections from Brecht’s widow. It was eventually staged
in 1979 with Schnittke’s incidental music but without either his or Vysotsky’s songs. Schnittke’s
songs were recorded as part of the preparation for the production, but to date only the first three
have been performed live, by soprano Ekaterina Kichigina in 1994 at a concert to celebrate the
composer’s birthday.
The songs are tonal, with all but two (Nos. 2 and 9) in minor keys. No. 2, ‘Umbrella Song’,
alternates between soloist and unison chorus. Most of the songs have piano accompaniment,
apart from Nos. 5, ‘Tails’, and 7, ‘My Century is Approaching Sunset’, which are accompanied by
guitar. No. 10, ‘Happening’, includes a metronome part in addition to the piano. Slutsky’s lyrics
follow simple syntactic models, the words often gently caustic, close in style to Brecht (Tsvetkova
2018, 140). When the lyrics tend towards prose, as in the first and last numbers, Schnittke sets
the text in recitative-like repeating notes. Marches predominate in Nos. 1, 3, 5 and 9. No. 4,
‘Acupuncture’, is particularly rich in allusions, with a reference to the popular romance Gori, gori,
moia zvezda (Shine, Shine, My Star), and also elements of a patriotic song, including horn calls in
the accompaniment.The introduction to No. 8, ‘Song of the Historical Context’, quotes the Dies
irae. There is little motivic unity between the songs, although rising second-inversion arpeggios
appear as a recurring melodic device.
Eight Songs from Don Carlos

This song cycle originated from the production of Schiller’s Don Carlos, at the Mossovet Theatre
in Moscow in 1975, which also gave rise to Schnittke’s Requiem. As with the Requiem, the songs
were originally intended to be performed with a live rock band, sung by the actors playing
monks, who would stand near the guitars and drum kit onstage (Shulgin 2004, 80). But the songs
were side-lined: At the dress rehearsal, they were sung by the actor Gennady Bortnikov but were
then cut and not included in any performances. Schnittke later reorganised the songs, and they
were eventually premiered in 1990 at a concert at Bad Urach in Germany entitled ‘Schiller in
Russia’.The voice Fach and accompanying forces vary in different versions of the songs, but that
first performance was given by baritone Evgeny Polikanin accompanied at the piano by Lubuov
Orfenova.
The songs set poems by Schiller, translated into Russian by an unknown hand. Although
not directly related to Don Carlos, the poems reflect on the play’s main theme, the relationship
between state power and personal freedom. This is especially so in the song ‘About the Theatre’
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on how this affects the artist – one possible reason for their last-minute removal from the pro-
duction. In the concert version, the solo singer can be accompanied by piano or guitar, and guitar
figurations are clear in the accompaniment, giving a Spanish flavour in keeping with the setting
of the play. Additionally, the song ‘Evil Monarchs’ calls for a choir and ensemble of percussion
and lead and bass guitars.
Published listings of the songs give different orders, but Schnittke’s manuscript presents them
in the order they appear in the present Works List. In this order, the cycle gradually builds towards
a climax with the songs ‘A Path in the Mountains’ and ‘Bad Monarchs’. The first is the philo-
sophical climax of the work, addressing issues of spirituality and of life and death. The second is
the dramatic climax, an invocation of the world’s injustices and the inevitable cycle of retaliation
(Tsvetkova 2018, 127).
As the songs were intended to be performed by actors, rather than professional musicians,
the accompaniments regularly double the vocal line. The songs are generally in straightforward
verse form, often simply repeating the same music from one verse to the next. The music is
tonal, although Schnittke often includes flattened seconds (especially in ‘Bad Monarchs’), to give
an archaic Phrygian character. The songs are stylistically unified, although tensions and irony
sometimes surface. For example, ‘To my Friends’ is modelled on a Soviet patriotic song. It was
originally for chorus and has an emphatic march character. But those connotations are opposed
both by the tritones in the vocal line and by the cadences, mixing tonic major and minor. These
are heard at the very end, sub. p, frustrating the build-up and denying the song its expected tri-
umphal resolution.
Magdalina’s Song
Magdalina’s Song for soprano and piano sets a poem from Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago.
Although the song was completed in 1977, Schnittke first had the idea to set poems from the
book when he first read it (in samizdat) in 1965. Schnittke recalled that this experience began his
interest in religious literature, anticipating his religious works of the 1970s.
In the book, the poems are by Zhivago himself, and Pasternak originally planned for them
to appear within the narrative but later moved them to an appendix. On reading the book,
Schnittke’s original plan was to create a cycle based on the poems, and he also began to sketch
a song based on ‘When in the Last Week’ (Kogda na poslednei nedele). He later came to feel that
his settings were not worthy of Pasternak’s poetry and abandoned the project. Even the Magdalina
song was withdrawn; Schnittke cancelled the first performance on the day of the concert, and
the work was never performed in his lifetime (Ivashkin 2003, 24). However, Schnittke returned
to Doctor Zhivago in 1993, writing incidental music for a stage production directed by Alexei
Lyubimov (see Chapter 2).
Schnittke was particularly drawn to the simplicity of Pasternak’s poetry. This may explain why
Schnittke put the project to one side in the 1960s and returned to it in the 1970s, a time when
his own music was moving away from serial complexity towards a more religiously inspired
directness. Both the opening bell-like chimes, in a skeletal C minor, and the arpeggio accom-
paniment to the fourth stanza (Fig. 3) anticipate similar textures in the Concerto for Piano and
Strings (1979). And the harmonic structure is typical of Schnittke’s music of the late 1970s, with
the C minor tonality gradually succumbing to densely chromatic textures, although still with a
tonal basis.
In the poem, Pasternak imagines Mary Magdalene’s contemplations immediately before the
death of Christ. The poem is inspired by the Gospel of John, Chapter 19, and the Gospel of
Matthew, Chapter 27. She sings of washing Jesus’ feet and then foretells the crucifixion and
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resurrection. Schnittke sets the poem faithfully, in a strophic form, but with different textures for
each verse. The result is a variations form around the chant-like melody, with its rising minor
third at the opening the primary motif.
Schnittke’s attention to the detail of Pasternak’s words is evident from the small changes that
he makes, usually just a single word, or a subtle change in the inflection of a phrase (Tsvetkova
2018, 55–56). For example, in the second line, Schnittke changes V storone ot etoi molchei (Away
from this crowd) to V storone ot etoi cuety (‘Away from this bustle’). More significantly, at the
end of the fourth stanza, I zemlia kachnetsia pod nogami,/Mozhet byt’, iz zhalosti ko mne (‘And the
Earth sways underfoot,/Perhaps out of pity for me’), mne becomes tbe – (‘Perhaps out of pity
for you’). Also, Schnittke changes the tenses so that Magdalena’s premonition of the crucifixion
Ty raskinesh’ po kontsam kresta (‘You will spread to the ends of the cross) is now presented in the
perfective ‘Ty raskinul po kraiam kresta’ (You have been spread to the ends of the cross’), bringing
greater immediacy to the imagery. The song employs several representations of the cross (see
Chapter 1), an idea that was coming to predominate in Schnittke’s work. An important attraction
of Pasternak’s poem, especially for Schnittke in the 1970s, was the opportunity to link these cross
motifs to a text explicitly on the subject.
Three Madrigals
Three Madrigals was composed in 1980 and dedicated to Sofia Gubaidulina on her 50th birthday
and the poet Francisco Tanzer on his 60th (Wagner 1999, 50). The work sets three poems by
Tanzer, published the previous year (Tanzer 1979, 118–201) and is scored for soprano, violin,
viola, double bass, vibraphone and harpsichord. Schnittke also made an arrangement for soprano
and piano.
Francisco Tanzer (1921–2003) was a writer and poet, whose background was remarkably
similar to Schnittke’s own. He was born in Vienna, to an assimilated Jewish family, and after
the Anschluss fled to Paris, where he attended school, and then to America. In 1954, he moved
to Germany, where he wrote scripts for WDR radio. His poetry was set by many composers,
including Gubaidulina, whose Tanzer setting Garden of Joys and Sorrows also dates from 1980.
Tanzer wrote in the three languages of the countries in which he lived, and Schnittke chose
three poems in French, German and English, respectively.The title ‘Madrigals’ reflects Schnittke’s
interest in Renaissance forms in the 1970s, but also derived from his initial conception of the
work as an a cappella choral setting (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 150). The poems have a
common theme, a romantic relationship between a man and woman, expressed in abstract,
cosmic terms. Schnittke observed that the musical styles of the three movements correspond to
the respective languages: the first is an old French chanson, the second has a Viennese alpine trait,
also referencing Alban Berg (‘wienerisch-(alban)bergsche Züge’) and the third has the euphony
of a spiritual (Köchel 1994, 127). The first movement is quasi-serial, the second freely atonal, the
third broadly tonal. But that progression towards tonal order is opposed by the contour of the
melodic line, which flows smoothly in the first movement but later becomes increasingly angular
with wider intervals and a broader range.
Movement I, ‘Sur une étoile’ – ‘We met on a star, we drank the wine of another life’, is based
on serial technique, although it opposes serial principles in several ways. The melodic line is an
11-note series, although the missing pitch class, initially F♯, appears repeatedly in the accompani-
ment. The accompaniment uses the same series, simultaneously at different transpositions and in
inversion, leading the voice in canon. The phrasing follows the verse structure, with the music
moving up one semitone each verse. The movement ends on an A♭ minor chord, suggesting a
cadential resolution to the E♭ pitch centre of the opening.
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Example 4.1 Three Madrigals, Francisco Tanzer monogram, as employed in movement II
A copy of a sketch for the second movement is held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive. It
begins with Schnittke working out a monogram based on Tanzer’s name (Example 4.1). Rs are
represented as Ds, following the system A–G = H–N = O–S etc., although these are written
in brackets and not used in the piece. This suggests that the movement was composed first.
Schnittke experiments with assigning different pitch collections to the three movements, based
on a progression from a major triad to a diminished seventh and finally a five-note chord made
up of the remaining pitch classes. The idea of a progression from a narrow pitch collection
and range to a broader collection survives at the start of the second movement. It begins with
the B-A-C-H monogram in the voice, before expanding through repetition of the ascending
minor third–descending semitone pattern of the monogram’s A, C, B.The monogram based on
Tanzer’s name also includes a similar pattern, A, C♯, C, and Schnittke exploits this coincidence,
making the latter one of the main motifs of the movement. He also uses the augmented triad
that begins the monogram, the first time at the end of bar 3, and throughout the movement.
Both devices are transposed freely, and the augmented triad is regularly inverted. The mono-
gram itself appears almost complete in the vibraphone at bar 16. This and the preceding vocal
phrase demonstrate how the two motifs from the monogram are independently employed
(see Example 4.1).
The third movement, ‘Reflection’, brings together elements of the previous two, now
in a broadly tonal language. The augmented triads of the second movement now become
major and minor, clearly articulated by the arpeggiated vocal line. In the accompaniment,
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the simultaneous inversions from the first movement are applied, illustrating the poem’s title.
The poem recalls the imagery of the previous two, although now a sense of transcendence is
introduced, ‘Love transferred to outer space’. The concept of ‘reflection’ is also illustrated by the
return of the languages – musical and verbal – of the previous two movements. The monogram
contour of the second movement appears in the strings two bars after Fig. 3. Then the second
movement title, ‘Entfernung’, is sung to a note row, the 11-note series of the first movement
now expanded to a 13-note row, the D♯ repeated.Then the harpsichord moves from the second-
movement figuration to that of the first, and the work ends with a sustained C major in the
strings, a symbolic gesture of unity rather than a tonal resolution.That symbolism is consolidated
by the ethereal vibraphone solo, again illustrating the cosmic, transcendental theme, but also,
with the addition of the last E♭ in the harpsichord, playing the complement of the C major set
beneath.
Three Scenes for Soprano and Ensemble

Schnittke described Three Scenes as a ‘short sketch for an opera’ (Ivashkin 2009, 21), but the
work takes an abstract approach to the relationship between music and drama. It is scored for
soprano, singing wordless vocalise, and percussion. The work is dedicated to Mark Pekarsky
and his percussion ensemble. It was premiered by them, with soprano Lydia Davydova, an
avant-garde specialist, who had also premiered Andrei Volkonsky’s Mirror Suite and Laments of
Shchaza in the early 1960s.
Schnittke wrote: ‘Since this piece has no specific content – it is an attempt to reconstruct a
vision by means of instrumental theatre – I will refrain from any description. Only one thing
should be said: since there are no allusions to specific events, so I cannot defend myself against
any possible interpretations’ (Köchel 1994, 126).
The idea of ‘instrumental theatre’ suggests a close relationship between the associations
in the music and the physical actions of the performance. The published score indicates when
the singer should enter the stage, and when she and the players should leave. All the other
stage actions were developed by Pekarsky and Davydova. For Schnittke, then, the work’s
drama is as much a product of the contrasts and associations within the music itself. This
plays out as a stylistic tension between the movements: the first scene is written in 12-tone
(although not serial) technique; the second is tonal, in G minor, and the third combines elem-
ents of the two.
The work is based on incidental music that Schnittke wrote for a 1980 television series
based on Pushkin’s Little Tragedies (1830). The episode is based on the fourth play A Feast in
Time of Plague. In the play, a feast is held to honour the victims of a plague; the mood is jovial,
but a young girl, Maria, sings a sad song before the merriment resumes; a priest chastises
the assembled crowd for dishonouring the dead; finally, the celebrations are interrupted
by the distant sound of a funeral procession. The broad outline of the story is retained, and for
the first performance, Davydova and Pekarsky developed a related scenario, presenting the
first scene as a ‘Game of Life’, the second as a ‘Last Song of Life’ (Maria’s song) and the third
as ‘Funeral’.
The soprano remains offstage for the first scene. The stage is dominated by a vibraphone,
appearing coffin-like, set longways and surrounded by six players. The music is a simple alterna-
tion between block chords by players 1 and 2, and repeated-note patterns by players 4 to 6. The
chords initially repeat 12 times, but at each occurrence this is reduced by one, until finally only
one chord is struck: a clock striking the hours, but in reverse order. The 12-tone structure of the
music also corresponds with the 12 hours of the clock. At the opening, players 1 and 2 strike
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eight-note chords made up of adjunct pairs of semitones. When they return at Fig. 2 with 11
chimes, the chords are made up of note pairs each a tone apart, and these intervals grow progres-
sively. Meanwhile, the interpolated repeated-note patterns employ the four-note complement to
each preceding eight-note chord.
The soprano sings from backstage in scene 1, echoing the last pitches of each repeated
chord pattern. She enters the stage at the start of scene 2, which is dominated by her G minor
melody: ‘Maria’s Song’ from the music to A Feast in Time of Plague. It is sung here in vocalise,
but it originally set the words ‘Bylo vremia, protsvetala/V mire nasha storona:/V voskresenie
byvala/Tserkov’ bozhia polna’ (Once upon a time our village/Was so peaceful to behold:/
Every Sunday morning/Church was filled). The staging emphasises the sardonic character,
with the singer processing around the stage, accompanying herself with an old-fashioned
coffee grinder. The melody is also echoed in a polka-like refrain in the tubular bells. These can
be substituted by off-stage violin and double bass, underlining the dance character.
In scene 3, the funeral allusions are more explicit. The movement opens with a chorale on
the vibraphone, quiet but densely harmonised. The convergence of the 12-tone technique
from scene 1 and the tonality of scene 2 is apparent in the clusters of the chorale gradually
moving towards triadic harmonies. The song and countermelody of scene 2 also reappear at
the end. But such tensions are overwhelmed by a more explicitly dramatic denouement: a
player wearing a bass drum with cymbal attached appears, playing the rhythm of Chopin’s
Funeral March. The other players follow, leaving the stage in procession, save the vibraphone
players, whose last chord is a ghostly bowed cluster. The funeral procession is the clearest link
to Pushkin’s play, as if the piece has moved from the abstraction of scene 1 towards the more
explicit narrative gestures here.
Drei Gedichte von Viktor Schnittke for Tenor and Piano

Viktor Schnittke (1937–1994), the composer’s younger brother, was a poet, writer and translator
and a key figure in the Volga-German literary community. He wrote poetry in German, Russian
and English. He also translated much German literature into Russian, including monographs on
Brahms and Johann Strauss Jr., as well as the letters of Schoenberg. He also collaborated with
Alfred on the Faust Cantata, creating a Russian-language libretto from the German original, to
fit Alfred’s already composed music.
These settings were written in 1988 and presented by Alfred as a birthday present to Viktor.
The three poems are Wer Gedichte macht … (‘He who Creates Poetry …’), Der Geiger (‘The
Violinist’) and Dein Schweigen (‘Your Silence’). Viktor had a passion for the poetry of Rainer
Maria Rilke, and the three poems follow his style, especially the first, where, as often in Rilke,
the poet is the subject. Schnittke matches the style with settings that evoke the German Lieder
tradition of the 19th century: he said that he imagined Peter Schreier singing the songs (Ivashkin
2003, 20).
The songs are tonal, although with many chromatic passing notes in the vocal line.The settings
are strophic and follow the metre of the poetry.The accompaniments are varied between stanzas,
but the textures are skeletal, always allowing the voice prominence.
The settings follow the sombre mood of the texts. Minor-key descending figures predom-
inate, although this tendency is countered in the rising tonal centres between songs: E♭ minor,
F minor and G minor, respectively. There is little tone painting, although the piano briefly
alludes to violin string crossing textures in Der Geiger, bars 4–5. A transposed B-A-C-H mono-
gram opens the accompaniment to the second song, alluding to the words’ associations between
music and the divine. A rising motif links the first and third songs. When it appears in the third
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(bars 10–11), it spells the Beethoven monogram, previously used in the String Quartet No. 3 – D,
G, A, B♭ – perhaps associating the silence of the poem’s title with Beethoven’s deafness.The final
line of the poem, Schon fünfzehn Herbste sind ins Land gegangen/seit jenem Tag. Dein Schweigen ist
so tief (Fifteen autumns have already come to our lands/since that day.Your silence is so deep’),
presumably refers to Viktor and Alfred’s mother, Maria – the 15th anniversary of her death fell
in 1987.
Mutter
Mutter is a short song for mezzo-soprano and piano, written in 1993 and dedicated to Ulrich
Eckhardt, then director of the Berlin Festival, on his 60th birthday. It sets a poem by Else Lasker-
Schuler (1869–1945). Like Eckhardt, Lasker-Schuler was Berlin-based, although she fled the
Nazis in 1932 and spent her last years in Palestine. The poem was clearly close to the composer’s
heart, a eulogy ‘To my dear mother the holiest star over my life’, using imagery of starlight, roofs
and clouds to picture the poet’s deceased mother looking down.
The initial material is based on monograms. The opening texture sets a B-A-C-H cluster in
the piano left hand against an off-beat A♭ (Schnittke’s initials A–S) in the right. The opening of
the vocal line may be a monogram derived from Schnittke’s mother’s name mAriA io(E)SEfovna:
A–A–E–E♭–E. The block chords of the second stanza are mostly symmetrical harmonies. The
rising lines in both stanzas illustrate the transcendental imagery, while the strident, but barely
accompanied vocal line in the closing bars reflects loneliness of the last words, Als ob ich abgeblüht/
Hinter des Tages Ende/Zwischen weiten Nächten stände/Alleine (‘As if I had bloomed/after the end
of the day/Between long nights/Alone’).
Five Fragments to Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch/

Fragment for Orchestra
Schnittke’s 1994 piece based on the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch was originally planned as a
cantata, commissioned by the London Sinfonietta (Schmelz 2017, 413). That work, a large-scale
orchestral piece, in five movements with countertenor and harpsichord soloists, was abandoned
near the end of the third movement. The music was then recast as a chamber piece, again in five
movements, now with tenor soloist, as well as solo roles for violin and trombone. Five Fragments
to Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch was dedicated to Vladimir Spivakov, who has since championed
the piece with his Moscow Virtuosi. However, presumably to honour the commission, the Five
Fragments were premiered by the London Sinfonietta, in 1994, as was Fragment for Orchestra, made
up of the two completed orchestral movements from the original cantata, in 2001.
In the mid-1990s, Schnittke took an interest in the work of German medieval mystics, reading
books on Sebastian Brant, Peter Breugel and Nicolaus Reusner (Ivashkin 1996, 212). He was
particularly interested in the work of Hieronymus Bosch, for the strict rules that governed his
symbolism. Those rules have largely been forgotten – the rationale is lost – yet the works retain
their power: ‘This essence will remain forever, while that which was tied to significance through
specific names is forgotten. Everything that we perceive as random is essentially nonrandom, it is
the content of life. In our consciousness, it is the smallest part, the logical designations, symbols,
that are most important. But in reality – no. Because everything that any person does is superior
to what he himself can imagine’ (Ivashkin 2003, 68–69).
The impetus for the project came from the book Hieronymus Bosch by Wilhelm Fraenger
(Fraenger 1947). He links writers with individual paintings, and these texts became the
libretto of the cantata. The Song of Aphrodite by Aeschylus (525–456 BC), in a free German
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translation by Johann Gustav Droysen, is associated with the left panel of The Garden of Earthly
Delights (c. 1504), depicting the third day of creation (Fraenger 1947, 424).This became the text
to the third movement of the final work. A couplet by Nicolaus Reusner (1545–1602), ‘Frosch
lebt im Lentz, Winterszeit todt./Vom Tod erwecket Mensch lebt durch Gott’ (The frog is alive
in spring, in winter is dead./Risen from the dead, man lives in Godhead), is associated with The
Marriage Feast at Cana (Fraenger 1947, 189). (The painting, now in Rotterdam, was previously
attributed to Bosch but is no longer considered to be his work. However, we know he painted
the subject.)
Sketches for the cantata, copies of which are held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive, show that
it was conceived as a five-movement structure:
i. Strings. Two sections. 3 minutes + 4 minutes.

ii. Percussion and countertenor. 3 minutes.
iii. Woodwind (8), horns (2), vibraphone, celesta, high percussion. 6 minutes.
iv. Brass (2,2,3,1), low percussion, harpsichord, countertenor. 4 minutes.
v. Tutti including countertenor. 5 Minutes.
The three completed movements of the original cantata were typeset by Sikorski in 2000. They
correspond to the first three movements in the above plan, but with solo harpsichord included
in the first movement, and a string-only coda to the third (this is unfinished, and was omitted
from the 2001 performance).
The music of the first and third movements is characterised by progression through rising
stacked intervals, treble and bass in exact inversion and isolated chords and clusters, often in the
highest and lowest registers. The text of the second movement is a passage from Das Narrenschiff
(The Ship of Fools, 1494) by Sebastian Brant, chapter 92:
Vnd vor vß/die schäntlich hochfart

Die hat an jr natur/vnd art
Das sie den höchsten Engel stieß
Vom hymel ab/vnd ouch nit ließ
Im paradiß den ersten man
Sie mag noch nit vff erd bestan
Sie můß ye sůchen jren stůl
By Lucifer jn hellen pfůl
Above all, pride should be maligned,

By nature is it so designed
That e’en the highest angel could
Not stay in heaven; and Adam should
Leave paradise in sheer disgrace.
For pride there’s ne’er on earth a place.
For in the end all pride must dwell
With Lucifer in pools of hell.
(trans Edwin H. Zeydel, Brant 1944)
The text can be linked to the Bosch painting The Ship of Fools, which may be a satire of
the frontispiece to the first edition, although Fraenger discusses the poem with reference to
Bosch’s Haywain Triptych. The choice of countertenor to represent Lucifer recalls Schnittke’s
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Example 4.2 (a) Cantata, Sketch for movement V (countertenor solo only); (b) Five Fragments to Paintings
by Hieronymus Bosch, Ending, movement V, Fig. 49 (tenor solo only)
Faust Cantata. The vocal line jumps from the highest to lowest register, illustrating the descent
to hell. The initial sketches also include a brief fifth movement, just 13 bars, another coun-
tertenor solo, this time setting words by Jakob Böhme (1575–1624) ‘Wem Zeit wie Ewigkeit,
Und Ewigkeit wie die Zeit; Der ist befreit von allem Streit’ (To whom time like eternity and
eternity like time, he is freed from all suffering). This has a gradually increasing orchestral
accompaniment, with the vocal line ascending into the upper register at the end. Although it
was not fully orchestrated, it appears to be a model for the final movement of the completed
Five Fragments (see Example 4.2).
The sketches show a decisive shift from the larger cantata project to the smaller Five Fragments
in December 1993. Crossed out movement numbers indicate that the third and fourth
movements were originally in reverse order. The Percussion Quartet (1994) is mentioned imme-
diately following the sketch for the fifth movement, suggesting that it was originally intended as
part of the work.
In its final form, the Five Fragments is made up of three solo movements, for trombone, violin
and tenor, the fourth a series of small ensembles and the fifth bringing all the performers together.
As in the first movement of the cantata, the harpsichord plays a leading role, which, together with
the trombone and violin solos, gives a Renaissance flavour. An abstract symbolism links the music
with Bosch’s spiritual universe. His images of Heaven and Hell imply extremes, and the music
regularly moves to the register extremes of all the instruments and emphasises those contrasts
through long ascending or descending passages. Chigareva writes: ‘These are two sides of the
one whole – top and bottom, Heaven and Earth, life and death – symbolism so characteristic of
medieval and Baroque art’ (Chigareva 2012, 295).
Chigareva relates the first three movements to the left panel of The Garden of Earthly
Delights, which depicts the third day of creation. So, in the first movement, the string har-
monies beneath the trombone solo suggest tonality in the process of creation, clusters moving
towards triads, but even those presented tentatively, quietly and often superimposed on unre-
lated harmonies.
Tonal triads, now firmly established, become the foundation of the second movement, and
the basis of the melodic line. Descending arpeggios in high register alternate with ascending
arpeggios in low register, the heavens and the earth, as on the second day of creation. The con-
solidation of tonality is continued into the third movement, where The Song of Aphrodite is set in
a relatively strict B♭ major and then G major. The idea of growth and fruiting, of the plants and
trees on the third day of creation, as depicted in The Garden of Earthly Delights, is represented by
upwards arpeggios in the voice and first violins, while the vocal line emphasises the keywords of
the text: ‘Erde, gebiert, den Sterblichen, Grassung, blüenden’ (Chigareva 2012, 299).
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Movement IV begins with aleatoric figures in the violin, trombone and timpani, a distorted
sound world, reflecting the surrealism of Bosch’s canvases. This gives way to a series of more
orderly solos for the three instruments. In a sketch for the trombone solo at Fig. 40, Schnittke
writes okotanie (‘hovering’), reflecting the weightless quality of this mostly ascending music.
The short final movement invokes redemption and closure, but without imposing anachron-
istic unity or order. The soloists and string ensemble enter in succession, each playing a repeated
pattern in a different key. There are polystylistic elements: a jazz riff in the timpani, a waltz in
the harpsichord. The aural image recalls the figures in Bosch paintings, each going about their
own business (Tsvetkova 2018, 98). Finally, the tenor enters and sings the Reusner couplet,
ending ‘Risen from the dead, man lives in Godhead’. The arpeggiated vocal line recalls the third
movement, while the concept of ascension is made explicit by the setting of the final word,
‘Gott’, to an ascending minor ninth, ending on an affirmative fortissimo high B♭ (Example 4.2(b).
Note
1 The title of Gubaidulina’s Stimmen Verstummen (1986) is taken from the last line of the title poem of this
collection.
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5
ORCHESTRAL WORKS
Symphonies
Introduction
Schnittke’s symphonies span his career, and each is unique.The scale of the genre, combined with its
complex historical associations, proved an ideal fit for the composer’s musical imagination. Spiritual
and cultural concerns are at the heart of each of Schnittke’s symphonies, but their significance is
always expressed in abstract terms appropriate to the form. However intellectual or specific, the
ideas take on a broader emotive dimension when presented and explored as instrumental music.
The symphony played a central role in the music of Soviet Russia. Its Beethovenian heroic
aura was exploited for Socialist Realism, but the abstraction of the form made it difficult to bring
under ideological control. By the Brezhnev era, the success of Shostakovich in particular led to
a broadening of the Socialist Realism concept, with almost everything he wrote accommodated
into the party line. As a result, the symphony as a genre continued to reach broad audiences.
Mark Aranovsky argued in the 1970s that the Soviet symphony had become an ‘atheist Mass’
(Aranovsky 1979, 35), embodying collective ideals, independent of those imposed by the state.
Many of Schnittke’s symphonies take that idea further, actively exploring Christian theology
and ritual. But the history and contemporary status of the symphony itself were equally important.
Like Mahler and Shostakovich before him, Schnittke continually challenges the norms of the
genre, as if to recreate it anew with each work. Valentina Kholopova writes that: ‘Generally
speaking, each symphony by Schnittke seems to be both the first and the last: as if it were his first
engagement with the genre, but laid out to its conclusion’ (Kholopova 2003, 170).
Schnittke’s symphonic career began early, with a student work written in 1956–1957. In
1994, Schnittke agreed to the designation ‘Symphony No. 0’, but it was only performed once in
his lifetime, in 1957 by the Moscow Conservatory Symphony Orchestra under Algis Žiūraitis.
The work follows standard 19th-century models, in line with the demands of Socialist Realism.
Kabalevsky is the clearest influence, especially in the work’s elegant melodic contours, as exem-
plified by the main theme of the first movement (see Example 5.1). Kabalevsky had been the
teacher of Schnittke’s composition professor at the Moscow Conservatory, Evgeny Golubev,
suggesting a direct line of inheritance. But the music has an international flavour, influenced by
Paul Hindemith and, especially, Carl Orff, whose Carmina Burana had recently received its Soviet
DOI: 10.4324/9780429274046-5 102

Orchestral works
Example 5.1 Symphony No. 0, movement I, Figs. 2–3 (violin I only)
premiere. This was an event that had a profound impact on Schnittke, as is apparent here in the
prominent percussion and the music’s highly declamatory articulation.
Khachaturian was present at the performance, as was Shostakovich, whose influence is
also felt, especially from the latter’s Symphony No. 10 (premiered four years earlier). Schnittke
wryly suggested that influence had also worked in the other direction (Ivashkin, liner note to
BIS-CD-1647). The slow third movement of Schnittke’s symphony, a passacaglia, opens with
pizzicato double basses, and the slow movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, completed
the same year, begins in a similar way.
Although the connections to Shostakovich are superficial in Schnittke’s student work, the influ-
ence on his mature symphonies is more profound. Schnittke’s Symphony No. 1 and Shostakovich’s
last (Symphony No. 15) were both completed the same year, 1972, and by the 1980s Schnittke was
widely regarded as successor to Shostakovich as Russia’s leading symphonist. In 1990, the cultural the-
orist Alexander Mikhailov, reviewing a concert series of Schnittke’s then-five completed symphonies,
wrote: ‘It is clear that, even after the death of Shostakovich, we still have a composer as deep and per-
suasive, and as original in his thinking about the laws of the genre of the symphony’ (Mikhailov 1990).
Alexander Ivashkin writes that, for Schnittke, ‘Shostakovich’s most important idea is undoubt-
edly the “big” symphony and the microcosm which it represents’ (Ivashkin 1995, 25).This concep-
tion of the symphony is best exemplified in the late works of Shostakovich and goes on to become
the key paradigm for Schnittke’s works in the form. It brings together two important ideas: that a
symphony can, or even must, be about a subject, and the idea that the traditional Classical-era struc-
ture of the symphony is no longer its defining characteristic. Positive, dialectical development – the
constructive idea at the heart of the Classical symphony – is wholly absent in Schnittke’s work,
and Ivashkin sees the last symphonies of Shostakovich as arenas for experimentation for this new
approach. In the Symphony No. 14, traditional structures are abandoned in favour of more intuitive,
less rational structuring, and the Symphony No. 15 ‘creates its own correspondences “on top of ” the
traditional skeleton of the symphony’ (Ivashkin 1995, 257). In both cases, ‘[T]he limits of the sym-
phony are thus being pushed out from within almost infinitely’. Ivashkin concludes that Schnittke’s
primary inheritance from Shostakovich is an approach to symphonic writing that is ‘more morpho-
logical than syntactical … Syntax is more and more eroded by morphology, by withdrawal into the
depths of the material itself, by the search for different points of view upon it …’ (Ivashkin 1995, 265).
For Schnittke, elevating the symbolic status of the symphony’s constituent material was essen-
tial if the form was to survive its now redundant ‘syntactical’ structures:
I do not know whether or not the symphony will survive as a musical form. I very
much hope that it will and I attempt to compose symphonies, although it is clear to
me that it is logically pointless. The tensions of this form, which are based upon a tonal
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perception of space and on dynamic contrast, are paralysed by the present mechanical
point of view. Nevertheless, there is hope: in art the impossible has a chance of success
while the certain is always deceptive and hopeless.
(Köchel 1994, 87)
Schnittke’s interest in the music of the past undoubtedly plays a part in his efforts to main-
tain the symphony as a viable medium. But his symphonies are products of their times, and, as
Ivashkin writes, his Soviet contemporaries, Kancheli, Terteryan, Pärt and Silvestrov, found them-
selves in a similar paradox: ‘Each of them, having written a certain number of symphonies, has
shown fairly convincingly that the symphony cannot exist as just a musical composition, but
becomes a sort of “meta-symphony” and is therefore deprived of any basis as a definite structural
given’ (Ivashkin 1995, 257). Russian composers today – Vladimir Tarnopolsky, Alexander Knaifel,
Vladimir Martynov – are not writing symphonies at all; and the ambivalence of the younger
generation of Russian composers is demonstrated by Boris Filanovsky’s Seemphony (2010), an
orchestral work that inverts all the conventions of the symphonic form.
Schnittke’s sense of belatedness is more acute in the late symphonies, Nos. 6–9, written in the
1990s. Traditional structuring remains viable – Nos. 6 and 8 are Classically structured – but not
necessary, as the music becomes ever more independent of its formal obligations. Ivashkin writes
of the Symphony No. 6 that ‘it is impossible to listen to this music against an abstract rational
design. The listener unwittingly senses the latent symbolism of the music, although he is not
always able to be aware of what sort of symbolism it is. It is necessary to listen attentively, to
penetrate into the musical material itself in order gradually to become accustomed to this at first
glance strange, ascetically sparse texture’ (Ivashkin 1995, 266).
Despite their self-sufficiency (a traditional symphonic property that Schnittke studiously
upholds) the symphonies have many interconnections. As with Beethoven, Schnittke’s odd-
numbered symphonies are the more heroic and strident, while his even-numbered symphonies
are more reflective and spiritual (Ivashkin 1996, 165).The Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 engage with the
German symphonic tradition, not least through their formal architecture, and we hear echoes of
the Symphony No. 1 in the Symphony No. 3, but also of both works in the Symphony No. 7, another
Germanic symphony, dedicated to Kurt Masur. The late symphonies all seem to be reaching
towards a common goal. Evgeniia Chigareva draws specific connections between the Symphonies
Nos. 7 and 8 (Chigareva 2017, 191), hearing them together as a single musical utterance.
Such continuities speak of a single line of argument throughout Schnittke’s symphonic works.
Although the elements are configured differently each time, the symphonies all address the main themes
of Schnittke’s music: his engagement with the past, with musical history and with Austro-German cul-
ture, as well as his deep thinking about religion, identity and, especially in the last two symphonies,
death. Despite the anachronism of the genre, Schnittke remained loyal to the symphony until the end of
his life.The form aligned perfectly with his artistic goals because of the opportunity it offered to expand
his personal, subjective experience into the realm of universal truths. As he wrote of Shostakovich’s
Symphony No. 15 soon after the composer’s death, ‘an astonishing effect of objectivisation occurs, of
introducing the individual to the universal, and … in this way … the greatest task in the life of an artist
is solved, to influence the world through confluence with the world’ (Ivashkin 1995, 254).
Symphony No. 1
Both a summation and a starting point, the Symphony No. 1 proved to be the pivotal work of
Schnittke’s early career. It was composed over almost four years up to 1972 and premiered in
1974 in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod). Although not performed again in Russia for over
20 years, the work quickly earned a cult status.
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The sounds and textures of the symphony are often extreme – clusters, improvisation, jazz –
yet the structure is traditional, conforming to the Classical four-movement model. That rigour
allows Schnittke to intensify the contrasts within the form, extending the distinctions between
themes and sections into tensions of style and identity. The genre of the symphony is tested and
examined but it also provides the necessary abstraction for Schnittke’s philosophical discourse. In
1972, Schnittke wrote:
It is an attempt to reconstruct the Classical form of the four-movement symphony

(with [a] dramatic sonata form [first movement], a ‘funfair-scherzo’, a philosophical
Adagio and a liberating finale) – a form which has meanwhile been destroyed by the
development of music – from fragments and leftovers, supplying new matter where it
was missing … I am against any attempt to interpret the piece in a purely program-
matic way, because I had no programme in mind. I merely wished to remain honest to
myself – as a person (by taking the liberty of depicting the tension of our time without
providing empty solutions) and as a musician (to let all the layers of my musical con-
sciousness exist without worries as to style).
(Gerlach 1984 )
The symphony grew out of Schnittke’s work on a documentary film by Mikhail Romm entitled
I vsyo-taki ya veryu … (‘And Still I Believe …’), also known by its working title, Mir segodnya
(‘The World Today’). (The documentary remained unfinished at Romm’s death in 1971 and was
completed by his students in 1975.) The film documents contemporary social problems – student
demonstrations, the Vietnam War, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, pollution, drug taking – and
had a significant bearing on Schnittke’s parallel work on the symphony. Schnittke wrote in a
preface to the score: ‘If I had not seen all these shots in the film I would never have written this
symphony’ (Ivashkin 1996, 118). The symphony includes popular music elements taken from
the score of the film (Schmelz 2021, 150), and the two projects were closely linked through a
common desire to create art with a ‘documentary character’.
That sense of immediacy is achieved by compromising historically established certainties, most
significantly the symphonic form itself. A preliminary sketch bears the title ‘Eine Symphonie –
keine Symphonie ili [or] (k)eine Symphonie’. Kholopova reads the provisional title as an
indication of fundamental tensions: harmony-disharmony, construction-destruction, denial-
contradenial, symphony-antisymphony (Kholopov 2003, 105). A spirit of negation pervades the
first and second movements but is countered by a more positive mood in the third and fourth.
There is little sense of triumph, however, and no glorious conclusion. Schnittke’s goal is more
modest, a humanising tendency that acts to negate negation (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 76).
Order is achieved through the simultaneous application of three systems: tonality, serialism and
the prime number row:
Fleeting tonal references are heard throughout the work, primarily in borrowed materials –
marches, dances, Baroque pastiche – but triadic harmonies often appear as well, and usually at
structurally significant points. A C major tonality is hinted: The exposition and recapitulation
of the first movement both begin on a C major chord and the exposition second subject is a
Klangfarbenmelodie on the note G. Schnittke also regularly uses the chord sequence A major–C
minor (first heard at Fig. 37), which, Victoria Adamenko suggests, is derived from Schnittke’s
initials: A, (S=)E♭, harmonised by the two chords (Adamenko 2017, 165).
Serialism has a more significant bearing on the work’s structure. The symphony was written
at the end of a decade in which Schnittke had used serial techniques extensively in his con-
cert music, so is here more a functional lingua franca than a symbol of modernity. The work’s
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series – C, E♭, D, B, A♭, G, F, G♭, B♭, A, D♭, E – is first stated in the violins at Fig. 36 in the first
movement.
The prime number row – 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 etc. – creates rhythms that avoid metric regularity
and harmonies that are neither tonal nor serial. Schnittke was introduced to the sequence by
the Romanian composer Anatol Vieru (1926–1998). Schnittke followed Vieru in describing the
sequence as the ‘row of Eratosthenes’, after the Greek mathematician who devised a method for
identifying primes.
The symphony opens with a single percussionist onstage, chiming a quasi-improvisatory figure
on the tubular bells. Gradually, the orchestral players enter, each performing erratic lines inde-
pendently – a distinctly ‘anti-symphonic’ start. The conductor enters (invariably to audience
applause, adding to the mêlée) and brings a halt to the chaos. Schnittke identifies the start of the
exposition as the unison C in the strings at Fig. 33 and of the second subject as the senza tempo,
Fig. 48, pointillistic textures based on the note G (Shulgin 2004, 67).
A trombone cadenza introduces the development, Fig. 82. The first part of the develop-
ment is ‘an interaction of different motifs1 and their hybrids, strictly calculated according to the
Eratosthenes row’ (Shulgin 2004, 67). The prime number ordering is apparent in the number
of notes in each wind entry from two bars after Fig. 85: 3 (horns, trombones), 5 (woodwind), 7
(woodwind and brass, Fig. 87). The antisymphony–symphony dichotomy comes into clear relief,
when the chaotic second section, Fig. 95, gives way to the recapitulation, which quotes the finale
of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.The work’s challenged symphonic status is bolstered through the
authority of the most iconic symphony of all.
The brief coda is dominated by the trombones playing pedal G1, quietly with intermittent
crescendos. Schnittke composed this section at the artists’ dacha complex at Peredelkino, near
Vnukovo Airport. He was interrupted every morning by the roar of aircraft engines, a sound he
mimics here (Shulgin 2004, 65).
The second movement is a scherzo, although in rondo form. The D major opening is reminis-
cent of Vivaldi (in fact, it is a self-quotation, from Suite in the Old Style, and before that the film
Adventures of a Dentist (1965)). Stylistic tensions are soon felt with new themes overlaid, initially
an E♭ major waltz in the harp and bells and later a raucous C minor march in the brass (see
Example 5.2). Schnittke treats these ideas collectively as the primary material, describing the dis-
parate combination as a ‘two-faced cantus firmus’ (Shulgin 2004, 67).
The contrasting episodes move from serialism to jazz, progressively widening the stylistic
gulf. The first three episodes are all serial: a Webernesque waltz at Fig. 7, a heavily accented 4/4
dance at Fig. 22 and a march at Fig. 36. There then follows a chaotic, written out ‘cadenza per
orchestra’ (Fig. 57), followed by an un-notated ‘cadenza per solo’ (Fig. 58). In a footnote to the
score, Schnittke writes that the orchestral cadenza can be replaced with a jazz band improvisa-
tion, suggesting an ensemble of two trumpets, two trombones, saxophone and rhythm section. At
the first performance, the improvisation was performed by the band Melodiya, which included
two saxophones, trumpet, trombone, bass guitar and drums. The leader of the band, Georgiy
Garanyan, played saxophone (with distortion effects) in both the group cadenza and the solo
Example 5.2 Symphony No. 1, movement II, from Fig. 6 (trumpet I and violin I only)
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cadenza that follows. Since Rozhdestvensky’s first commercial recording, made in 1987 (A10
00643 002; SUCD 10-00062), the convention has been to play the notated orchestral version
of the group cadenza, and have a violin and piano duet for the solo cadenza, usually playing in a
conventional jazz idiom (Schmelz 2021, 150–61).
The third reprise, Fig. 61, builds to the main climax, with multiple themes layered over the
Baroque melody. Instruments associated with popular music are particularly prominent: bass
guitar, vibraphone and saxophones, but there is also a harpsichord continuo. The trumpet march
from Fig. 62 originated in music that Schnittke wrote for the play Gvozdi (‘Nails’) in 1965
(Shulgin 2004, 68). In the coda, the first flute leads the winds off the stage, the flute part written
out, the other players improvising in imitation.
Only the strings and percussion remain to perform the third movement Lento. Schnittke
described the movement as a ‘dynamic triangle’ (Shulgin 2004, 68): gradually building to an
unambiguous climax at Fig. 12, followed by a brief, but still systematic, decrescendo to the end.
The instrumental parts are all similar, but unsynchronised and without metre. Each line is based
on the series, but all other factors are determined according to the prime number sequence: the
number of instruments at each entry, the point in the series at which they begin, the length of
each section and the rhythmic divisions of each bar.2
At the climax, the serially derived lines distil into the notes of an A major triad, and the climax
is an emphatic statement of the A major/C minor ‘signature’.The percussion section makes brief
interjections, which become more sporadic, again determined by the prime number sequence.
And as the movement draws to a close, distant brass chords are heard off-stage, anticipating their
grand entrance in the finale.
The brass re-enter the hall over the final unison E of the third movement, all performing
funeral marches, including Chopin’s (fragmentary, in the third horn and first trumpet) and ‘The
Death of Åse’ from Grieg’s Peer Gynt (third trombone and tuba, Fig. 4). The full orchestra soon
joins, adding the opening of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Johann Strauss Jr.’s waltz
Tales from the Vienna Woods. The quotations are in their original keys, a compositional task that
required significant ‘accounting’ work (Shulgin 2004, 69). This opening was inspired by the
funeral of the father of violinist Mark Lubotsky, who describes the scene:
My father’s funeral took place on the morning of 26 June 1966. Alfred came with
us in the rental bus. The weather was oppressive. No sooner had we arrived at the
Vostriakovsky Cemetery than a violent thunderstorm broke, with a heavy downpour.
The coffin was lifted out of the hearse. And at that moment, first from one side and
then from the other two sides, other funeral processions stretched out past us, headed
by brass bands. Each band was playing an out of tune funeral march – and every march
was different. As my father’s coffin was being lowered into the grave, the rain stopped,
and a single, final thunderclap pealed. The impressions of that day, as Alfred himself has
written, especially the ‘pile-up’ of funeral marches, is reflected in the score of the last
movement of his ‘First Symphony’.
In the following section, Schnittke subtly integrates the series with the A major/C minor chord
sequence.The series begins and ends with a minor third, the latter a semitone higher.This allows
for a potentially infinite rising sequence through overlapping presentations of the series. The
passage from Fig. 10 is based on this principle, but with the constituent notes of the two triads
emphasised through longer durations: the A major triad as minims, the C minor as crotchets, the
remainder of the series appearing as grace notes (see Example 5.3).
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Example 5.3 Symphony No. 1, movement IV, from Fig. 10 (piccolo I only)
From Fig. 14, a similar process takes place, with the Dies irae plainchant emerging from the
perpetual series, becoming clearly audible in the trumpets at Fig. 22 and timpani at Fig. 30.
The pessimistic spirit of the movement’s opening persists. The one exception is the
heterophonic passage at Fig. 34, another quotation of plainchant. Fourteen different Sanctus
settings are heard simultaneously in the strings, sourced from the Graduale de Tempore et de Sanctis
(1877) (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 84).
Schnittke implies that the finale is in a broad variation form (Shulgin 2004, 68), but Kholopova
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 84–85) identifies a sonata form, albeit more tenuous. The six
episodes up to Fig. 34 are the first subject and the Sanctus is the second, coming to an end at the
general pause before Fig. 40. The development section begins with the Dies irae variations and
is apparent in the diversity of stylistic allusions that follow, mostly paraphrased from Schnittke’s
theatre music (Medić 2010, 66).
The recapitulation begins at Fig. 83, referencing the symphony’s opening with wildly gesticu-
lating trumpet figures. A sense of recapitulation proper is felt at the reprise of the second subject,
a Sanctus theme, now in canon, from Fig. 90. Schnittke enacts a formal closure, but the stylistic
tensions remain. An intensifying string pedal implies the music is coming to rest, but diverse styl-
istic fragments continue in the wind parts above.
The score ends in a compromised act of closure. Once again the players file off the stage, this
time to a tape recording of the ending of Haydn’s ‘Farewell’ Symphony, the recorded sound dis-
tancing this closing gesture even from Haydn’s ambiguous coda.
This is how Schnittke originally envisaged the work’s ending. But, on the last page, a da capo
sign appears, and the music begins again, a repeat of the orchestra’s initial entrance, the symphony
finally coming to a close when the conductor returns to silence the chaos. This addition was
suggested by Gennady Rozhdestvensky. As Schnittke recalled:
Suddenly Rozhdestvensky asked a simple question: ‘But how are we going to take our
bow?!’ And he gave his own answer: ‘Why after all this shouldn’t the orchestra – pre-
cisely as it came out onto the concert platform at the beginning – unexpectedly do the
same thing at the end?’ This is what was done, and it turned out to be absolutely right.
It was a kind of final return from the very serious level to one that was outwardly less
serious. As a result the whole work was lifted to a higher plane of abstraction. Only
a person for whom the serious and non-serious are equally significant could have
recognized the problem, formulated it, and solved it.
Symphony No. 2, ‘St Florian’

Schnittke’s Symphony No. 2 ‘St Florian’ was commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra
and Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who premiered it in London on 30 April 1980. The work was
written between 1977 and 1979 as a homage to Anton Bruckner. Its title refers to the monastery
where Bruckner worked for much of his early career, and where he is buried. The symphony
invokes Bruckner’s spirit through a combination of symphonic and liturgical music, two genres
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that account for the majority of his work. Schnittke structures his symphony as a Mass in six
movements:3 Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Crucifixus, Sanctus/Benedictus and Agnus Dei. It is scored for
chamber choir and large orchestra, most movements beginning with a choral presentation of
Gregorian chant, to which the orchestra then responds. In 1977, Schnittke visited the West for the
first time, touring Austria and West Germany as keyboard player with the Lithuanian Chamber
Orchestra. While in Austria, the group visited the St Florian Monastery. Schnittke remembered:
We arrived at St Florian in the dusk, when Bruckner’s tomb could not be visited. The
cold, gloomy Baroque church had a mystical air about it. Somewhere behind a wall a
small choir was singing the evening Mass – a ‘missa invisibilis’. There was no one in the
church but us. Entering the church all of us went at once in different directions in order
to feel the cold and powerful void surrounding our privacy. The following year, I was
commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra to write something for a concert with
G. Rozhdestvensky. I thought about a piano concerto. Rozhdestvensky suggested a
work dedicated to Bruckner, but nothing occurred to me, and then he said ‘How about
something related to St Florian?’ That was it. I immediately understood, I should write
an ‘invisible mass’, a symphony with a choral background. A six-movement symphony
following the structure of the Mass, with a choral part quoting liturgical melodies. Can
a form that ends with the words ‘Grant us peace’ ever grow old?
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 162)
Compositional sketches for the Symphony No. 2 suggest a more protracted conception. The
Juilliard collection includes 118 sketches for the symphony, more than for any other work. A
closer connection with Bruckner was considered, and the sketches include thematic analyses of
Bruckner’s Symphonies No. 1 and 2 (SCHN_COLL_96–98). A vestigial connection to these C
minor works remains in the symphony’s tonal centre of C. Schnittke then considers structuring
the work around Bruckner’s life (SCHN_COLL_76). Three musical monograms are considered,
Anton Bruckner (A-B-C-E), Sanctus Florianus (E♭–A–C–E♭–F–A–E♭) and Oberoesterreich
(B♭–E–E♭–C–B). Although this plan, too, was soon abandoned, comments beneath indicate that
the spirit of the work was coming into focus, mentioning a ‘dark atmosphere’ and ‘Baroque
edifice’. Finally, Schnittke writes the title ‘Sankt Florian Sinfonie’, and immediately beneath
‘Vielleicht eine instrumentale Messe?’ (‘Maybe an instrumental Mass?’) (SCHN_COLL_114).
The chants used are taken from the Graduale Romanum: Cantus ad libitum:V Kyrie, II Gloria, I
Sanctus, I Agnus Dei; I Missa in Paschal Time: Gloria, Sanctus, Credo II and III from optional Credo
tones (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 163 fn). Schnittke typically sets the chants for two voices,
in stretto imitation. The original rhythmic structures are retained, although often made more
flexible through the addition of longer notes and fermatas.
But the quasi-liturgical atmosphere and harmonic stasis of the chants prove resistant to sym-
phonic development. Instead, Schnittke continues the meditative mood, basing the instrumental
music of each movement on a single, unchanging idea, or on alternating ideas. Cyclical devices
and symmetrical forms are employed to give the impression of growth and reprise. As Ivana
Medić points out, Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 provides an important precedent: it, too, is in
six movements, which generally play out as symmetrical cycles (Medić 2010, 99).
Schnittke employs a range of symbolic devices to link the orchestral music with the spiritual
subject. The most significant is the musical representation of the cross, and Schnittke said that
‘[T]he entire harmonic content of the symphony, as well as its overall form, were constructed
on the principle of the crucifix’ (Eberle 1994, 86–87). This aspect of the symphony is discussed
in Chapter 1.
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The symphony opens with bass voices singing a Kyrie chant in unison: Gregorian chant
in its most archetypal form. The first orchestral note is crucial, although virtually inaud-
ible, the C that will form the tonal centre of the entire symphony. That centrality is soon
acknowledged by the symmetrical string cluster that accumulates around it. Two themes
emerge: a stepwise motion in the harpsichord, with all of the intervals expanded into ninths
and 11ths (Fig. 1) and a trochaic triplet figure in the vibraphone and electric guitar (Fig. 3).
Both are derived from the chant, the first by its melodic shape, the second by its rhythm. From
Fig. 6, the chant derivation of the orchestral music is emphasised through its clear phrasing,
delineated by caesuras.
The movement is structured through the simple alternation of the chant-derived string
textures with a punctuating figure, a series of chords in the keyboards and harps, performed
simultaneously at different tempos. The effect suggests bells, but Richard Taruskin also points
to precedents in Schoenberg’s Herzgewächse, Boulez’s Le Marteau sans maître and especially
Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles (Taruskin 1997, 103).
The chant that opens the second movement, Gloria, emphasises thirds and triads. The orches-
tral music that follows extends the implied harmonies, both into triads and the harmonic series. A
cross representation appears at Fig. 4, in the symmetrical harmonies of the keyboards and strings.
The movement proper is a double canon combining a theme based on C overtones and
quotations of the Gloria chant. The overtone theme resembles the opening of the Symphony
No. 3, on which Schnittke was working at the time.There, Schnittke weaves musical monograms
into the upper partials. Similarly, the plainchant is here combined with the overtone theme,
facilitated by the chant’s triadic emphasis. The climax, at Fig. 21, is a double canon in 26 voices.
Schnittke described the cross structuring in the Credo third movement as the most intensive
in the entire work (Köchel 1994, 85). Even the plainchant includes a condensed circulatio figure:
E, F, D, E. Most of the movement is made up of steady crotchets, in rhythmic unison within each
of the orchestral sections. The chordal progression is symmetrical, typically in four voices, the
lower two reflecting the upper two in exact inversion. The movement is punctuated with cross
figures achieved through crescendo and diminuendo of large chords around a held pedal.
The Crucifixus fourth movement is also saturated with cross motifs, but several other sym-
bolic devices are also employed. The presentation of the plainchant is delayed until the end of
the movement, and the instrumental music is not directly linked to the sung themes. Instead,
the movement evokes the Crucifixus of Bach’s B Minor Mass, similarly structured as a stately
passacaglia. The movement plays out as a canon, on a dissonant 12-tone theme, played 12
times, like the theme in Bach’s Crucifixus. A feeling of expansion is achieved, both through the
gradual increase in voices and the broadening shape of the theme itself. The climax is a clear
cross representation, Figs. 14–16. The sung Crucifixus plainchant follows, the flutes doubling
the choral parts in unison, over a bass drum heartbeat and sustained symmetrical chord in
the organ.
The Et Resurrexit concludes the fourth movement, although the sketches suggest it was origin-
ally intended to stand alone (SCHN_COLL_060). Stretto imitation between the voices evokes
a church acoustic – perhaps of the St Florian Basilica. The celebratory atmosphere of the choral
music is then taken over by the orchestra in a short passage of fanfares, thematically derived from
the plainchant, but closer in mood to the optimistic brass calls of the Gloria.
Allusions to Bach continue in movement V, the only unnamed movement, although titled
‘Sanctus-Benedictus’ in the sketches (SCHN_COLL_180). After an extended a cappella choral
introduction, the orchestra takes over with an expressive oboe d’amore solo (see Example 5.4).
The instrument suggests a link to Bach and his woodwind obbligatos. The opening interval
pattern, a rising minor sixth followed by a falling minor second, evokes ‘Ebarme dich’ from
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Example 5.4 Symphony No. 2, movement V, orchestral opening (oboe d’amore and bass guitar only)
Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. This overlaps with the B–A–C–H monogram, here rendered as D,
C♯, E, D♯. This describes a cross and is accompanied in the bass guitar by a longer six-note cross
device. The movement has a ternary structure: Fig. 8, development; Fig. 21, reprise.
Schnittke’s experiment in combining the genres of Mass and symphony meets its most sig-
nificant challenge in the final movement, Agnus Dei. The two forms require different kinds
of closure, architectonic for the symphony, ritualistic for the Mass. His solution is to combine
reminiscences from previous movements towards a central climax, before returning to the plain-
chant as a final, cyclical act of closure.
The reminiscences are subtle, suggestions of contours and shapes. The main theme of the
movement (see Example 5.5) combines the harmonic series and wholetone scale and recalls the-
matic elements of the second, fourth and fifth movements. Beneath, the steady crotchet accom-
paniment figures link to the fourth movement. At Fig. 5, repeated chords in the harpsichord
recall the first movement, and, at the very end, the bright C major harmony in the organ suggests
the Gloria.
Schnittke makes the references subtle in order to prevent motivic recapitulation – the sym-
phonic closure – overpowering the spiritual closure of the Mass. A sense of quiet optimism is
projected through the rising melodic lines, and a feeling of natural order is invoked through the
use of overtones. The closing C major seems to be distilled from the preceding harmonic series
and wholetone music, although the harmony never fully resolves, instead coming to a point of
stasis where major and minor, and the continuing overtones, peacefully coexist.
Symphony No. 3
Schnittke’s Symphony No. 3 was commissioned for the opening of the new Gewandhaus con-
cert hall in Leipzig in 1981. But Schnittke’s first ideas for the piece went back further: ‘After the
premiere of my First Symphony [1974] I wanted to immediately begin a second, beginning at
the point where the First ends …’ (Köchel 1994, 87). Schnittke began work on the symphony in
1976. Like the First, the Symphony No. 3 is in the Classical four-movement form, and Schnittke
commented: ‘the First and Third Symphonies are “German” principally because they fulfil the
traditional four-movement scheme … The form could be considered conventional, and the
material is realised through the question of form’ (Ivashkin 2003, 54).
The German subject of the Symphony No. 3 becomes explicit through stylistic allusions and
monograms spelling out the names of key composers, both regularly appearing in chronological
sequences. Schnittke wrote: ‘Since the symphony was destined for the Leipzig orchestra, I wanted
Example 5.5 Symphony No. 2, movement VI, Agnus Dei, Fig. 1 (flute I only)
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Example 5.6 Symphony No. 3, movement I, opening theme
to give them something symbolic of German (or Austro-German) music. In the work you can
hear many reminders of the music of Wagner, Mahler, Bach and many others. It has stylisations
and pseudo-quotations, although there are no exact quotations. I made a conscious effort to make
these stylisations the basis of the thematic unity with a common intonational idea’ (Kholopova
& Chigareva 1990, 170).
Schnittke opens the work with a kind of creation myth, of German culture developing from
the natural world. He represents nature through the harmonic series: ‘I wanted to try out the
acoustic and electro-acoustic possibilities of the new hall. I was thinking of working with over-
tone music, employing the overtone spectrum, where, in the higher harmonics, sound groups
occur which then dissolve through the force of the fundamental tone, and then pass through
acoustic modulation. The plan was utopian …’ (Köchel 1994, 87).
The opening plays out as a pastiche of Wagner’s Das Rheingold Prelude, but where Wagner
limits his ‘natural’ harmonies to the arpeggio of E♭ major, Schnittke weaves his gradually
ascending textures from a theme based on the harmonic series of C, up to the 16th partial (see
Example 5.6).
The idea of culture growing out of nature is achieved through the first monograms appearing
within the overtones.The very first,‘Erde’ (flute, Fig. 5), is represented by the notes E, D, E, which
also correspond to the 20th and 18th overtones of C. The monograms that follow bring the
work’s subject into focus, ‘Deutschland’ (oboe, Fig. 6) and ‘Bach’ (piccolo, Fig. 9).
This begins a chronological sequence of composer monograms, with Handel (Fig. 10,
bassoons) and Haydn (Fig. 11, marimba) following. Each monogram shares significant pitches
with the overtone theme or the monogram that precedes it. Sketches for the symphony show that
Schnittke originally considered a wider variety of names (Medić 2013, 167), other composers,
including himself, as well as writers: Kafka, Thomas Mann and Schnittke’s own grandmother
Thea, who was an editor of German-language books at the Moscow publishing firm Progress
(SCHN_COLL_480, 497, 498).
The movement is structured as three waves of sound – another nature analogy – each begin-
ning with the overtone theme, and with monograms at the peak.The three waves of monograms
correspond to the Baroque/Classical, Romantic and 20th-century eras respectively, first Handel
to Mozart, second Beethoven to Johann Strauss, third Mahler to Kagel. In the third wave (Figs.
30–46), electric guitars, marimba and vibraphone give the music an appropriately 20th-century
colour. In the coda (Fig. 47), the overtone theme is inverted and set in the minor. The upward
rising wave texture is also reversed, with the music now gradually subsiding, coming to rest on a
pianissimo A at the very bottom of the orchestra.
The second movement is the most stylistically diverse, with allusions ranging from Baroque to
Modernist. Many of the allusions are so close as to reference individual works.The opening, with
its Mannheim rocket, clearly evokes Mozart, echoing his Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K 414
(Peterson 2000, 109). It opens in D major but immediately cycles through the circle of fifths, and
no tonal centre is established.
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Orchestral works
Example 5.7 Symphony No. 3, movement II, Fig. 16 (harpsichord only)
The movement is in a clear sonata form, although, as Schnittke acknowledged: ‘It is as if the
first and second subjects are reversed’ (Ivashkin 2003, 53). That reversal is apparent in the larger
scale of the second subject, from Fig. 12, the overtone theme from the first movement.
Most of the stylistic allusions are derived from the main melodic material. The second subject
and the development (Fig. 16) both present allusions in historical order. In the second subject,
the overtone theme is manipulated through evermore sophisticated Romantic-era harmonies.
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 is suggested at Fig. 12, Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 at Fig. 13, bar 5, and
Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra at Fig. 14, bar 15 (Tiba 2004, 75).
In the development, the composers’ monograms are integrated into stylistic allusions to their
music. Schnittke gives the listener a strong clue, combining an allusion to the First Prelude of
Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier with the B–A–C–H monogram (see Example 5.7). As with the
Mozart theme, this continually moves from key to key, but now an extra layer of reference is
suggested, with the 21 tonalities that the theme visits approaching the 24 of Bach’s set.
From here, the development section surveys the Austro-German musical tradition from
Bach to Stockhausen. The allusions include a Haydn minuet (Fig. 17), a Bruckner brass chorale
(Fig. 17, bar 4) and a Stockhausen piano refrain (Fig. 29).
The recapitulation reprises the main themes but with the textures ‘diagonalised’ and saturated
with dense harmonies. Schnittke continues to overlay historical allusions. Schubert’s monogram,
attached to a waltz, is heard in the piccolo at Fig. 42 and another waltz, now suggesting fin de
siècle Vienna, cuts across the 4/4 time in the violins at Fig. 43, bar 4. The textural descent after
the climax resembles Mahler, for example his Symphony No. 9, movement I, bars 196–203 (see
also Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5, movement III, Figs. 3 and 4). The coda, from Fig. 56,
combines the two themes; Mozart on the piano and the overtone theme in the strings. But it is
a quiet reminiscence, a gesture typically evocative of belatedness in this history-obsessed work.
Schnittke’s portrait of German culture takes a dark turn in the third movement, a musical
representation of evil. The third movement is modelled on the second, but its negative
connotations quickly become apparent in the rapid accumulation of dissonant harmony and
the continual deterioration of thematic identity. The movement is based on a single theme (see
Example 5.8), resembling the Overtone theme, but with the consonant harmonies distorted and
now prominently featuring two ‘diabolus in musica’ tritones. The theme also represents a mono-
gram, ‘das Böse’, German for evil.
Stylistic allusions are heard throughout, again in chronological order. The historical trajec-
tory begins at Fig. 2 with an allusion to medieval organum. This is followed by hocket (Fig. 6),
Example 5.8 Symphony No. 3, movement III, opening theme (tuba)
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fauxbourdon (7–8), a Lutheran chorale (9–10), a military march (12), Bach (17), Mozart (18),
Beethoven (19), Wagner (20), jazz (21), Hindemith and Weill (22), Mahler (24) and the avant-
garde (27) (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 177). Textures gradually accrue as the entry of each
new idea is layered above the already present material.
Schnittke was fascinated by the concept of evil. He understood evil to encompass all the
external forces that might threaten the freedom and integrity of an individual. In music, only a
partial representation of these destructive forces is possible:
Depicting negative emotions – using broken textures, broken melodic lines to express
a state of disintegration, tension, leaping thoughts – all this is of course a representa-
tion of a certain kind of evil, but not of absolute evil. This is the evil of broken good.
Perhaps a soul torn to pieces is also good. But it has been torn to pieces, and this has
made it turn bad. Expressing hysteria, agitation, spite, is to express the symptoms of a
disease, not its cause.
(Schnittke 2002, 22–23)
Schnittke’s solution is to base the movement on the ‘das Böse’ theme, a symbolic representation
of absolute evil, and then to apply destructive forces to the identity of that theme.
When considering the representation of evil in music, Schnittke evokes Liszt:
The question might be asked, Why don’t I depict good instead of evil? The fact is that
to express good directly and plainly in music is the most difficult of tasks, sometimes
simply impossible. Remember Liszt’s Faust Symphony [(1854–1861)]. What is the least
interesting part of it? The ‘heavenly’ finale – it is sanctimonious and dogmatic. But
maybe Liszt is a special case, a composer with leanings toward Satanism in music and
the man who actually brought Satanism into music.
Schnittke expresses a particularly Russian view of Liszt, weighed towards his influence on the
emerging Russian nationalist school in the 1860s (Sabaneev 1936, 689–92). But Liszt’s tech-
nique of thematic transformation is also significant here, especially as employed in the Faust
Symphony. Liszt’s third movement, ‘Mephistopheles’, has no original themes, but instead is based
on distortions of the Faust themes from the first movement.
Schnittke employs this idea, and also the progressive nature of Liszt’s thematic transform-
ation, with each new version derived from the last. He combines this progression with a cyclical
form. The sketches show the movement planned as an arch, the second half retracing the first
in retrograde (Medić 2013, 193).4 However, the progressive outweighs the cyclical, through the
accretion of the textures, and also the heavy disguise of the transformed versions of the theme at
their second appearance. The climax, Fig. 37, presents all 15 transformations of theme simultan-
eously, which distil into the B–A–C–H motif, a modest act of salvation, avoiding the sanctimony
of Liszt’s grander finale.
The final Adagio returns to a late Romantic sound world, invoking Mahler and Berg for a
more nostalgic view of German musical history. Monograms continue chronologically from the
preceding B–A–C–H: Handel (violins, Fig. 2), Haydn (violins II, 2 after Fig. 3), Mozart (violins
II, three bars after Fig. 3), Beethoven (violins I, Fig. 4), up to Zimmermann (flute I, Fig. 19).5
The textures up to the climax at Fig. 27 are based on three strands, each moving around the
orchestral sections: the monogram-based melodic lines; a crotchet pulse accompaniment; and tonal
chords, which appear in every bar. The music has clear affiliations to Alban Berg. Rhythmically
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free melodies accompanied by regular crotchets invoke the Violin Concerto, particularly at Fig. 5,
where the solo violin describes a broad, arching arpeggio similar to the concerto’s opening.
The monograms gradually grow into 12-note series, the notes of the monogram forming
the opening pitch classes of each. The first monogram to be elaborated into a 12-note series is
Beethoven (Fig. 4), and the first strict 12-note sequence is the violin arpeggio motif at Fig. 5.
The extension of the monograms into 12-note rows is symbolic rather than serial, a signifier of
wholeness or completion.
The climax, at Fig. 27, is based on similarly symbolic representations of completeness, around
the number 12. All the monogram-based 12-note rows are heard simultaneously: 46 melodic
lines (12x4) across 60 (12x5) separate parts.Twelve different pulses are employed, from the quaver
up to the double-dotted crotchet.These are prepared in the preceding passage, from one bar after
Fig. 25, where 12 separate percussion and keyboard parts introduce each in turn. The keyboards
play every diatonic triad (12x2) in root position, and the climax lasts 12 bars.
The long coda invokes closure through already familiar devices of reminiscence, initially of
the B–A–C–H motif at Fig. 28. Themes from the second movement, the brass chorale (now
also evocative of Berg’s Es ist Genug quotation) and the Mozart theme, lead to a return of
the monograms that opened the first. From Fig. 35, the chorale gradually transforms into the
Deutschland monogram, and is followed by the first movement coda theme, Fig. 39.
The last gesture is a flute solo, the opening Overtone theme, moving through the B–A–C–H
monogram and finally coming to rest on a high C♯, dissonant to the C pedal beneath. This ges-
ture is similar to the close of the Berg Violin Concerto, hinting at, but not fully achieving, cadential
closure. A mood of nostalgia pervades the finale, creating a sense of belatedness in its homage
to the German symphonic tradition. But with this small and paradoxically open-ended closing
gesture, Schnittke implies that the end has not yet come: the tradition continues, and Schnittke’s
Symphony No. 3 itself is just its latest manifestation.
Symphony No. 4
The Symphony No. 4 was composed in 1983 in response to a commission from Ensemble 2e2m in
Champigny-sur-Marne, France, their conductor Paul Méfano and the French publishing house
Chant du Monde.The symphony alludes to a variety of Christian and Jewish liturgical traditions,
represented through themes and modes, which are combined to represent ‘The idea of the uni-
versality of culture and its unity’ (Schnittke 2002, 47). Like the Symphony No. 2, the Symphony
No. 4 has a ritualistic atmosphere, although here the ritual is more abstract. Schnittke’s approach
may have been informed by Rodion Shchedrin’s Musical Offering, premiered earlier in 1983.
Shchedrin’s work, two-hours in duration, dispenses with developmental procedures in favour of
extended contemplations on its single theme. Schnittke wrote:
Shchedrin … has found the means for huge emotional growth. The composer inten-
tionally breaks the habitual representation of dynamic and proportional anticlimaxes
and peaks, immersing us for a long time in a single state … it is difficult to listen to, but
it makes you think. I will remember it forever.
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 204–205)
The Symphony No. 4 follows this approach in its uninterrupted 40-minute span. It is organised
through a combination of several structuring principles, and Schnittke described the work as a
‘calculated’ composition (Ivashkin 2003, 51), a quality apparent in his sophisticated approach to
thematicism, modality and form.
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The symphony follows the prayer sequence of the Catholic Rosary tradition. The cycle
consists of 15 prayers in three sets of five. Each prayer is a recitation of a decade of Hail Marys,
while contemplating an event (a mystery) in the life of the Virgin Mary.The decades are counted
with a chaplet of beads. The chaplet consists of 50 beads divided into 10s by four large beads: in
one sitting, only one third of the cycle is recited (i.e., five mysteries). These three groups of five
are ‘the joyful mysteries’, ‘the sorrowful mysteries’ and ‘the glorious mysteries’. Figure 5.1 shows
the prayers as they were recited from memory by Schnittke to Alexander Ivashkin (Ivashkin
2003, 62–63) with a suggestion of how these prayers correspond to the sections of the symphony.
Two structural levels are implied by the Rosary model: 15 sections grouped into three larger
sections (see Figure 5.1). The three-part form is articulated by vocal soloists, who sing at the
start of the second and third. The Rosary also suggests palindrome (Tomina 2001, 154–55): on
the chaplet, the first bead is connected to the last. This is represented in the symphony by the
opening three chords reappearing at the end (Example 5.9). Also, in the second half of the work,
ideas from the first half reappear in reverse order, connecting Figs. A6 and 121, B and T, C and R,
D and Q, G and P, I and 84, J and O, and K and M.
The symphony’s themes relate to three Christian traditions: ‘Orthodox processional singing,
Lutheran chorales, and triumphal hymns recalling Gregorian chant’ (Schnittke 2002, 47), as well
as to synagogue singing. The four themes appear together at the end of the symphony (at Fig.V)
in D major and are constructed in part to facilitate this counterpoint. The themes are shown in
Figure 5.2. They are mainly distinguished by their rhythmic identities, although the Protestant
theme (Theme C) includes a circulatio cross motif (see Chapter 1, Representations of the Cross).
The themes articulate a three-part structure (see Figure 5.1), with the three sections based on
themes A, C, D respectively, and all four heard together at the end. In three sections – Figs. B, D
and T – the keyboards (piano, harpsichord and celesta) perform a separate theme to the rest of
the orchestra, a sign of their independence. The group invokes the Holy Trinity.
Modes are also derived from the four liturgical traditions. Schnittke employs modes that repeat
at the perfect fourth or minor seventh. These intervals substitute the octave as the unit of modal
equivalence, resulting in a ‘distorted intonational space’ (iskrivlennom intonatsionnom prostranstve)
(Ivashkin 2003, 64).The idea drew on Juri Butsko’s chant-based Polyphonic Concerto (1969), where
a tetrachordal mode (based on a repeating fourths pattern) is employed (Butsko 1992, 192–94).
The scale in its chant form has a range of a 12th (G3 to D5), as it only needs to cover the range
of the human voice. When Butsko extends the scale outwards, the repeating fourths continue, so
avoiding octave equivalence. The Polyphonic Concerto informs several other aspects of Schnittke’s
symphony. Both works feature a concertante keyboard group, and both include a chorus.
Schnittke describes his Catholic and Orthodox modes as major and minor versions of
the same tetrachordal scale. This distinction is largely ignored in the work, and so the modes
are treated here as equivalent: Mode 1. This is the mode from Butsko’s concerto. This and
Schnittke’s other modes are shown in Figure 5.3. In the following discussion, the modes
will be referred to by number rather than name thus: Catholic/Orthodox mode – Mode 1;
Synagogue mode – Mode 2; Lutheran mode – Mode 3. There is a close relationship between
the interval structures of the three modes. The interval pattern of Mode 3 is a summation of the
other two. The Mode 1 intervals, tone-tone-semitone, and the Mode 2 intervals, minor third-
semitone-semitone, are combined and alternate to create the interval pattern of Mode 3: minor
third-semitone-tone-semitone-tone-semitone.
Figure 5.1 shows where each of the modes are used in the symphony. The modes articulate
the three-part structure, although less clearly than do the themes. In the first section Theme
A is heard in its own mode (Mode 1), but later themes mainly appear in other modes. Levon
Hakobian writes that ‘the deliberately false harmonization of recognizable melodic patterns in
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Figure 5.1 Structure of Symphony No. 4 – Rosary, Themes and Modes (Continued)
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these episodes is intended, obviously, to symbolize the element of inadequacy and imperfection
in the respective “partial” approaches to faith and religion’ (Hakobian 1998, 283).
The symphony opens with bells, a gesture evocative of ritual and liturgy, also presenting the
modes as the opening three chords (see Example 5.9). The first part, the Joyful Mysteries, is a
series of variations, with the theme passing from the strings to the woodwinds (2 after Fig. C), to
the keyboards (Fig. D), all accompanied by tolling bell tones from the tuned percussion. Stretto
canon in the keyboards is reminiscent of medieval polyphony (an association that is strengthened
at Fig. E through mensural canon).
The Joyful Mysteries end at Fig. G with an extended piano solo. Schnittke’s first conception of
the work was as a chamber symphony with solo piano, which may be the source of this passage
(Schnittke 2002, 47). The middle part, the Sorrowful Mysteries, is introduced by the tenor at
Figure 5.2 Symphony No. 4, themes

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Figure 5.3 Symphony No. 4, modes
Fig. H, singing the Synagogue theme. In the Rosary cycle, this section deals with the Passion
story, and tensions are evoked through the Lutheran theme (C) repeatedly heard in the Synagogue
mode (2). Continuous dissonance arises from the simultaneous presentation of the three modes
in the keyboards at Fig. I and respectively in the woodwind, brass and strings at Fig. L. The third
part, the Glorious Mysteries, is again introduced by a piano solo, Fig. P, and a vocal solo, the alto
at Fig. 89. This part has a feeling of resolution and recapitulation, with the Catholic theme (A)
heard in its own mode (1), Fig. Q. But the following music is modally complex, with a fugue in
the Synagogue mode (3) introducing the climax, Fig. U, a final gesture of modal elaboration, in
which the Synagogue theme (B) is played in all three modes simultaneously.
That modal and harmonic density is established to contrast the coda, from Fig.V, which is in a
radiant D major. This final, simultaneous, presentation of the four themes functions as a deferred
exposition (see Chapter 1: Coda as exposition). Schnittke indicates that a choir can be used here, or
just four soloists (he also endorsed chamber orchestra performance, with one-to-a-part strings).
Schnittke said that the passage should be sung to the words of the Ave Maria, in either Latin or
Russian. However, at the work’s first performance, in Moscow in 1984, such explicit references
were still deemed too sensitive, so then and on the first recording (Rozhdestvensky 1986) the
choir sang in vocalise. When Valery Polyansky later performed and recorded the symphony in St
Petersburg, Schnittke wrote in the words for the vocal part in the conductor’s score, ‘Bogoroditse
Devo, raduisia’ (Virgin Mary, rejoice) (Polyansky 2003, 257). It is a ceremonious close corresponding
to the final prayer of the Rosary cycle, ‘The Crowning of the Virgin Mary in Celestial Glory’.
Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5

The Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5 was written in 1988 in response to a commission from
the Royal Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra to celebrate its 100th anniversary. The unusual
title signals a complex approach to genre, opening as a concerto grosso before developing into
the symphony proper.7 The result is a symphony in the process of becoming, starting in an earlier
timeframe – the Baroque – and gradually asserting its symphonic status, as the style moves into
a late-Romantic aesthetic.
The genres of concerto grosso and symphony also relate to specific homages, to Bach and
Mahler. But the relations are different: Schnittke demonstrates affinity with Mahler, but distanced
veneration for Bach. So the concerto grosso first movement is Neoclassical and clearly distinct
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Example 5.9 Symphony No. 4, opening
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from its Baroque model, while the symphony is more closely aligned to its Romantic roots,
updated but without stylistic confrontation.
Concerto Grosso No. 4

The concerto grosso first movement is a short brisk toccata for concertante violin, oboe and
harpsichord. The B-A-C-H monogram appears in the solo violin line at Fig. 10 (although
interpolated, with three bars separating the B-A from the C-H), and the monogram is also heard
as the final chord of the second and fourth movements. But Schnittke avoids direct pastiche of
Bach, as demonstrated by the use of full modern orchestra to accompany the soloists. He also uses
Neoclassical distancing devices inherited from Stravinsky. The opening phrase resembles that of
Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto. Both employ two trumpets playing a theme in close harmony. Like
Stravinsky, Schnittke elevates the woodwind and brass over the usually dominant strings: the
standard model of a string melody punctuated by wind chords is reversed. The asymmetric time
signatures are another Stravinsky speciality, in Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto, a 5/8 bar occurs at bar
14, in Schnittke’s movement a 7/8 first appears in bar 3. The addition of octaves to the melodic
intervals, first heard in the solo oboe at Fig. 12, is another Stravinskian device: Schnittke identi-
fies an example in the ‘Pas des Furies’ movement from scene 2 of Stravinsky’s Orpheus (Schnittke
2002, 179). The movement’s structure is based on four themes, the second and third in the oboe
at Figs. 7 and 8, the fourth, the B-A-C-H theme, in the solo violin at Fig. 10. A rondo form is
suggested, but ultimately the structure becomes a clear ternary form with the reassertion of the
opening theme from Fig. 14.
Symphony No. 5
Schnittke’s starting point for composing the Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5 was his work
on a short fragment for piano quartet written by the 16-year-old Mahler in 1876. Schnittke wrote
his Piano Quartet based on this fragment, ‘Sketch for the second movement of a Piano Quartet
by G. Mahler’ (see Chapter 6). Then he orchestrated this to become the symphony’s second
movement. In the third and fourth movements, Schnittke invokes late Mahler, which he also hears
in this youthful fragment: ‘The Mahler of the 10th Symphony seems to be shining through here’
(Köchel 1994, 122). The movement is a faithful orchestration of Schnittke’s quartet, with only
a few additional bass lines and accompanying figures. But a new dimension is added at the end,
where the full orchestra gives way to just four players, who perform the Mahler fragment in its
original guise, evoking the sense of distant memory that Schnittke associated with the fragment.
The third movement is a large-scale sonata-allegro, a belated first movement to the sym-
phony proper. The relationship with Mahler’s music now changes from a dialogue in the second
movement to a closer aesthetic alignment in the third and fourth. As in many Mahler symphonies,
the interplay between the two main themes is interrupted several times by the appearance of
a transcendent chorale. The three themes, with their background chromatic lines, are shown
in Example 5.10. The first and second subject themes are based on descending lines, while the
background line of the chorale ascends. A circulatio turn motif links the four movements, as the
opening five notes of both the first movement and the accompaniment to the Mahler fragment
in the second. In the third and fourth movements, the second half of the turn is shifted by a
semitone, as in the opening of the chorale theme (see Example 5.10), so that it no longer revolves
around a single pitch, nor suggests a major tonality.
The drama of the third movement is on a scale comparable to Mahler, and many ideas are
borrowed directly.At Fig. 4, an early climax is interrupted by a chromatic descent through the string
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Example 5.10 Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5, movement III, themes with descending/ascending
background lines
section, as at the end of the first movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Isolated events often appear
from a background of low pedals, as in the first movement of Mahler’s Third. We also hear Mahler
channelled through Shostakovich: the chorale at Fig. 7, in ominous piano quartertone trills in the
strings, resembles a similar effect in the second movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, while
the parallel tritone movement, used extensively in the development section, has a precedent in the
first movement of Shostakovich Symphony No. 8 (Savenko 1990, 138, 141).
As often in Mahler’s work, particularly the Symphony No. 9, there is a sense of organic decay,
eroding the sonata form. Typically for Schnittke, the main themes begin with strong opening
gestures but then subside into less distinct textural patterns: the music’s identity is transient. That
sense of decay becomes suggestive of ageing or forgetting. When the themes reappear in the
recapitulation, their identity is further reduced. The first subject theme (Fig. 50) is inverted and
harmonised with diminished sevenths rather than tonal triads. In the second subject (Fig. 56),
octaves are added to the constituent intervals, and the rhythm is more erratic.
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Ultimately, however, a positive message is suggested through the reappearance of the chorale.
While the two main themes are progressively compromised, the successive appearances of the
chorale move in the opposite direction. At Fig. 7, it is subdued, with a sense of uncertainly
implied by quartertone trills. At Fig. 35 it is more resolute, its tonal harmonies and D pedal
suggesting stability after a series of passages based on stacked tritones. In its last appearance, at
Fig. 60, it takes on an ethereal quality, suggesting a transcendent coda.
The final movement is a sombre and brief epilogue. Schnittke again uses Mahler as his model,
and we hear several references to Mahler’s music: the funereal march at Fig. 2 and the tuba dirge
at Fig. 5 recall the first and last movements of the Symphony No. 6. At seven bars after Fig. 5, the
trombone counterpoint evokes the tenor tuba solo that opens Mahler’s Seventh.
The fourth movement continues the dramaturgy and thematicism of the third. This too links
with Mahler, and the ‘spilling out’ of themes from one movement to the next has a clear model
in the first two movements of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. Schnittke takes the third movement’s
second subject as the basis for the fourth, further eroding its identity to continue the process of
ageing and decay.
The movement is monothematic, with each occurrence of the theme a step further removed
from the original. At Fig. 2 (horns, this version also appears at Figs. 4 and 5) the intervals of the
theme are reduced to semitones, but from then on the constituent intervals expand to wholetones
at Fig. 9 (violas), and to thirds, fifths and sevenths at Fig. 10. Adorno identifies a similar quality
in Mahler’s music, a thematicism where the shape of the theme determines its identity but the
consistent intervals can be variable. He writes: ‘The general outlines of Mahler’s themes always
remain intact. They are Gestalten, as the term is used in psychological theory for the primacy of
the whole over the parts. Within this explicit yet vague identity, however, the concrete musical
content, above all the sequence of the intervals, is not fixed’ (Adorno 1992, 87).
The work’s closing gestures are all linked with Bach. The B-A-C-H monogram appears in
bar 4 of the main theme, although interpolated with a G♯. At Fig. 8, the first movement theme
appears in the harpsichord, presented as a distant memory. Finally, B-A-C-H is heard as the very
final chord, the music fading into silence over ominous march rhythms from the timpani and bass
drum. The ending feels premature, both for the ambiguity of the closing phrases and the brevity
of the final movement. Processes of forgetting have cut the work short, with the dissolution of
the thematic identity bringing it to a premature conclusion. The listener is encouraged to think
that the symphony should be continuing, but that continuation has been proved impossible.
Symphony No. 6
The Symphony No. 6 is dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich and the National Symphony Orchestra
(Washington, D.C.), who premiered it at the Moscow Conservatory while on tour in September
1993. Following the performance, Schnittke made significant revisions, mostly cuts, and the
revised version was first performed, by the same forces, in New York in February 1994. One New
York critic, Peter G. Davis, wrote of the work ‘When the last notes evaporated I had the queasy
feeling of having heard a Mahler symphony with most of its flesh torn away, leaving a gruesome
skeleton dangling forlornly in a black space’ (Davis 1994, 125). This was an apt description for
music which continually references late-Romantic symphonic discourse, but which has very few
notes, mostly performed by small groups of players and often interspersed with long silences.The
Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5 is similarly Mahlerian, but in 1990, Schnittke had suffered
a second stroke which had a significant bearing on the music that followed. The Symphony No.
6 is particularly experimental for the conception of musical time that it explores, which comes
into clearer focus in the Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8.
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The structure of the work is traditional, a large-scale sonata-allegro (first subject Fig. 1, second
subject 14, development 27, recapitulation 36, second subject 38, coda 42), a fast scherzo, a lyr-
ical Adagio, and a culminating finale. But the relationship between form and content is tenuous.
As Peter J. Schmelz points out, ‘the form [of the first movement] is aurally elusive, lacking the
normal identifiable signposts associated with sonata processes’. (Schmelz 2021, 312–13; Schmelz
tentatively locates the start of the first movement recapitulation around Figs. 40–42). Themes
are not conceived in a way that makes their relationships structurally functional, and the music
instead explores its ‘material dimension’ (Chigareva 2012, 190). Themes are imbued with sym-
bolic significance, which the music emphasises through a greater emphasis on the present, much
like Stockhausen’s moment form. And just as in Stockhausen, this is achieved using very brief
motifs, often separated by silences: a play of ‘quasi-aphoristic forms’ (Tiba 2004, 95).
Stylistic allusions remain central but are always brief and ambiguous. In the first movement,
at Fig. 13, we hear a ‘lament’ motif resembling the opening of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6,
while the trombone motif that follows suggests the chorale from Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 – the
descending semitone, followed by a rising minor sixth (see Example 5.11). Significantly, these
are both the final works of their respective composers, and both are obsessed with death. That
death obsession continues in the later movements. At Fig. 7 in the scherzo second movement, the
trumpet motif recalls Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15. Then in the third, there is a passing refer-
ence to Tristan und Isolde at Fig. 14.
The sparse textures – despite the larger orchestra there are very few tuttis – mean that har-
monies are constrained and made up of just a few notes in close position. So when 12-note
clusters appear, they stand out, all the more so for the non-serial context. A symbolic signifi-
cance for the 12-tone themes is suggested by them always appearing at structurally significant
moments. In the first movement, Schnittke introduces several sections of the sonata form with a
12-note cluster, the exposition 2 before Fig. 1, the development 5 before Fig. 27, and the coda at
Fig. 42.The first movement also opens and closes with 12-note clusters, and the third movement
opens with a 12-tone theme.
The opening theme of the third movement also reveals another important symbolic element:
the circulatio motif – symbolic of the cross or of Bach (see Chapter 1, Representations of the Cross).
The B–A–C–H monogram appears but always transposed. Several features of the Symphony
No. 6 indicate that Schnittke is deliberately obscuring the music’s meaning and symbolism.
Allusions to death are apparent from several of the stylistic references cited above, but the idea is
made explicit with a brief statement of the Dies irae plainchant in the fourth trombone at Fig. 38
in the first movement (see Example 5.12). This statement could hardly be more opaque, hidden
both at the bottom of dense harmonies and in the structurally subordinate second subject of
the recapitulation. As Ivashkin writes: ‘The listener unwittingly senses, though cannot always
understand the latent symbolism of the music. One has to listen attentively, to penetrate the
musical material itself, in order gradually to become accustomed to this ascetically sparse tex-
ture, so strange on first hearing’ (Ivashkin 1996, 202). Schnittke deliberately frustrates traditional
modes of listening, bypassing conscious processes of understanding in order to encourage a more
emotive or spiritual response.
The brief motifs can be understood as representations of good and evil. Good appears through
the circulatio motif, the quasi-liturgical brass chorales and the regular upward-rising figures.
Descending motifs suggest evil, and this is even more pronounced in cases where a rising theme
is heard with, or followed by, its direct inversion. Other ideas with negative connotations include
the maniacal brass outbursts in the scherzo, and the many evocations of death: the Dies irae, the
lamento motif (a falling semitone) linked to Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, the ominous tam-tam
strokes (also referencing the same work) and even the 12-note clusters as symbols of completion
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Example 5.11 (a) Schnittke Symphony No. 6, movement I, Figs. 13–15; (b) Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6,
opening; (c) Mahler Symphony No. 10, movement I, Fig. 24 (trombones and tuba only)
Example 5.12 Symphony No. 6, movement I, from Fig. 38
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and finality. Iza Nemirovskaia (Nemirovskaia 2008, 51) reads the symphony as a drama, played out
by these ideas. Most themes are introduced in the first movement, and the music grows in waves,
cutting across the symphonic form and building towards the coda of the finale. Reminiscences
of earlier movements appear in the finale, for example the scurrying repeated-note figure at bar
74 evokes similar passages in movement I, Fig. 36 and movement III, Fig. 10.
But at Fig. 16, the music changes. A spiky motto in the horn, reminiscent of the staccato
figures in the first and second movements, transforms into a Beethovenian fate motif in the
trumpets. Meanwhile, a cluster in the strings opens out into a C major triad. From here, a spirit
of redemption is apparent, in the broadening of the textures, with sustained and crescendoing
harmonies in the strings, the appearance of bells in the closing bars and the final reappearance of
the circulatio motif at the end.
The changes made after the first performance suggest that silence also originally played a sig-
nificant part in the drama. These changes are listed in Figure 5.4.
The changes are almost all cuts.The only major cuts where music (rather than rests) is removed
are in the first movement, and the cuts at bars 352 and 354 reduce the development section by
Figure 5.4 Changes made to Symphony No. 6 after the first performance
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around a third. The cuts in the second, third and fourth movements are almost all of single silent
bars. The silent bars play a crucial role in the identity of the first movement, as they originally
would have had to the identity of the entire piece. Many of the cuts fundamentally change the
pace and character, especially of the Adagio movement, which becomes a single discursive line
when silent bars are removed from between its phrases.
Given the symphony’s emphasis on short motifs, the proliferation of silent bars in the original
version suggests a similarly symbolic role, with silence evocative of death or negation. By taking
most of the silences out of the later movements, Schnittke creates a more positive message, while
retaining them in the first movement leaves the texture dissipated, frustrating the progression of
the sonata structure. It was unusual for Schnittke to make such drastic changes after a first per-
formance, but the fact that he did so with the Symphony No. 6 is a further demonstration of the
work’s experimental nature.
Symphony No. 7
The Symphony No. 7 was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for performances under
Kurt Masur in 1994.The work marked the first collaboration between Schnittke and Masur since
the phenomenal success of the Symphony No. 3 in 1981. Although employing a restricted tonal
palette and sparse orchestration, the Symphony No. 7 continually looks back to the Third. As in the
Symphony No. 3, the Seventh references Germany and German symphonic music, but adds a layer
of nostalgia: where the Symphony No. 3 seeks to continue the traditions, the Seventh mourns them.
Unlike Symphony No. 6, Symphony No. 7 does not engage with the traditional architectonics
of symphonic form: It is the shortest of Schnittke’s symphonies, set in three movements, a short,
introductory Andante, a similarly brief Largo and a longer Allegro, combining elements of scherzo
and rondo finale. The symphony opens with a long violin solo (see Example 5.13), which
contains thematic ideas that recur throughout the work. The upward arpeggiated figure echoes
Schnittke’s gloss on Wagner’s Rhine theme in the Symphony No. 3. In bars 4 to 7, the upper line
is accompanied by open-string D crotchets, signifying ‘Deutschland’.
The first movement’s arch form also recalls the opening movement of Schnittke’s Symphony
No. 3. The music rises to Fig. 6, where a brief canon in the strings describes a cross through
the overlapping lines. From Fig. 7, the music descends, tracing the phrases of the first half in
reverse order.
Apart from one interjection each from the bass drum and tam-tam, the first movement is
written entirely for strings. The programme note for the premiere, by David White, states that
Schnittke had originally conceived the work for organ and strings, but moved to a standard
symphony orchestra because the Avery Fisher Hall (now David Geffen Hall), where the work
was to be performed, did not have a functioning organ at the time. That may explain the instru-
mentation of the first movement, and also the long pedal notes, perhaps originally intended for
the organ.
The second movement is based on the Deutschland monogram used in the Symphony No. 3:
D, C, E♭, C, B, A.9 The movement is in variation form, suggesting decay, first through historical
Example 5.13 Symphony No. 7, movement I, opening
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regression – the Romantic textures of the opening giving way to an earlier polyphonic tech-
nique, mensural canon at Fig. 3 – then through a process of disintegration, with the motivic
statements becoming increasingly isolated and, at Fig. 5, reduced to a timpani solo, a distant echo
of the original ideas.
The third movement opens as a dialogue between two different textures, the woodwind scale
figures and declamatory fanfares in the brass. It is not yet clear if this will become a scherzo or a
finale, although the movement soon turns in a completely different direction. At Fig. 8 a ‘rem-
iniscence’ chorale theme is introduced in the horns. It invokes a sense of nostalgia through its
uncomplicated minor tonality, the use of the horn (redolent of nostalgia or distance in Romantic
music) and the fact that the theme itself is derived from the violin solo at the start of the sym-
phony. From here on, the movement is repeatedly interpreted by similarly nostalgic or histor-
ically stylised episodes: a Baroque harpsichord phrase at Fig. 10; a Classical-era chord sequence
(Fig. 11), recalling a similar motif in the Symphony No. 3, movement II, Fig. 4.
As the movement progresses the themes reduce in identity, gradually becoming scale
progressions, interrupted by octave shifts added into the stepwise motion. Those shifts take on a
limited thematic identity, traceable back to the opening violin solo, where augmented octaves/
diminished ninths first appear at bar 18. Intimations of finality begin to appear. A percussion
interlude at bar 302 recalls the timpani solo at the end of the second movement. Then a 12-tone
theme is played by the first trumpet at bar 315, as in the finale of the Symphony No. 3, its presen-
tation of all 12 pitch classes a symbol of completion.
The work ends with the horn chorale, now transformed into a slow, funereal waltz. From Fig.
43, it is passed between three bass instruments: tuba, contrabassoon and solo double bass, the first
two accompanied by diatonic harmonies in waltz rhythm, the last with the same rhythm on tam-
tam and bass drum (see Example 5.14), much like the reduction to solo timpani at the end of the
second movement. The effect has a Mahlerian quality, recalling the double bass solo in the third
movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, or the tuba solos in the finales of the Symphonies Nos. 6
and 10 (Cooke version, where the bass drum also features).
Example 5.14 Symphony No. 7, movement III, ending, from Fig. 47
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Maria Kostakeva hears the ending as an example of a specific tragic character in Schnittke’s
late work: ‘The tragedy that has always been typical of Schnittke loses in his late works its dra-
matic character.The crying out of grief is subdued, the music is calm and relaxed.You feel a silent
wisdom, an inner peace and reconciliation with fate’ (Kostakeva 2005, 15).
But it remains a paradoxical resolution; spiritual and emotional closure is achieved by simply
suspending the symphonic discourse. As Evgeniia Chigareva observes, a tonal structure can be
perceived in the Symphony No. 7, of G major. The G tonality is felt in the opening violin solo,
and the emphatic D of the Deutschland monogram suggests the second movement has the dom-
inant D as its pitch centre. In the finale, the chorale/waltz theme is heard three times: in G minor
(the tonic minor) at Fig. 8, in A minor at Fig. 20 and, in these final statements, in D minor, the
dominant minor. So this tonality is left open, hanging on the dominant, ‘the Symphony ends, as
it were, with an ellipsis’ (Chigareva 2017, 191).
Symphony No. 8
The Eighth is the most substantial of Schnittke’s late symphonies. It was completed in January
1994, to a commission from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and its then Principal
Conductor, Gennady Rozhdestvensky. Schnittke’s health was in serious decline, and the work’s
sombre mood suggests the composer coming to terms with death. This subject is explored
through a highly expressive language, post-Romantic with clearly defined melodies supported
by tonal harmonies.There are also allusions to late-Romantic symphonists – particularly Mahler,
but Bruckner too – filtered through the abstraction and asceticism of the composer’s late style.
The five movements – slow–fast–slow–fast–slow – suggest an overarching sonata form, with
the second movement an exposition and the fourth a recapitulation (Ponomarev 2003, 69). But
traditional notions of symphonic progression always seem tangential to the spirit of the music,
which usually appears locked in stasis or decay, further emphasising the focus on death.
That stasis is most apparent in the first movement, a passacaglia on an eight-bar theme.
Schnittke described the movement as an ‘inverted passacaglia’ as the repeating line forms the
melody rather than the bass (Tiba 2004, 104). It begins on a distant-sounding solo horn – the first
of many references of Mahler’s similarly death-obsessed Ninth. The theme underpins the entire
movement: even in the section where the theme is absent, Figs. 18–22, its eight-bar phrase struc-
ture is maintained.This section already suggests decay, as the passacaglia is replaced with a simpler
line based on stacked fourths. The structure remains, but the identity is eroded.
The second movement has the character of a scherzo. Its opening theme derives from one
of the ostinato patterns near the end of the first movement (viola Fig. 21). The movement is
characterised by fractured and isolated arpeggio figures, one of which, in violins I at Fig. 2, derives
directly from the first movement passacaglia.There is a feeling of suppressed and frustrated anger,
finally spilling out in the repeated note cluster outburst 8 after Fig. 15, the first full tutti in the
work, reminiscent of the ending of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14.
The central third movement is marked Lento but is in the spirit of the Adagios of Bruckner and
Mahler, particularly of Bruckner’s Eighth and the finale of Mahler’s Ninth. Like them, Schnittke
here focuses on long, arching melodies in the strings supported by sustained chords (usually
narrow, quiet clusters, occasionally spelling out B–A–C–H, as at Fig. 7 and at 1 before Fig. 33).
The textures are sparse and the progression slow and ambiguous. But the focus on a single,
unchallenged melodic line evokes late Mahler, as does the interaction of two melodic lines in
close imitation. At Fig. 28, the trombones introduce a chorale evocative of Orthodox Znamenny
chant. The ending is a pianissimo full chromatic cluster in the cellos and basses, an unambiguous
but resigned symbol of completion.
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Example 5.15 Symphony No. 8, movement IV, from three bars after Fig. 12
Throughout the allegro fourth movement, we hear motifs from earlier movements but
reduced to ambiguous memories. A chorale at Fig. 1 recalls the opening passacaglia, but only
its rhythm, performed on repeated [0,1,6,7] chords. At Fig. 10, the violins play a theme related
to the opening of the second movement. Seven bars after 15, the timpani recalls a cello and
bass motif from movement II. Finally, at Fig. 22, there is a recollection of the rising theme
from movement II, Fig. 11. These recollections are insubstantial, melodies reduced to motifs.
Another symbol of memory and return occurs before Fig. 12, a palindrome (Tiba 2004, 107)10
(see Example 5.15).Yet even here, the music has changed – the sense of return is only apparent
in the textures and rhythms, and the point of reflection is an unassuming eight-note cluster in
the lower strings.
The short fifth movement, containing just a single musical gesture, is the defining feature
of the symphony. In a slow accretion, in Lento semibreves, a G mixolydian scale rises from the
lowest register of the strings to ultimately encompass the entire orchestra. The fifth movement is
closely connected with the fourth, which it follows attacca. The slow string ascent is also briefly
anticipated in the fourth movement, at Fig. 8. So the gesture is closely bound up with the pre-
ceding discourse, and its connotations of transcendence clearly linked with the evocations of
death throughout the work.
But despite its apparent open-endedness, there is a remarkable sense of finality. Alexander
Ivashkin calls it a ‘post-Romantic completion to Schnittke’s symphonic route’ (liner note to
BIS-CD-1767) and Chigareva ‘the coda to the whole of Schnittke’s work’ (Chigareva 2017,
191). That finality is reinforced by the suggestion of a perfect cadence, almost unprecedented in
Schnittke’s music, and in C major, the relative major of the A minor at the work’s opening. The
double basses hold a high G throughout the movement and at bar 23 are joined by the cellos on
a (dominant seventh) F. At bar 31, the cellos move to low C, and the double basses are instructed
to play their lowest possible note – E but also C for instruments with a low extension. This
takes place beneath a held cluster, diatonic in C major in the woodwinds and brass. The tran-
scendent effect here is largely textural, but a sense of finality and resolution is felt through these
implied harmonies.
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Symphony No. 9
The Symphony No. 9 was Schnittke’s last major work and came to be seen as his final testament.
But the work’s composition was protracted and severely hampered by Schnittke’s third stroke in
June 1994.The stroke paralysed the right side of his body, forcing him to write with his left hand,
which severely compromised the legibility of the score.Work on the symphony took three years,
up to 1997. Although the symphony received a performance in Schnittke’s lifetime, in Moscow
in 1998, the realisation, edited by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, proved highly controversial: When
Schnittke heard a recording, he threw the manuscript on the floor saying, ‘The Ninth Symphony
does not exist’ (Muraveva 2005). In the years after the composer’s death, a new more faithful
edition was prepared by Alexander Raskatov, although this too must be treated as an interpret-
ation, given the ambiguities of the manuscript.
Schnittke originally intended to write his Symphony No. 9 for the conductor Eri Klas
(Kholopova 2003, 235). A copy of an early sketch is held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive.
The page is titled ‘9. Symphony’ and the dedication to Eri Klas is given, but the music does not
bear any relation to the finished work. Schnittke writes at the top of the page ‘I–II–III–IV–
(V) …’, implying at least four movements. The rest of the page briefly elaborates a four-note
motif – a descending semitone, ascending tone, ascending semitone – also used in the Symphony
No. 6, harmonised with chords of stacked intervals and clusters. The sketch traces the course of a
movement, with rehearsal numbers up to 26.
The final manuscript is a different work, in three movements. Despite his illness, Schnittke
completed the work in full score, a manuscript of 56 A3 pages. Although passages are occasionally
crossed out, Schnittke appears to be recording an already well-conceived work. The most prob-
lematic ambiguities are of instrumentation, with woodwind solos particularly difficult to identify
as the names are often illegible. The position of note heads in relation to the stave lines is also
sometimes ambiguous, as are accidentals. The manuscript generally gives only note values and
pitches, with very few tempo or dynamic indications, and no accents or phrasing.
The motivations behind Rozhdestvensky’s editing are puzzling. He appears to remodel the
Symphony No. 9 in the mould of the Symphony No. 1, and to ignore the 25 years of stylistic devel-
opment between the two works. Rozhdestvensky’s version is relatively faithful to the manuscript
in the first movement, but it diverges significantly in the second and third.Where Schnittke marks
the second movement Moderato, Rozhdestvensky instead titles it ‘Scherzo’. Rozhdestvensky
maintains the 5/8 time signature, but otherwise the music is almost completely of his own inven-
tion. The third movement includes many ostentatious additions, including much unpitched per-
cussion and an unaccompanied organ solo. For the Moscow performance, Rozhdestvensky also
added a jazz saxophone solo, performed by Alexey Kozlov, a quasi-quotation from the Soviet-era
cartoon Nu, Pogodi (‘Well, Just You Wait!’) and a brass rendition of the Invasion Theme from
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 (Dubinets 2021).
Schnittke insisted that the Rozhdestvensky version should not be performed again, instructions
that Irina followed and that Rozhdestvensky himself reluctantly accepted. After Schnittke’s death,
Irina approached the composer Nikolai Korndorf to make a new version of the score. Korndorf
began work, but then he himself died, in 2001 at the age of 54. So Irina then approached the
composer Alexander Raskatov, who worked on the score from 2003 to 2006. His version was
premiered in Dresden in 2007. For the performance, Raskatov appended his own Nunc Dimittis,
as a memorial to Schnittke and an ‘imaginary epilogue’ to the symphony (Keuk 2007).
Raskatov adds more untuned percussion than the manuscript suggests, but otherwise, his
only additions are dynamic, tempo and phrasing indications. He is often forced to make creative
decisions about instrumentation, especially solo winds. He also has to decide on many pitches,
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where the position of noteheads is unclear. Raskatov occasionally gives an ossia where he is
undecided on an individual pitch:These increase as the piece goes on, demonstrating the increas-
ingly poor legibility of the manuscript. In Raskatov’s version, the tempo increases from one
movement to the next. This format follows Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 6, although it should
be considered editorial, as the Moderato indication of the first movement was added by Raskatov.
The symphony has been widely interpreted as an attempt to come to terms with death. Dennis
Russell Davies, who conducted the Dresden performance, described the work as ‘a testament by
someone who knows he’s dying’ (Smith 2007). The emotions are muted, and Ivashkin quotes
Schnittke describing the ‘even tension’ of the tonal fabric (liner note to BIS-CD-1727). Ivashkin
points out that a preponderance of tritone harmonies creates an evenness and stasis, which he
describes, quoting Pushkin, as ‘above the world of passions’ (unpublished talk, text at Ivashkin-
Schnittke Archive). Raskatov characterises the symphony through ideas of ‘disappearing’ and
‘dismissal’, and says that Schnittke’s single motivation, ‘the thought of saying goodbye’ leads to a
structure that is almost monothematic (Keuk 2007).
Schnittke’s approach is intuitive, with only tenuous thematic connections and nebulous relations
to architectonic forms. Nevertheless, the monothematicism that Raskatov describes is evident.
The main theme (clarinet I, bars 19–21, see Example 5.16(a)) consists of an ascent through
stacked fourths, followed by a stepwise, scalar descent. The descending element becomes the
most prominent feature, leading Helmut Peters to describe the work as a ‘lament with variations’
(Dresden premiere programme). But the intervallic structure of the motif is continually changing.
Example 5.16 Symphony No. 9 (a) movement I, bars 19–21, clarinet I; (b) movement I, bars 74–77,
trombone I; (c) movement II, bars 1–6, violins I; (d) movement III, bars 2–5, violins I
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In the first movement, the scalar line is usually made up of three- or four-note repeating cells,
carefully chosen to avoid specific modalities.
Several other features link the three movements. Each begins with a short but strident motif,
although in the first and second movements the opening motifs are not elaborated in the music
that follows. Mid-way through each movement, Schnittke introduces an accompanying repeating-
note triplet motif (movement I, bar 111; movement II, bar 102, movement III, bar 171).
The first page of music has dotted bar lines suggesting 4/4 as well as the 4/2 time signature.
This is the first act of caution on Raskatov’s part: from the manuscript, the barlines giving the
4/4 time signature are clearly a later addition. Raskatov also removes GP bars between bars 2
and 3 and bars 4 and 5, a revision similar to Schnittke’s own in his Symphony No. 6. The idea of a
statement in the strings followed by an answer in the winds recurs throughout the symphony, and
is first apparent in these opening exchanges between the string section and the clarinet and trom-
bone solos (the choice of trombone being the first of Raskatov’s many such decisions; the instru-
ment name is illegible in the manuscript). A marked contrast is felt between the tutti ascending
strings and the quiet wind solos that follow, and Raskatov describes the latter as a ‘voice from the
beyond’ (Dresden premiere programme).
The changes to the lamento theme through the movement are demonstrated in Example 5.16.
Although Schnittke clearly intends the music to be scalar without being modal, occasional modal
scales occur, such as the Dorian mode at bar 44. The wedge motion here, with the violins’ ascent
reflected in the cellos and basses, is another common feature to the language of the symphony,
the reflections occurring both simultaneously and in stretto, as in the clarinet at bar 185. The
movement is in a loose variations structure, with the section from bar 538 a reflective coda.
The second movement is marked Moderato by Schnittke and characterised by a 5/8 metre,
subdivided as 2+3. Despite the emphatic minor third descent at the start, the opening is soon
revealed to be a variant of the main theme (see Example 5.16(c)).The sound here is paradoxical, the
melodic lines emphasising the descending scalar element of the theme, but the registration, with the
solo flute, oboe and clarinet, each in its highest register, creates a sensation of ethereal weightlessness.
The music soon settles into a structure based on phrases of about 10 bars, a convenience
related to the size of the paper, with each phrase occupying one system of the manuscript. These
phrases often play out as pairs, with a string phrase answered by a tutti phrase in which the winds
predominate.
Schnittke made two abortive attempts at the opening of the third movement.The first is a pair
of divisi string chords in stacked fourths and fifths, separated by a GP rest.The second begins with
a moto perpetuo from a pair of unaccompanied flutes in hocket, before the strings take over the
semiquaver movement. Ultimately, he decided on a unison note from a pair of horns, to which
Raskatov adds a pause.
For this final movement, Schnittke inverts the arching lamento motif, and this new version
appears immediately at bar 2 (see Example 5.16(d): this inverted version is also anticipated in
the movement II, bars 329–36). A version of the original theme also appears at bar 19, but the
inverted version proves to be the main thematic material.
The character of the music here is again paradoxical, fast but also lamenting. Raskatov’s dynamic
and tempo markings add much to the profile and character. He articulates a sense of dissolution
through gradually reducing dynamics. But there are also many brief, interrupted climaxes, rising
scale figures at phrase ends, to which he adds hairpins to increase the emotive force.
The movement suggests a rondo form, based on the varied returns of the inverted lament
theme. These get progressively more convoluted, but appear at bars 79, 154, 201 (double basses)
and 365. Raskatov again highlights these returns by often slowing the music down beforehand
and then returning to tempo.
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The coda, from bar 427, also outlines the inverted lament motif. Raskatov marks the passage
Lento misterioso and all parts pianissimo. Given that the final passage is a succession of dissonant
tutti chords over low timpani, the music could equally be interpreted as a loud conclusion. But
Raskatov’s take seems appropriate, a final validation of his interpretation of the symphony as a
‘voice from the beyond’.
Concertos and concerti grossi
Introduction
Schnittke’s interest in the concerto genre began early, and his first large-sale works were a con-
certo for accordion and orchestra (now lost), and Poème for Piano and Orchestra, written at the
ages of 15 and 19 respectively. He also wrote two substantial concertos during his conservatory
years, his Violin Concerto No. 1 (1957, rev. 1962) and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1960). The
influence of Shostakovich is evident, particularly in Schnittke’s approach to the concerto genre.
He later said, ‘All my violin concertos, including the Fourth, were written under the influ-
ence of Shostakovich’s concertos, especially his First, which appeared in the same years as mine’
(Ivashkin 2003, 73). Shostakovich’s First had been written in 1947–1948 but suppressed until
1955. Schnittke’s First appeared two years later.
One important inheritance from Shostakovich is the idea of the individual struggling against
the collective. Neither composer is explicitly political in this respect, Schnittke even less so
than Shostakovich. Even so, for those who experienced this music in its Soviet context, the
tensions remain clearly articulated in the music. Ivashkin writes, ‘The intonational world of
Shostakovich’s and Schnittke’s concerti is indissolubly connected with the special character of
the expression, with the personalised and profoundly individualised statement of the soloist, who
somehow opposes himself to the featureless and satanic social situation.This undoubtedly reflects
the highly paradoxical role of personality and its connections with the social situation of the era
of Communist dictatorship’ (Ivashkin 1995, 267).
This dynamic is expressed by both composers through the concept of soloist as hero, an
idea with roots in Beethoven’s piano concertos, but developed further by Paganini and Liszt.
Although the identification is abstract in the concertos of Schnittke’s earlier career, by the mid-
1980s it comes into clear focus, with the Violin Concerto No. 4 (1984), Viola Concerto (1985) and
both cello concertos (1985–1986, 1990). All present a conflict between soloist and ensemble and
are therefore rich in psychological subtext. An important expressive device for the identification
of soloist as hero is the association of the solo line with the singing voice, and Svetlana Savenko
notes that, ‘An element of free monologue dominates the solo part … a sense of “speaking for
oneself ”. It is no coincidence that Schnittke shows a preference for the stringed instruments
with their especially flexible intonation and many similarities with the human voice’ (liner note
to BIS-CD-507).
While the concerto was a perfect mode of expression for Schnittke, it also fulfilled important
practical requirements. From the earliest years of his career, Schnittke depended on a small group
of performers to commission and disseminate his music, and most of these were string soloists.
As Peter J. Schmelz observes, the Russian avant-garde in the 1960s was reliant on strong-willed
performers like Gidon Kremer, Natalia Gutman and Alexei Lubimov sneaking dangerous works
into their concert programmes (Schmelz 2009c, 205), with the result that soloist-focused works
came to dominate the movement.
But Schnittke’s concertos also speak of a deeper connection with his performers. A specific
performer was almost always the motivation behind a concerto (as evidenced by the extensive
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use of monograms based on performers’ names), and Schnittke took inspiration from their
playing and persona. Yuri Bashmet, dedicatee of the Viola Concerto, remembered, ‘he showed a
strong personal interest in my own musical personality. I once spoke with Rostropovich about
this and he too felt a very strong bond with Schnittke. People who played his music therefore got
a lot not only from the score but also from the man himself, enabling them to grow artistically’
(Chang 2007, 50).
One potentially significant concerto went unwritten, for the bayan virtuoso Friedrich Lips.
When Schnittke agreed to write a concerto for Lips, in 1974, he was committed to other projects
for the following decade, right up to the Viola Concerto, then planned for 1983.The Lips concerto
followed it on the list, but before Schnittke could begin, he suffered his first stroke, and the idea
was abandoned (Lips 2009, 194).
All of the issues addressed in Schnittke’s concertos – his engagement with musical history, his
explorations of personal and collective psychology – are raised to a higher level in his six concerti
grossi. The concerti grossi engage with the pre-Enlightenment notion of what Schnittke termed
‘non-individualised psychology’ (Schnittke 2002, 152). This brings the soloists and ensemble
into a closer relationship and elevates the role of the orchestra: ‘For a concerto grosso, other
relationships between a soloist (or a group of soloists) and an orchestra are typical. Soloists in a
concerto grosso are “voices from the choir”, that is, the instruments play the primary role. They
do not overwhelm the orchestra, but are in a harmonious relationship with it. As a rule, their
parts employ the same thematic material, and the orchestra plays an important role, not simply
accompaniment’ (Schnittke 2003, 50).
The history of this genre is impossible to ignore, and the style and syntax of Baroque
models are rarely far from the surface. Schnittke said that his models were German rather than
Italian, distancing himself from Corelli and Vivaldi (Ivashkin 2003, 54) and implying an affili-
ation to the Brandenburg Concertos. This sense of engagement with the Baroque is strongest
in the earlier concerti grossi, with their ritornello interchanges of solo group and ensemble
and extensive use of Baroque themes, harmonies and rhythmic figurations. In the later works,
Schnittke is freer with the form. Chigareva sees this process as a move from dramatic to medi-
tative expression, with the Second employing Baroque figurations but within a meditative
framework and the Third completely dominated by the meditative approach (Kholopova &
Chigareva 1990, 230). From the Fourth onwards, a more Romantic than Baroque sensibility
comes into play. The Fourth is Baroque, but is subsidiary to the Mahlerian Symphony No. 5, to
which it is attached. And Concerti Grossi Nos. 5 and 6 almost function as a violin concerto and
piano concerto respectively, the Sixth in particular following Romantic rather than Baroque
models.
Violin Concerto No. 1

Schnittke composed his Violin Concerto No. 1 while still a student, in the fourth year at the
Moscow Conservatory, but he described it as his ‘opus 1’ (Köchel 1994, 94), the first piece
worthy of a place in his mature catalogue. It was originally composed in 1956–1957, and the
second and third of its four movements were performed in 1957 at the Great Hall of the Moscow
Conservatory, the violinist Boris Kunev. In 1962, Schnittke revised the score with the help of
violinist Mark Lubotsky, who premiered the new version in 1963.
All of the thematic ideas in the concerto grow out of the first three notes of the opening
theme – B4 descending to C♯4 then ascending to F4. These two intervals, a major seventh and a
tritone, oppose the E minor tonality.That tension continues throughout the work, and is apparent
in the tonally wayward theme, subtly modulating to E♭ by bar 40. The composer remained
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uncertain about the significance of the tonality: the 1957 score bears an E minor key signature,
but in the final version, this is removed in favour of accidentals.
The work is conventionally structured.The first movement is an allegro in sonata form: second
subject Fig. 4, development Fig. 9. The second movement is an impulsive scherzo in extended
ternary form, with a grotesque character imbued through imaginative orchestration, particularly
the nasal, sarcastic sounds of the woodwind and brass. The third movement is an expressive, if
stylistically restrained, Andante, which leads attacca into the lively dance-like Allegro scherzando
finale, another sonata form movement, propelled by a wide range of bowing articulations in the
solo part and unexpected off-beat accents.
Schnittke felt the concerto worked better without the scherzo, and asked Lubotsky to omit it in
all future performances (Ivashkin 2003, 249). Schnittke said:‘I consider my work on this concerto
as an impulsive and fitful search to find myself … This is still the sound world of Tchaikovsky and
Rachmaninov, … [but clouded] by features of music by Shostakovich and by modern principles
of orchestration. But it does have something that appears in my later music, so the work must be
considered my First Violin Concerto’ (Köchel 1994, 94).
The work’s debt to earlier Soviet Russian composers is clear. The formal structure follows
principles that were current at the time, linking it with Myaskovsky, Prokofiev and Shebalin.
The influence of Prokofiev is felt in the colourful orchestration, and in the work’s melodic
breadth, especially in the slow movement, where the untroubled G major melody accompanied
by mildly chromatic harmonies reflects the ‘New Simplicity’ of Prokofiev’s works of the late
1920s (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 18).
The concertos of Shostakovich have a strong bearing on the work’s dramaturgy: In the first
movement, the main contrast is not between the first and second subjects but between the
exposition and development. More specific to Shostakovich is the close relationship between the
soloist and ensemble, ‘not competition between a concert soloist and orchestra, but rather a con-
flict through their juxtaposition’ (Shulgin 2004, 32), giving the work a symphonic profile, as in
Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Links to Stravinsky’s music, and especially his violin writing,
are apparent through the work’s often mechanistic quality and jarring multiple-stops, especially
in the recapitulation of the finale (Fig. 93), where the solo writing is reminiscent of Stravinsky’s
Violin Concerto and accompaniment figures in The Rite of Spring.
Comparison between the first and final versions of the score shows Schnittke’s individual
voice emerging. The 1957 version opens with five bars of strings and timpani, similar to the
accompaniment at Fig. 2, which continues throughout the opening theme. In the later version,
the work opens with a long, unaccompanied violin monologue. This idea recalls Prokofiev’s
Violin Concerto No. 2, but its later addition to the score is significant, as similar unaccompanied
solos would later open many of Schnittke’s mature string concertos.
Schnittke revised the Violin Concerto No. 1 twice in 1962, ahead of Mark Lubotsky’s broadcast
performance. Lubotsky was critical of much of the violin writing (although not of the work
itself, which he championed in spite of the composer’s reservations), and the first revision was
to adjust the solo part in line with the violinist’s suggestions. Then Lubotsky cut his finger while
playing, bringing the rehearsals to a halt, and Schnittke took the opportunity to completely
refigure the orchestral part.
Lubotsky’s suggestions mostly concerned multiple-stopping. In the first version, Schnittke often
underlines accents by adding one or more open strings below the melody note. Lubotsky often
suggests a different note combination or reduction to a single line.The greater simplicity sometimes
jars, for instance in the first movement cadenza. In the original version this moves from a single
line, to double-stopping, to triple-stopping (from bar 348), the last of which is removed, and the
climactic effect is reduced. (The first five bars of the cadenza are also transposed down a semitone.)
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Example 5.17 Violin Concerto No. 1 (a) 1957 version, movement IV, bar 282, solo violin only; (b) final
1962 version, movement IV, bar 282, solo violin only
The second 1962 revision was more radical. Almost every passage in the first movement
has been altered, with lines moved between instruments and harmonies and rhythms changed.
The orchestral piano part (suggesting early Shostakovich) is significantly reduced from playing
almost continuously in the first version. Rhythms in accompanying figures are often more
sophisticated, with repeating chords often moved to off-beats. There are also several passages
rewritten from scratch, most notably Figs. 14–15. The overall impression is of a composer with
five years more experience coming to the same compositional problems and finding more
elegant solutions.
The initial thematic idea of the concerto comes into play in a change to the end of the solo
part. Over the final six bars, the violin plays a repeating figure alternating between two double-
stops, originally an E♭5,6 octave and E5/B♭5 tritone. Schnittke was presumably advised by Lubotsky
to change this, and in the final version moves the figure into a higher register and replaces the
tritone with an E5/E♭6 diminished octave (see Example 5.17). Just as at the work’s opening, the
underlying E minor tonality is compromised by the two intervals of the opening motif – major
seventh and tritone. Instead of using the second of these, he opts instead for the first.
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, the first of Schnittke’s four concertante works for piano, was
composed in 1960, when Schnittke was a postgraduate student at the Moscow Conservatory. At
the time, he was courting the pianist Irina Katayeva, whom he would later marry. An arrangement
of the work for two pianos by the composer himself (a copy is held in the Ivashkin-Schnittke
Archive) hints at their playing the work together. Irina never performed the work, however, and
it was premiered in 1960 at the Moscow Conservatory by pianist Leonid Broomberg. When the
work was discussed in 1961 at the Union of Composers, opinions were mixed. The unusual har-
monic language was noted with approval, as were the piano writing, the rhythmic ingenuity and
the ‘fresh perception of orchestral possibilities’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 11).
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Schnittke described the work as traditional in form, but with adventurous harmonies. He
acknowledged the influence of Hindemith in the use of quartal harmonies, and also pointed to
the use of diminished seventh and octatonic progressions as well as the [0,1,6,7] collection (see
Chapter 1, Example 1.7).
The concerto’s orchestration is creative, with much-expanded brass and percussion sections,
but the structure is conventional, and the E minor tonality is always secure.The first movement is
in sonata form (opening – first subject; bar 46 – second subject; bar 83 – development; bar 141 –
recapitulation; bar 179 – coda), the second in ternary form and the third in rondo form. The
three-part structure of the first two movements is rigorously proportioned, with each section
accounting for almost exactly one third of the bars of the respective movement (Storch 2011, 18;
this volume contains a detailed structural and thematic analysis of the concerto). Schnittke would
later challenge the authority and autonomy of generic forms, but in this student work, the
Classical concerto structure is still faithfully maintained.
Harmonic and contrapuntal innovations increase as the work progresses. In the first movement,
the first tutti statement of the theme, at Fig. 3, has the woodwind and strings in canonic imitation,
the strings two beats behind the woodwind, an early suggestion of Schnittke stretto. The more
adventurous harmonies tend to be used for decorative rather than structural purposes, such as the
octatonic descending lines in the last six bars.
Schnittke described the slow movement as ‘tragic in inverted commas’ (Shulgin 2004, 36),
although the expression is always direct. It opens with a bass drum solo over a double bass pedal,
followed by a first presentation of the theme by solo bass clarinet. The B section, from Fig. 28, is
based on the first movement theme, first heard as a reminiscence, with light pizzicato strings in
close stretto. An extended cadenza links the reprise to the coda, introducing more complex har-
monies, with the last few bars of the cadenza explicitly polytonal (Storch 2011, 20).
Schnittke described the last movement as ‘motoric’ (Shulgin 2004, 36), but it also includes
reflective episodes. At Fig. 46, the unaccompanied piano has a dreamy Rachmaninov-like quality,
and that link is strengthened by the cello melody that later joins.The music grows in breadth and
dramatic weight, but the progress towards the decisive coda is indirect. The themes are divided
into short motifs, often heard simultaneously, creating complex harmonies. Modulations are usu-
ally achieved through bitonal layering, and the resulting textural density tends towards clusters,
especially in the piano part. Nevertheless, the concerto retains its post-Romantic character, and
the results are paradoxical: a series of complex and innovative experiments in rhythm, orches-
tration and especially harmony, but put to wholly traditional expressive and dramatic purposes.
Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra

Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra was composed in 1964, the same year as the similarly titled
Music for Chamber Orchestra. Both works employ extended serial techniques, which Schnittke
applies to multiple parameters – pitch, rhythm and texture – in idiosyncratic ways. The structure
here is based on a ‘tree’ technique, with statements of the series branching off from one to the next.
Disorderly processes rapidly diversify the textures, balance the homogenising effect of the
serial system.The series is stated clearly at the opening of the second movement, as G♯, A, C♯, B♭,
C, G, F, B, E, D♯, F♯, D – an all-interval series, but asymmetric. Schnittke described the work as
‘strictly calculated’ (Shulgin 2004, 40), although free choices govern almost every application of
the series. For example, at the opening, the series determines the number of notes in each phrase.
The phrases of the vibraphone part have the following numbers of notes: 6, 2, 5, 4, 9, 3, 1, 8, 10,
7, 11, 12, which, if translated to pitch classes, give the series in retrograde. But note values within
phrases, and rests between, are chosen freely.
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Schnittke describes two branching techniques in the work. The first is apparent in the pitch
content of this opening section. It begins with a vibraphone solo, but when the cello enters in
the second bar, the notes of the series (in prime form, as above) are freely distributed between the
two parts. The order changes through the independent rhythms. However, Schnittke codifies the
new note order by reprising it in later movements. An extended piano cadenza links the second
and third movements. It is based on the pitch sequences of the work’s opening, now ‘flattened’
to a single line. This means that the pitch order has been changed, through the free distribution
between the two parts at the opening, but the new ordering is now used to develop the serial
identity. Similarly, in the coda of the work, from bar 145 in the third movement, the opening
pitch sequence is again employed, but now as the basis for textures based on glissandos and piano
clusters, the texture moving away from clearly stated pitches, although derived from the earlier
serial thinking.
The other branching technique is used extensively in the second movement. Schnittke explains:
‘The trunk of the “tree” – a chain of transpositions of the main series – is like a passacaglia, with
the theme continually changing in tone and rhythm.The branches each start with a unison from
which a new transposition begins and develops in parallel. This branch then diverges, changing
the density, sometimes more sometimes less’ (Shulgin 2004, 40–41).
In the second movement, the piano begins with a statement of the series in the bass, inverted
and beginning on G♯ (the I0 form). The second statement of the series is inverted and begins on
A (I1). The seventh note, C, is taken as the beginning of a separate statement, also of the inverted
form (I4), in the tenor, over the end of the previous statement beneath (see Example 5.18).
The technique continues, with similar rigour, in the string textures that follow. Schnittke also
experiments with a stretto version, in the piano at Fig. 2, with a new branch appearing every two
or three notes, the texture building extremely rapidly over the short passage.
The third movement is more conventional, a passacaglia based on a serially derived bass line,
shared pizzicato between the cello and double bass, while the other instruments play short motifs
that gradually increase in length and textural density. Schnittke relates this to the tree idea, saying
that the passacaglia theme acts as the ‘trunk’, from which the ‘individual sound points’ branch off
(Shulgin 2004, 41).
This relatively conventional finale distances the work from its avant-garde models.The modular
structure, with each passage given a distinct character and texture, links it more to finales of
19th-century works than to the through-composed early compositions of Boulez and Stockhausen.
On the other hand, the fact that the work is not called a concerto is significant, and the piano part
is not particularly virtuosic, with as much argument entrusted to the ensemble as to the soloist.
Example 5.18 Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra, movement II, opening piano solo, from second
phrase (excerpt)
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The work’s avant-garde credentials were bolstered by its early performances, first at the Warsaw
Autumn Festival in 1964 and later at modern music festivals in the U.S. and Belgium. The
Russian premiere, in Leningrad, led to discussion about the relationship between mathematics
and expression. Edison Denisov confessed that: ‘It seemed initially that the technical side of
this work had prevailed, but then my opinion changed’, eventually concluding that the work
was ‘more music making than philosophising’ (Kholopova 2003, 82). The composer Henrikh
Litinsky, by contrast, felt that the formality of the approach did not suit the composer’s tempera-
ment; Schnittke’s ‘aesthetically strong inner conviction’ was poorly served by the ‘foreshortening
of this music’. Litinsky’s verdict was prophetic: ‘My conviction is that Alfred Schnittke’s develop-
ment as a composer will not be along this highway’ (Kholopova 2003, 82).

In 1965, violinist Mark Lubotsky performed Schnittke’s Violin Sonata No. 1 at the Jyväskylä
Festival in Finland.The performance was a great success, and the festival director, Seppo Nummi,
invited Lubotsky to return the following year and to bring a new work. When Schnittke was
approached, he initially considered a concerto for violin and choir, although the idea was soon
abandoned. Instead, he produced a concerto for violin and chamber orchestra, which he described
to Lubotsky as ‘a serial work, with aleatoric elements, and G as the central note’ (Ivashkin 2003,
251).
The serial techniques are loosely applied and are combined with aleatoric writing, as well as
expressive use of tone colour, with prominent percussion and piano parts. The piano employs
extended techniques, both as an orchestral instrument and in the composer’s piano reduction,
where plucking and strumming of the strings replicate similar effects in the orchestral string
section.
The concerto is in a single movement, its form a ‘compressed sonata cycle’ (Shulgin 2004,
47, see Figure 5.5). The work opens with an extensive unaccompanied violin solo, to which
the orchestra is added from Fig. 1. In the exposition that follows, the first and second subjects
are distinguished as much by tone colour as thematic material; legato strings in the first sub-
ject (Fig. 8), an erratic double bass solo accompanied by percussion and winds in the second
(Fig. 18). The ‘compression’ comes in the recapitulation, from Fig. 41 (see Example 1.2),
which combines the solo violin introduction with the orchestral music of the first subject,
an elided reprise.
Another formal principle guides the work, which Schnittke was initially reluctant to describe.
Kholopova writes of a ‘visual, theatrical quality’ and discusses the work in terms of ‘eternal
themes of art: action, sacrifice, suffering, betrayal, trial, disaster, and through them the gaining
of ever-greater power and readiness to act again’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 48). Schnittke
had confided a ‘hidden subtext’ (Kholopova 2003, 86), which he eventually revealed to be a
narrative based on the Gospel story, with the soloist representing Christ and the 12 string players
the apostles.
Yet the relationship with the Gospel narrative is also indirect. Mark Lubotsky compared the
piece to the ‘Gospel cycle’ of poems in Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. According to Lubotsky, the
music ‘rhymes’ with these poems (Schnittke 2002, 251).
Speaking to Dmitri Shulgin in 1976, Schnittke explained his earlier reticence:
[The concerto] relies on a concealed literary model. But this does not function as a pro-
gramme, it just helped me to compose the concerto. I worked from the assumption that
literary scenarios have the same formal principles as music. And musical genres reflect
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Figure 5.5 Structure of Violin Concerto No. 2 (Continued)
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the kinds of structural patterns that can equally be embodied in life, literature and music
… But we must not take this model as a programme, to avoid losing the purely musical
properties of the work – enthusiasm for following the literary programme risks losing
the thread of the purely musical argument.
(Shulgin 2004, 48)
But the work can equally be understood as an abstract representation of good versus evil.
The double bass acts as ‘antisoloist’, representing Judas. It also represents evil in a more gen-
eral sense, and is often heard against winds and percussion, contrasting the purer sound of the
‘apostolic’ strings. Good and evil are also represented through order and chaos, so the wind and
percussion music, first heard from Fig. 18, is more dissonant and disorganised than the writing
for strings, and often uses aleatoric notation. The anti-soloist double bass performs distorted
imitations of the violin line, its destructive tendencies expressed through the vagueness of the
resulting themes.
The series is initially concealed and only gradually emerges. At Fig. 61 in the coda it is
presented as: E, E♭, F, F♯, D, G, A♭, D♭, A, B♭, C, B. It is treated as a representation of virtue and
order, hence the symmetry (rotational) of the series and the absence of diabolus in musica tritones.
At the opening, the series is present but disguised (see Example 5.19), and most of the solo
is attributable to the series, but with interpolations and rarely heard complete (although full
statements appear in bars 13–14 and on the last beat of bar 17).
Example 5.19 Violin Concerto No. 2, opening
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Series, beginning G:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
G F♯ G♯ A F B♭ B E C D♭ E♭ D
The series represents the teachings of Jesus. At Fig. 8, ‘Jesus calls his disciples’, the string players
enter one by one, following the series as laid out by the soloist, then at Fig. 17, where they perform
the series in unison – they have ‘learned’ the message. Schnittke also identifies several instances of
serial rhythm (which he describes as ‘Boulezian series’ (Shulgin 2004, 47)) where the note values,
in semiquavers, read: 7, 8, 6, 5, 9, 4, 3, 10, 2, 1, 11, 12. They correspond to the pitch classes of the
row (in inversion). These occur at Figs. 17, 21–26 and 61, each time in rhythmic unison.
The coda, from Fig. 48, resolves the outstanding tensions between good and evil, order and
chaos, by deferring to the repeating G figure. Resurrection is invoked through a reappearance
of the repeated G motif, characterising the opening as prophesy. The idea of Christ leading is
demonstrated through the gradual accretion of repeating-note textures around the soloist,‘every-
thing comes into textural and thematic unity, everything is subjected to this motoric figure’
(Shulgin 2004, 49). The series returns for one final statement at Fig. 61, but the solo violin, and
its repeating G, has the last word, settling into a repeating pianissimo ostinato, which, in the final
bar, simply stops.
Concerto for Oboe, Harp and String Orchestra

The Concerto for Oboe, Harp and String Orchestra was written in 1970 in response to a commission
from Heinz and Ursula Holliger, who premiered the work at the Zagreb Biennale festival in 1971.
The couple were known for their pioneering approach to extended performance techniques,
prompting Schnittke to explore a broad range of timbres, especially in the oboe part.
The work has a sombre character, and Schnittke originally planned to title it Traurnyi kontsert
(‘Funeral Concerto’). This was not linked to any specific bereavement, Schnittke said: ‘It just
happened that a number of my friends and relatives died within a few years’ (Shulgin 2004, 60).
Kholopova suggests the piece was written in response to the death in 1970 of the Estonian artist
Ülo Sooster (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 65–66), with whom Schnittke had worked on the
animated film The Glass Harmonica.
The funerary character is evident from the opening ‘sigh’ figure, initially a falling semitone,
but gradually expanding into a longer theme with wider intervals, the ‘microtheme’ on which
the music is built. The theme is lyrical, and Schnittke envisioned the concerto in vocal terms:
‘I imagined a kind of funeral choir, from which two soloists are gradually singled out: the oboe
and the harp – they gradually begin to move from mourning to speaking, hysterics, screaming,
to convulsive dance’ (Shulgin 2004, 60).
The extended performing techniques in the solo parts increase the timbral variety around this
melodic idea. Schnittke had little experience of using such extended techniques, and took advice
from a variety of sources, particularly with regard to the oboe. Heinz Holliger sent him a list of
‘possibilities’, from which he created a ‘tablature’. He also consulted New Sounds for Woodwind by
Bruno Bartolozzi (Bartolozzi 1967) and, among recent works employing extended techniques,
Romantic Music for Harp, Oboe and String Quartet by Edison Denisov and Noctes intelligibilis lucis
by Klaus Huber (Schnittke’s tablature and references are among the compositional sketches
reproduced in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive). Schnittke reported that all of the oboe technique
he had been introduced to found its way into the concerto: singing while playing, double trills
(between the same note in different fingerings), flageolet, glissando, chords. He also experimented
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with extended techniques on the harp, but this proved less successful, and the only technique he
employed extensively was a glissando achieved by stopping the string with the tuning key, pro-
ducing a sitar-like sound (Shulgin 2004, 61).
From the lament motif at the opening, a gradual process of growth is applied to the length of
phrases, the density of the texture and the constituent intervals.These processes resemble those in
pianissimo….There the intervals grow towards the octave, whereas in the concerto the goal is the
tritone. The growth of the phrases and textures is governed by the prime number sequence (2,
3, 5, 7, 11, 17, 19, 23, 29, etc.), an idea inspired by the Romanian composer Anatol Vieru. Prime
numbers are employed, ‘not only for the form, but also for the number of voices and notes in
each phrase, and the duration of these phrases’ (Shulgin 2004, 60).
The importance of the prime number sequence is apparent in every aspect of the work’s
structure. The score is in a single movement of 157 bars, a prime number. Of the 32 rehearsal
figures, 20 fall on prime-numbered bars. And within the sequence of rehearsal figures, the prime
numbered sections have special significance. Schnittke explained (Shulgin 2004, 61) that the
music at each prime numbered rehearsal figure is a new ‘character’ (in fact, a new variation on
the sigh theme), while the music at every non-prime rehearsal figure is determined by the prime
factors of that number. For example, the music at Fig. 2 is a two-part imitation in the strings
and the music at Fig. 7 a short cadenza for the oboe and harp. At Fig. 14 (7x2) those textures are
combined. Yet the constituent music has changed – the intervallic structure and phrase lengths
have increased in accordance with the gradual progression through the work, and only the tex-
ture is determined by the multiplication. Sketches in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive show that
Schnittke also experimented with pitch patterns based on prime numbers, expanding the sigh
theme by counting downwards in prime numbers of semitones from the first pitch. This was not
used in the finished score.
Although the gradual expansion of phrases implies a slowing down and broadening of the
textures, Schnittke balances this with increasing rhythmic activity in order to transform from
the mourning of the opening to the dancing at Fig. 23. The climax is preceded by a double
cadenza for the two soloists, which ‘lays out the entire form’ (Shulgin 2004, 60). The opening
of the cadenza returns to the narrow intervals and short phrases of the opening and then rap-
idly expands. The 29 bars (a prime number) of the cadenza can be mapped loosely onto the 27
rehearsal figures up to this point.
The climax itself, at Fig. 28 (see Example 5.20), only involves the strings, but is the most
texturally complex section of the work. The sketches show that this passage was constructed
according to a ‘texture series’ (fakturnaia serial).This idea is clearly derived from integral serialism,
and Schnittke’s first sketch for the series includes 12 elements. However, he goes on to expand
the series to 31 elements (a prime number) and to use primes exclusively in its application.
Figure 5.6 shows the texture series in the sketches. Some elements are made up of more than
one note but are distinguished by the quaver rests between each. The list at the bottom of the
sketch traces the path of each of the string instruments from first violin to double bass (first cello
is excluded as it holds an unchanged artificial harmonic throughout the passage). In each case, a
different prime-numbered element of the series is chosen, and the player moves back and forth
between this and the first term. Neither the pitches nor the note values are derived from the
series. However, the sequence of performance techniques can be seen clearly in violins I, player 2,
which begins at the first term and cycles to the 29th by the middle of the second system, before
returning in retrograde.
The work ends with a quiet coda, the soloists returning to the fore, performing isolated,
one-bar phrases, each with a prime number of notes. The mood of mourning has returned, the
dancing and chaos forgotten. And, as a final gesture, an act of transcendence, the two soloists
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Example 5.20 Concerto for Oboe and Harp, Fig. 28
ascending into the upper register over a quiet, held string cluster. Any sense of deliverance is
limited – the oboe repeats the sigh motif in high harmonics, while the harp glissandos upwards
with the tuning key – but the ending forms a clear precedent for similarly transcendent codas in
Schnittke’s music of the 1980s and 1990s, where the spiritual dimension is more fully developed,
and not as reticent as here.
Cadenzas to concertos by Beethoven and Mozart

Schnittke’s cadenza for the first movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, just two pages of
music in autograph, proved the most controversial work of the composer’s career. It was composed
in 1975, before Schnittke was well known in the West. But the score’s overt polystylism, drawing
in quotations from a range of 20th-century violin concertos, brought the composer early
notoriety, when Mark Lubotsky and later Gidon Kremer performed it with leading Western
orchestras. That high-level exposure, and the canonical status of the concerto itself, meant that
stakes were exceptionally high (see Schmelz 2017). The cadenza divided critical opinion, but
established Schnittke as an iconoclast, a reputation that outlasted his rebellious music of the 1970s
and sat uneasily with his more spiritual work of the following decade.
The initial impetus for the cadenza was a frustration on the part of Mark Lubotsky with the
ubiquitous Kreisler and Joachim cadenzas. Beethoven himself composed cadenzas for the work
when he transcribed the solo part for piano in 1808. Beethoven’s first movement cadenza is
around five minutes long and includes timpani accompaniment. Lubotsky transcribed this for
violin and performed it in Russia and abroad. But the cadenza proved controversial, with David
Oistrakh among the dissenting voices, so Lubotsky returned to the Kreisler cadenza. He gave his
version of the Beethoven cadenza to Schnittke, asking him to correct any mistakes. Schnittke was
sceptical, especially of the combination of solo violin and timpani, pointing out that the piano
and timpani combination is more logical as the piano is technically a percussion instrument.
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Figure 5.6 Concerto for Oboe and Harp, sketch for climax
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Nevertheless, Schnittke soon returned with his own first movement cadenza for the concerto,
which Lubotsky played from then on (Lubotsky 2015, 84–87).
Despite his scepticism, Schnittke included the repeated-note timpani motif from Beethoven’s
piano cadenza, but otherwise his version is completely new. Its opening is based on a passage
from the development section, from bar 331, a variant of the movement’s main rising scale theme.
In that development passage, the theme is underpinned by the repeated note motif, transferred
from timpani to horns. In Schnittke’s cadenza, the repeated notes are played double-stopped
beneath the theme, occasionally pizzicato for percussive effect. As in the development passage, the
repeated notes come to dominate, with the motif in quadruple-stops from bar 40.
The music then becomes a polystylistic tapestry. In bars 48–52, Schnittke moves subtly from
Beethoven to Berg, via Bach. Bars 48–50 are a direct quote for the Beethoven Violin Concerto’s
main theme, but bars 51–52 quote the Bach chorale Es ist Genug (from BWV 60), which also
appears in the Berg Violin Concerto. Schnittke exploits a profile common to both themes, a
rising scale encompassing a major sixth. The rest of the cadenza, up until the final transition,
is made up of quotations from the Beethoven Violin Concerto and from violin concertos of the
20th century:
Bars 51–52 Es ist Genug

Bars 53–58 Beethoven
Bars 59–60 Bartók Violin Concerto No. 1, movement I
Bars 65–70 Berg
Bars 71–72 Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1, movement II
Bars 73–74 Berg
Bars 79–82 Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1, cadenza
Bars 83–85 Bartók Violin Concerto No. 2, movement I coda
Bars 86–88 variant of Es ist Genug
Bar 89 Bartók Violin Concerto No. 2, movement I
Bars 90–98 Berg
Bars 99–118 combination of Beethoven, Berg and chorale (Shulgin 2004, 76)
Schnittke described the second part of the cadenza as a ‘nightmare future’ (koshmarnoe budushchee)
of the violin concerto following Beethoven. He treated it as a strict exercise in polystylistic
cohesion, the quotes appearing at their original pitch, a task he compared to ‘building a house
without nails’ (Shulgin 2004, 76). The only exceptions were the Beethoven material, permitted
on the grounds that such manipulation of a work’s themes is common practice in cadenzas, and
the Bach chorale, since that is also transposed and manipulated by Berg.The idea of interweaving
quoted material without transposition recalls the third movement of Berio’s Sinfonia. Around the
time of the cadenza, Schnittke wrote an article on the Sinfonia movement, describing how Berio
exploits ‘intonational affinities’ to link themes together (Schnittke 2002, 216–24). This was also
Schnittke’s approach for the cadenza, with Beethoven’s themes offering similarities with those
of the later concertos. The D minor theme (Beethoven Violin Concerto bar 28) traces an upward
arpeggio, much like the tone row of the Berg Violin Concerto. The theme that follows (bar 43) is
a rising scale, linking with the scalar themes of the Bartók Violin Concerto No. 2, the Shostakovich
Violin Concerto No. 1 and the Bach chorale. Meanwhile, the repeating-note figure, as repeating
notes, links to the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 and, as repeating chords, to the Bartók
Violin Concerto No. 2 (first movement ending).
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Example 5.21 Cadenza to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, movement I (a) bars 48–52; (b) bars 99–102
The polystylistic second half of the cadenza ends as it began, with another concordance
between the Beethoven and Berg concertos (see Example 5.21). The timpani (from Beethoven’s
cadenza) appears with the repeating note motif, but rather than alternating with Beethoven’s
introductory theme, as at the start of the movement, it instead introduces the Bach/Berg chorale.
The ending of the cadenza repurposes the transition that introduces the Bach chorale in Berg’s
concerto (movement II, 3 before Fig. 35), instead employing it to transition back to the coda of
the concerto proper.
In 1977, Gidon Kremer asked Schnittke to write cadenzas for the second and third movements
of the concerto. The second movement cadenza is a transition into the finale, which Schnittke
structures as two sections, the first based on the dotted rhythm of the movement’s main theme,
the second a descending arpeggio figure, which then traces the pitches of the finale theme to
follow. The third movement cadenza abruptly halts the 6/8 flow of the movement and returns
to themes from the first. The timpani is again included, to play the first movement’s repeated
note motif. Schnittke again treats the cadenza as a stylistic exercise, the aim this time to grad-
ually reintroduce the compound time and create a smooth transition from the first movement
themes to the main theme of the last. Ten ensemble violins are included. In the first version of
the cadenza, they play a continuous trill rising through a chromatic scale. A second version of the
cadenza was discovered after Schnittke’s death and published in 2011. This version also includes
the rising trill effect in the ensemble violins but precedes it with the rising scale theme from
the first movement, which becomes increasingly disorderly, ending in an aleatoric passage. These
textures resemble those of the Rondo movement of the Concerto Grosso No. 1, written the same
year. The cadenza may have been influenced by the larger score, or an exercise for constructing
its polyphonic textures.
Schnittke also wrote several cadenzas for Mozart concertos, mostly in the late 1970s and early
1980s. These were contemporaneous with Schnittke’s Moz-art works, which, like the cadenzas,
extend and reappropriate music written by Mozart himself. The cadenza for the first movement
of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K 491, dates, like the first of the Beethoven
cadenzas, from 1975. As with the Beethoven cadenza, Schnittke bases the music in the style of
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the concerto but adds stylistic references to other periods. The result is a chorological succession
of styles alluding to keyboard music from the Baroque to the Romantic. It begins with Bach-
like diminished seventh chords, before moving to other Baroque keyboard devices – sequences
and then arpeggiated toccata figurations. The textures then move into a Mozart-like Classical
style, but gradually become denser and more harmonically inflected, evoking Romantic piano
repertoire. When the opening themes return, the harmonies remain more modern; Chigareva
describes this as an allusion to the ‘modernised’ Bach of the 20th century (Chigareva 2012, 126).
She suggests that the cadenza demonstrates Schnittke’s view that ‘Mozart carried within himself
the “genes” of composers later than Beethoven’ (Schnittke 2002, 81). The cadenza is in sonata
form, with the diminished seventh chords as the first subject and the concerto’s main theme
as the second. Schnittke later felt that sonata form was not appropriate for a cadenza, saying
‘cadenzas should be light and loose, but sonata form makes them heavy and bulky’ (Chigareva
2012, 127).
The later cadenzas, for the Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K 467 (movements I and III,
1980); Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K 503 (1983); and Piano Concerto No. 2 in B♭ major, K 39
(movements I and III, 1990); as well as for the Bassoon Concerto (movements I and II, 1983) are
more conventional exercises in stylistic pastiche. The first movement cadenzas for the C major
concertos emphasise the contrasts between major and minor, exaggerating similar tonal shadings
in Mozart. The K 503 cadenza includes brief allusions to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 and to the
Marseillaise, roughly contemporaneous to the concerto itself. The Bassoon Concerto cadenzas
were written for the bassoonist Valery Popov. The style is close to Mozart, although with some
chromatic inflection in the second movement cadenza. The short cadenzas for the early K 39
Piano Concerto were first performed in 1991 as part of John Neumeier’s ballet Fenster zu Mozart
(Window on Mozart), commemorating the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death, which also
included several of Schnittke’s Moz-art works.

The Symphony No. 1 and the Concerto Grosso No. 1 were the defining works of Schnittke’s early
career, the symphony establishing his reputation within the Soviet avant-garde and the Concerto
Grosso No. 1 extending it further, not least thanks to Gidon Kremer, who toured widely with the
work, including to Western Europe.
The Concerto Grosso No. 1 is scored for two violins, a keyboardist playing harpsichord and
prepared piano, and strings. It was commissioned by Kremer, for himself and violinist Tatiana
Grindenko. The work has been performed in three different versions. In the first version, the
keyboard part was solely for harpsichord. Schnittke later revised the work, making several cuts
(Schnittke 2002, 45) and distributing the keyboard part between the harpsichord and prepared
piano. Finally, in 1986, the composer arranged the work for flute and oboe at the request of oboist
Viacheslav Lupachev. In this version, the two violin parts are arranged for the wind instruments,
but the rest of the score remains identical to the revised version.
The creative process behind the Concerto Grosso No. 1 is recorded in a large collection of
sketches, preserved in photocopy in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive. Kremer and Grindenko
were clearly at the front of Schnittke’s mind as he conceived the solo parts, and the initials ‘G’
and ‘T’ often appear in the margins of the sketches. Schnittke also experimented with musical
monograms based on the two performers’ names and sketched a theme in which their note
names are combined, although this does not appear in the finished work. Schnittke proposes
three kinds of relations between the soloists: dialogue, antagonism and the representation of two
sides of an entity (Tremblay 2007, 139). As T. Bakhrakh has observed, the second violin acts as an
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‘alter ego’ of the first (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 124). Their relationship is close but com-
plex, always playing together in similar but different music. The relationship between the soloists
and the string ensemble is also closer than in a traditional concerto.
Like the Symphony No. 1, the Concerto Grosso No. 1 is a manifesto of polystylism, but in the
concerto grosso, Schnittke strives harder to find points of unity, especially between representations
of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. Chigareva identifies three layers of musical style in the work (Kholopova
& Chigareva 1990, 123). The first is the ‘author’s music’, the modern style, often based on serial
techniques but still an ‘area of deep reflection and meditation’. The second layer is made up of
stylistic allusions to music of the past, and the third, the ‘banal music of everyday life, low music
painted in an old-fashioned nostalgic tone’. Chigareva hears nostalgia in the opening of the
Rondo fifth movement, suggesting that the piano music of Brahms acts to mediate the neo-
Baroque styling (Chigareva 2012, 141), a ‘nostalgia for lost beauty’ in an increasingly hostile
Modernist environment.
Several of the themes of the second layer are derived from Schnittke’s film scores and carry
moral connotations. The third movement theme is taken from Larisa Shepitko’s Ascent (1977),
a film about loyalty and betrayal, dilemmas conjured by the elegantly simple, but dissonantly
harmonised theme. Schnittke’s music from two of Andrei Khrzhanovsky’s moralistic cartoon
films is quoted, the quasi-Baroque cadence at movement IV, Fig. 5 is taken from The Butterfly
(1972), and the B–A–C–H harmonisation at movement V, Fig. 10 is from The Glass Harmonica
(1968). The tango, at Fig. 14 in the same movement, is from the Elem Klimov film Agony (1974,
completed 1981), about Rasputin, hence connotations of evil. One more film is also quoted,
although with less moral charge: Alexander Mitta’s The Tale of the Moor of Peter the Great (1976)
provides the opening themes for movements I and V, and the theme at movement II, Fig. 6
(Schmelz 2019, 41–48).
In fact, Schnittke was ambivalent about the relationship between the Concerto Grosso No. 1 and
the films from which its themes are taken. He said of the tango ‘I took it from the film and by
giving it a contrasting context and a different development tried to give it a different meaning’
(Schnittke 2002, 51). He sarcastically described it as ‘my grandmother’s favourite tango … which
her great-grandmother used to play on a harpsichord’ and called the theme at movement II,
Fig. 6 ‘guaranteed as genuine Corelli, “made in the USSR”’ (Schnittke 2002, 45). Schnittke
continued ‘But all these themes are perfectly consonant with each other (a falling sixth, the sigh
of seconds), and I take them all completely seriously’ (Schnittke 2002, 45–46).
The six movements mostly have titles from the Baroque concerto grosso tradition: Preludio,
Toccata, Recitativo, Cadenza, Rondo, Postludio. The structure emphasises continuity, with the-
matic material shared between the movements, which are all performed attacca. Schnittke also
describes an arch form, linking movements I and VI, II and V, and III and IV (Schnittke 2003, 48).
Chigareva writes that the work’s theatrical quality is emphasised by the outer movements, Prelude
and Postlude, acting as curtains, opened and closed on the drama (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990,
122). Schnittke identifies the central two movements, Recitativo and Cadenza, as the expres-
sive heart of the work: ‘This music is in its own language and is the closest to modern musical
thinking with more acute and intense intonations. And it is most distant in nature from the
“Classical” style that dominates the work’ (Schnittke 2003, 48).The structure suggests a hierarchy,
in which stylistic borrowings are subordinate to the more directly expressive, Modernist style,
even though the former are more prolific.
The first movement opens with a theme in thirds, resembling distant bells on the prepared piano
(with coins squeezed between the mid-register strings). Schnittke described this as ‘clock theme’
and compared it to the opening idea in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990,
123). Chigareva interprets this as an evocation of time, merging different epochs.When Schnittke
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first composed this theme, for the score of The Tale of the Moor of Peter the Great, it was intended
to be sung by a children’s choir, as a melancholy New Year’s carol. On the final soundtrack, the
theme is played on celesta instead. In the first version of the Concerto Grosso No. 1, the opening
was performed on harpsichord, creating a more direct historical reference, but with less of the
atmosphere of the celesta.The prepared piano of the final score balances these allusions of histor-
ical distance and of regret. Schnittke himself played the piano on two commercial recordings of
the work, on both occasions giving particularly sensitive and restrained readings of this opening
passage (Schmelz 2019, 16–19). At Fig. 1, the soloists are introduced, the second violin imitating
the first in inversion – the sketches give ‘Canon’ as an early title for the movement. The melody
introduced at Fig. 4 is titled in the sketches ‘Chorale’.
The title ‘Fugue’ was considered for the second movement, but the strict canonic coun-
terpoint of its opening makes ‘Toccata’ more appropriate. At Fig. 12, the relentless semiquaver
accompaniment in the ensemble gives way to a chord based on the harmonic series of C, the
timeless quality of the effect contrasting the return of the clock theme, now on the harpsichord
in line with the movement’s Baroque atmosphere. The B-A-C-H monogram is introduced from
Fig. 15, again simultaneously timeless and Baroque.
The music of the third movement, Recitativo, seems more direct and heartfelt, including the
gentle music from Ascent at the opening. Yet, as the music intensifies, actual quotations intrude,
the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto at Fig. 11 and the Berg four bars later. The Tchaikovsky quote
is shadowed in the second violin, playing a similar motif that spells out the B-A-C-H mono-
gram (see Example 5.22). The ensemble textures beneath are based on the chorale, and after the
quotations, the soloists and ensemble ascend into their highest register. In the sketches Schnittke
wrote in the margin here ‘the gradual stratification of the spirit’ as well as ‘soloists’ counterpoint,
resistance to the chorale’.
The two-beat silence between the third and fourth movements marks the axis of the arch form.
The Cadenza was originally titled ‘Dialogue’, acknowledging the close relationship between the
unaccompanied soloists. The movement builds to a central climax at Fig. 4, where the B-A-C-H
monogram is heard, distributed between the parts, then builds again to an impassioned statement
of the Butterfly theme at Fig. 5.
The fifth movement, Rondo, is the climax, bringing the themes together in increasingly dense
counterpoint. Schnittke relates the main rondo theme, from The Tale of the Moor of Peter the Great,
to Vivaldi (although Chigareva hears Brahms). The main theme returns, at Figs. 12, 19 and 27,
but the reappearances are interspersed with episodes of increasingly dense contrapuntal activity.
B-A-C-H appears in the lower strings at Fig. 10, with the tonal harmonisation first used in The
Glass Harmonica, a rare moment of stability and contrasted by the following episode, the tango
Example 5.22 Concerto Grosso No. 1, movement III, Fig. 11 (solo violins only)
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from Agony, at Fig. 14.The tango is immediately followed by a return of the rondo theme, at Fig.
15, a juxtaposition which, as Chigareva points out, reveals their close motivic connections and
common roots,‘two sides of one image!’ At the climax, Fig. 27, the two themes are heard together
in counterpoint, a ‘Phantasmagoria where good and evil no longer differ’ (Chigareva 2013, 325).
That ambivalence is underlined by the simultaneous appearance of the second movement Toccata
theme in the second violins and the first movement chorale in the cellos. At Fig. 29, the opening
clock theme returns, completing the logic of the arch form. This is supported by a C harmonic
series-based string cluster, with quartertones representing the higher frequencies.
Structurally, the coda of the fifth movement renders the sixth, Postludio, redundant. But this
allows the last movement to stand outside the structure, a ghostly reminiscence of preceding
ideas. The harmonic series cluster continues, unbroken until the end of the work, while earlier
ideas return, each in a ghostly guise: the Fig. 1 theme from the first movement, now in artificial
harmonics in the solo violins, and the second movement Toccata theme, pp and sul ponticello, in
the first violins.The music finally evaporates, a series of increasingly diffuse memories, as the dia-
logue of past and present mapped out across the work reaches a tragic, even nihilist, conclusion.

The Violin Concerto No. 3 was composed in 1978 at the request of Oleg Kagan.The work is in the
sombre, funereal spirit of Schnittke’s music following the death of his mother, the solo part more
lyrical than virtuosic. The concerto was intended for a concert that also included Hindemith’s
1945 Piano Concerto and the Berg Chamber Concerto, which determined the concerto’s chamber
scale with an ensemble of 13 winds and string quartet.
Schnittke originally intended to call the work Canticum Canticorum (Köchel 1994, 95). The
composer pointed out that the lyrical opening cadenza relates to the Canticum idea, and a sense
of biblical morality is evoked in the later music through tensions between anarchic disorder and
chorale-based resolution.
But Schnittke avoids drawing the harmonic language into this conflict. He writes: ‘I have
long been preoccupied by the opposition of tonal and atonal. In this work I tried to construct a
unified system of intonations linking the two sound worlds organically – that is, not only through
the contrasting effects of night and day but also by means of the morning and evening transitions
and the ever-present play of shadows and colour modulation. Atonality can be reached from any
point in tonality (and vice-versa)’ (Köchel 1994, 95).
Maria Bergamo (Bergamo 1979) identifies the work’s ‘fundamental tuning’ as C, but with the
open strings of the violin – G, D, A, E – acting as ‘form bases’. Explicitly tonal or modal mel-
odies are heard at structurally significant points: the Lydian scalar theme at Fig. 14 of the first
movement, the major/minor theme at Fig. 18 (which recurs, transposed, in the finale) and the
minor-key theme, which forms the main rondo subject of the finale. The latter is evocative of
Schubert or Mahler, although Schnittke insists it is not a quotation from either (Köchel 1994, 95).
Conflict and resolution are instead achieved through instrumental colour, and in the first two
movements, the solo violin is accompanied exclusively by wind instruments, a contrast of timbres
previously heard in the Dialogue for Cello and Seven Instrumentalists and in the Violin Concerto
No. 2. The ensemble strings first appear beneath the aleatoric climax to the second movement,
and in the third provide a timbral link between soloist and ensemble. However, even here they
are used sparingly, reserved for long pedals and a final chorale.
The three movements are linked attacca, with tension building gradually through the first
two movements to a huge climax at the end of the second. The placid third has the feel of
an epilogue, as in Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata, written three years earlier. But the thematic
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connections between the movements suggest a more crucial role for the last movement. The
work opens with an unaccompanied violin cadenza, which presents most of the thematic
ideas. The third movement reprises these and other motifs from the first movement. Bergamo
suggests that the concerto can be heard as a single sonata form movement, with the third
movement a ‘quasi-recapitulation’, an idea supported by the turbulent, developmental profile
of the second.
Sketches for the concerto11 suggest a logic behind the seemingly erratic metre changes in the
outer movements. Next to the drafts for each of these passages, Schnittke has written calculations
for irregular groupings, each adding to 21, for example (5 × 3) + (3 × 2), or (5 × 2) + (3 × 2) +
(2.5 × 2). The significance of 21 may relate to the original biblical theme of the work. In Biblical
numerology, 21 is often associated with sinfulness and rebelliousness against God, and the passages
in the concerto associated with these calculations tend to be the more erratic and unstable, often
directly preceding passages of chorale-based resolution. The idea was discarded along with the
biblical subject. However, the numbering survives in two passages, a section in the first movement
where the irregular time signatures add up to 21 minim beats and a passage in the second
movement where they add up to 21 crotchet beats:
Movement I, Figs. 18–19, 21 minim beats: 5/4, 6/4, 3/2, 5/4, 6/4, 5/4, 5/4, 2/2
Movement I, Figs. 19–21, 21 minim beats: 2/2, 3/2, 3/2, 2/2, 3/2, 2/2, 3/2, 3/2
Movement II, Figs. 14–15, 21 crotchet beats: 3/4, 3/4, 2/4, 3/4, 3/4, 2/4, 2/4, 3/4
The work’s climax is the two sections in aleatory notation in the second movement from Fig.
16 (closely resembling the ‘cadenza for orchestra’ in the fifth movement of the Symphony No. 2).
The counterpoint is complex, but the motifs and interval patterns are all based on earlier passages
in the work. In the sketches, Schnittke again links the idea of chaotic disorder with the number
21, attempting to structure the passage from Fig. 16 so that the number of quavers between each
entry adds up to that number: 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1. Again this does not survive into the
finished work.
The third movement opens with a C minor chord in the ensemble over which the soloist
plays an E♭, as in the opening of the Cello Sonata No. 1 finale. But a sense of reconciliation is
apparent, with the lyrical clarinet theme strict in both its C minor tonality and its 16-bar phrases.
The sketches show that the triplet in the third bar was an afterthought – a dotted rhythm
was originally proposed – but more significantly, that Schnittke intended the theme to repeat
with fewer interruptions. The 6/4 passage bars 23–26 is one of several later interpolations. This
suggests that the movement was originally conceived more as a passacaglia than as the rondo it
became.
But the rondo structure allows the main theme to be interspersed with reminiscences of the
first movement: at Fig. 4 a reminiscence of movement I, Fig. 18; at Fig. 6 of movement I, Fig. 6;
and at Fig. 10 of the wind chorales at movement I, Fig. 2, over which the violin plays music
closely related to the opening cadenza. The reverse trajectory suggests a palindromic return,
and the coda is closely related to the opening. From Fig. 13, the violin plays a high line, directly
related to the opening music, while the strings recall the Orthodox-style chant that closed the
first movement. In the sketches, Schnittke writes over the passage at Fig. 13 ‘CODA – KREUZ’
(Figure 5.7). The cross figure, described by the notes C♯, E♭, D, C♯, is a gesture of genuflection,
appearing at both beginning and end, the final version reframing the opening through its more
explicitly liturgical sound. The vocal quality of the opening lament now tends towards hym-
nody, both return and transcendence, the initial biblical conception retained in essence but now
presented in more abstract if no less emotive terms.
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Figure 5.7 Violin Concerto No. 3, sketch for movement III coda
Concerto for Piano and Strings

Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and Strings was written in 1979 at the request of pianist Vladimir
Krainev (1944–2011).The concerto is informed by the composer’s increasingly fervent Christian
faith, with many clear examples of Christian symbolism. Much of its thematic material references
historical musical styles, even alluding to individual works in several passages.The work integrates
disparate compositional approaches, most significantly tonality and serialism. Yet it remains
impressively integrated, a distillation of Schnittke’s experiments in combining compositional
techniques to create a unified but heterogeneous style.
The religious character is expressed through themes evoking bells and Orthodox chant. The
concerto opens with the piano intoning a bell-like figure in resonant sustained triads. Several levels
of symbolism and structure are acknowledged in these opening eight bars (see Example 5.23).
The first eight notes describe a common-mediant chord progression, a representation of the cross,
made explicit through the genuflecting circulatio shape of the line (see Chapter 1, Representations
of the Cross). The passage alludes to both tonality and serialism, although both are compromised:
all 12 pitch classes are presented in succession, but not as a strict series, while the harmonies are
major and minor triads, although with tenuous tonal relations. Additionally, the roots of the first
four chords – C, C♭, D, D♭ – spell out the B–A–C–H monogram in transposition.
At Fig. 1, another bell motif is introduced. It is more redolent of Orthodox bell ringing
traditions, with a repeated chiming note in the treble and slower repeating chords in the bass.
This motif also introduces and accompanies the chorale theme, at Fig. 6. The chorale is the
only literal quotation in the concerto, a cadential Amen in the third line of the Orthodox
hymn Gospodi, spasi nas (Save us, oh Lord – Example 5.24(a)), also used by Tchaikovsky at
the opening of the 1812 Overture. The chorale is harmonised in bright, major chords but
is always opposed by the immediate appearance of crashing dissonances, compromising its
positive message. That tension reflects an ironic intent: Schnittke described this chorale as
Example 5.23 Concerto for Piano and Strings, opening
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Example 5.24 (a) Orthodox Hymn Gospodi, spasi nas; (b) Concerto for Piano and Strings, Fig. 6
representing a ‘dogmatic understanding of religion’, an ‘ostentatious Orthodoxy’ that leads to

delusion (Chigareva 2012, 19).
These spiritual conflicts are contextualised through stylistic allusions to music from the 18th to
20th centuries. Some references are generalised, such as the Alberti bass at Fig. 3, the jazz ‘impro-
visation’ with walking double bass accompaniment at Fig. 19 and the waltz at Fig. 23. Others
are more specific: the allusion to Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata at Fig. 4, to Chopin’s nocturnes
at Fig. 8, to Bartók’s Improvisations, op. 20, at Fig. 21 and to Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 5 at
Fig. 39. The Beethoven reference also links the music to Shostakovich, who had recently quoted
the same work in his Viola Sonata (1975) (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 141).
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The integration of these diverse references and styles is aided by Schnittke’s adherence to
a traditional one-movement sonata form structure. The exposition begins with the chorale at
Fig. 6. The development begins at Fig. 11 and culminates in a piano cadenza at Fig. 31 (see
Example 1.5(c)), leading into the recapitulation at Fig. 37.
A sense of irony cuts across the logic of sonata form, suggesting instead a variations structure,
with the shorter variation units distinguished by the relative directness of their expression. Schnittke
considered a subtitle ‘variations not on a theme’ (Chigareva 2012, 19), to highlight how the thematic
material in the exposition section, including the chorale, is not the basis of the music or its meaning.
In fact, the true thematic source is only revealed in the Coda, from Fig. 40.We hear the bell figures
and serially derived lines in their purest form with a full series, the first in the work, spelled out
beginning in the viola (top line) as A, C, B, D, C♯; then completed in the first violin with E, B♭, G,
A♭, F, G♭, E♭. The figurations in the passage hark back to the work’s main themes, suggesting this
material as the common source, a coda as exposition (see Chapter 1: Coda as exposition).
The concerto ends ambiguously, with a build-up of ppp harmonics in the strings, a poten-
tially ethereal effect, but grounded by the increasingly dense clusters that result. Over this, the
piano impotently intones the repeating bell figure, dying away to silence. Evocations of lit-
urgy throughout the work hint at transcendence, but in these last bars none is forthcoming.
However, as the ending is prepared, one last positive message is presented, the B–A–C–H mono-
gram, transposed as E♭, D, F, E, a symbolic closing gesture and a reference back to the opening
four chords.

The Concerto Grosso No. 2 was composed in 1982 for husband and wife Oleg Kagan, violin,
and Natalia Gutman, cello. It was commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic and is scored for
suitably large orchestral forces. The music takes the Brandenburg Concertos as a point of reference,
but also employs modern textures in dissonant counterpoint. This suggests a duality of past and
present, but Schnittke also invokes a tension between the affirmative logic of the concerto grosso
model and a sense of tragedy, expressed through the disintegration of the form and of the the-
matic and harmonic identities associated with it.
The work is in four movements, and Schnittke described the first three as following a concerto
grosso schema – fast, slow, fast – with the fourth movement standing apart as a postscript (Köchel
1994, 101). There are no quotations, but many intimations of earlier styles. The stylistic diversity
is balanced by rigorous thematic interconnections, with two recurring motifs, appearing both as
primary thematic material and as anticipation or reminiscence of other movements.
This suggests memory and forgetting as models for the thematic processes, and many passages
have a nebulous quality that contrasts the Baroque order. The first movement is the most formal
but is introduced by a quiet, reflective passage from the two solo instruments. Chigareva suggests
that this, along with the postscript finale, constitute a ‘meditative frame’ for the Baroque stylings
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 231). The theme of the opening passage also bears a striking
resemblance to Silent Night. Schnittke said that he had been unaware of this resemblance until
it was pointed out to him by Jürgen Köchel, ‘I did not mean to quote it here. But apparently it
was floating around in the subconscious …’ (Köchel 1994, 101).The motif encapsulates the spirit
of the Concerto Grosso No. 2, both in its sentimental opening and its almost immediate decay,
unmoored from its tonality through descending semitone sequences.
When the first movement proper begins, at Fig. 2, we are immediately transported to the
sound world of the Bach. Schnittke says that the first bar of the theme quotes a Brandenburg
Concerto (Köchel 1994, 101) (the opening of No. 5), but then the music immediately moves
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away, the distancing emphasised by jazz drumming and electric guitars. Nevertheless, the entire
movement follows the concerto grosso structure of alternating concertante and ripieno, the solo
sections tonally ambiguous, but the tuttis tonally secure, especially the C minor at Fig. 18 and the
D major (the home key) at Fig. 21.
The second movement is a passacaglia based on a very simple bass theme, a three-note figure
alternately ascending and descending. The theme is anticipated in the first movement at Figs. 13
and 19, and recalled in the third at Figs. 10 and 14 and the fourth at Fig. 6.
Another thematic interconnection is suggested in the First Variation, Fig. 1, where the pas-
sacaglia theme is presented by the solo violin in the rhythm of the Silent Night theme. The 12
variations (numbered as per rehearsal figures until Variation 11 at Fig. 12, and Variation 12 at Fig.
14) systematically explore approaches to canonic technique, both between the solo instruments
and within the ensemble.12 Beneath this, the passacaglia theme moves upwards a semitone at each
variation, visiting each tonality from F (the dominant of the work’s opening B♭) up to E, the key
of the third movement to follow.
Chigareva considers the second movement to be the ‘core’ of the work, for both its uncon-
cealed emotion and its structural rigour (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 233). The form of the
movement reflects that of the entire work in microcosm. The duet cadenzas that break up the
variation form, after Variations 5, 8 and 10, reflect the concerto grosso interplay, while the gradual
decay, or destruction, of the thematic and harmonic identity, beginning from the Fifth Variation,
reflect similar large-scale processes, that progression checked at the start of each movement, as
reflected in the 11th Variation (Fig. 12). Most significantly, the final, 12th Variation is the only
one that is not canonic, but is instead a reflective coda, just as the fourth movement is a reflective
coda to the entire work.
Movement III returns unambiguously to the sound world of the Baroque concerto grosso and
suggests a refrain of the first movement, even reprising the first movement themes. But a sense
of progression is felt in the swifter move to disorder, as if the disintegrating processes in the first
movement have carried on unheard beneath the second to re-emerge here.
The separation of the final movement from the rest of the work is apparent from the dreamy,
ethereal atmosphere at its opening, the Silent Night theme now heard on the alto flute.To create a
sense of resolution, the two main themes appear in a new guise, over stable harmonies.The Silent
Night and passacaglia themes are gradually reconciled, through the application of the former’s
dotted compound rhythm to the pitches of the latter, as at the opening of the second movement.
Major and wholetone harmonies suggest resolution and stasis, as do the continual references
back to earlier movements, and especially to the opening, with the solo instruments reprising
the pizzicato textures of the introduction, the structure coming full circle, even if the faint string
clusters and a final electric guitar glissando continue to acknowledge the tragedies and conflicts
encountered along the way.

The Violin Concerto No. 4 was written in 1984 for Gidon Kremer and dedicated to him ‘as a
token of my immense admiration and extreme gratitude’. Schnittke and Kremer’s most signifi-
cant previous collaboration had been the Concerto Grosso No. 1, which the Violin Concerto No. 4
recalls in the bell sounds produced by prepared piano in the outer movements. Schnittke wrote:
[t]he musical material of this four-movement work is derived from the monograms of
Gidon Kremer and myself – and, in the final movement, from those of three other kin-
dred spirits, Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina and Arvo Pärt. The result is no artificial
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Babel (apart from the perpetuum mobile passacaglia in the second movement) but an
attempt to produce a sense of melodic tension from note to note and from note to rest,
freely using ‘new’ and ‘old’ techniques.
(Köchel 1994, 95–96)
Of the four movements, only the second is fast. The mood is by turns meditative and dramatic,
exploring a range of ideas, including the musical significance of banality and of silence. As Maria
Bergamo points out, Schnittke combines these in a collage-like manner, presenting ‘a variety of
reinterpretations and metamorphoses, emerging in ever-changing relations to one another as if
the objective were to explore the limits of the reinterpretative potential inherent in the musical
material’ (Bergamo 1987).
The work is structured around pitch centres of C and G. These relate to the Kremer mono-
gram – G–D–E–E – which is always preceded by a similar figure – G–C–D–E – most clearly
in the Westminster chimes at the opening. The Schnittke monogram – A–F–E–D–D♯–C–B – is
presented directly after the soloist’s first statement of the Kremer monogram, from Fig. 4, and
from then on, the two almost always appear together.
Banality is introduced at an early stage. The Kremer monogram is immediately followed by
a theme in the winds, a pastiche of Schubert’s Impromptu, D 935/2. Schnittke writes of this and
the third movement themes, ‘The two beautiful plush melodies (the one recurring throughout
the concerto as “fatum banale” and the other appearing in the third movement as “illusory salva-
tion”) are no more than corpses with rouged faces’ (Köchel 1994, 96). The association with fate
is expressed through the theme’s repeated appearances in the first, third and fourth movements.
Bergamo identifies three musical types in the first movement, a – the monograms; b – the ‘fatum
banale’; c – chromatic excursions into ‘Today’.The movement follows the structure: a b c/a c/b c a.
Schnittke characterises the second movement as a passacaglia and a perpetuum mobile. The pas-
sacaglia theme is a series of descending pitches, first heard concealed within the violin arpeggios,
but never settling on a fixed interval structure. Chigareva notes that perpetuum mobile figures
often have negative connotations in Schnittke’s music, an idea borne out here by the dissonant
harmonies and tenuous thematic identity. At the movement’s climax, the soloist performs wide-
ranging semiquaver figures with increasing energy, seemingly attempting to break out of the
repetitious cycle, until the sound of the violin completely disappears, and the soloist continues
his actions as mime (see Example 5.25). This is an example of what Schnittke described as
Schattenklänge (shadow sounds), music that evokes an illusory soundspace, beyond our percep-
tion. Schnittke writes: ‘On a few occasions – notably in the Cadenza visuale in the second
movement – we risk a glance behind the veil that normally shields us from the hypnotising silent
world beyond music, the world of the toneless sound (otherwise known as the rest). But these
are mere moments, brief attempts to escape – the sense of failure as we sink back into sound is
unavoidable. Or is it?’ (Köchel 1994, 96)
Example 5.25 Violin Concerto No. 4, movement II, from 20 after Fig. 12, solo violin only
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The Adagio third movement is the most consonant and melodic, but also the most paradox-
ical. Here, Schnittke switches to a parallel aesthetic, a 19th-century sound world (although the
prominent harpsichord at the opening also adds a Rococo flavour). The context suggests irony,
yet the music seems sincere. Schnittke describes the theme as ‘illusory salvation’, and, as with the
cadenza visuale, we again find the music moving into a parallel sphere. Ronald Weitzman observes
that: ‘When Schnittke is writing in an illusory antiquity, we have a further instance that’s allied
to the shadow world’ (Weitzman 2002, 15). The movement emphasises the uncomfortable prox-
imity of banality and despair. Kremer notes that, ‘The whole work is built on the elusive quality
of genuine despair and observation of this, on a striving for the beautiful and its simultaneous
transformation into vulgar banality. These are eternal categories precisely because they are not
merely “black and white”; they combine with one another and themselves create a new category’
(Schnittke 2002, 231).
Broad hairpins in the solo part of the third movement invite expressive phrasing and sincere
emotion. But the mask finally slips at Fig. 11, where Schnittke introduces distancing effects.
The soloist plays quietly in parallel minor seconds, while the main melody is performed by the
strings in Schnittke stretto, and by the flexatone and alto saxophone.The saxophone sounds one
step removed from the French horn, a telling substitution, with the horn redolent of histor-
ical distance, and the effect emphasised further through the use of a more modern instrument.
The fourth movement achieves resolution by reprising the earlier melodies and bringing them
into close alignment, which in turn creates a cyclical sense of return to the mood of the opening.
Chigareva writes, ‘the finale answers the question posed at the opening. The themes from all the
previous movements are absorbed into a theme-motto, clarifying the work’s meditative-conflict
dramaturgy’ (Chigareva 2012, 30). So the ‘melodic tension from note to note and from note
to rest’ that Schnittke describes is here resolved, and the ironies and paradoxes of the middle
movements transcended.
Additional monograms are presented in the finale. The Kremer and Schnittke monograms
appear at the start (with the final E of the Kremer monogram is included in the solo part in
square brackets, although the note is too low to be performed).The Arvo Pärt monogram appears
immediately after, in the harpsichord at Fig. 1, though its derivation is convoluted. Schnittke uses
a system where the alphabet returns to A after the first seven note names are exhausted, H=A, I=B,
J=K, etc.This gives Ds for the two Rs. He also renders ‘ä’ as AE.The result is A–D–A–E–D, which
is repeated intermittently in the keyboards and tuned percussion throughout the movement.The
names of Edison Denisov and Sofia Gubaidulina are more directly rendered (with E♭=S, B♭=B) as
E–D–E♭–D–E–E♭ and E♭–F–A–G–B♭–A–D–A respectively, and are introduced simultaneously
at Fig. 18 (see Example 5.26).
Example 5.26 Violin Concerto No. 4, movement IV, Fig. 18
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The climax and coda can be heard as a final, tragic struggle against banality. The descending
chord sequences of the second movement are evoked at Fig. 20, but from Fig. 24 onwards, the
sarabande and second movement themes predominate – ’fatum banale’ and ‘illusory salvation’ –
until they are interrupted by a huge fff tutti cluster, leading into the ‘artificial Babel’ second
movement passacaglia figures, over which the soloist enacts another cadenza visuale. From Fig. 28
the music is wholly derived from the monograms of Kremer and the three composers. The
textures suggest a return to the corporeal world, but common-mediant harmonies continue (see
Chapter 1): F♯ major ‘inlaid’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 225) into the G minor, maintaining
a sense of illusion to the final bar.

The Concerto Grosso No. 3 was premiered in Moscow in 1985 by its dedicatees, violinists
Oleh Krysa and Tatiana Grindenko, with conductor Saulius Sondeckis and the Leningrad
Chamber Orchestra. The work returns to the chamber scale of the Concerto Grosso No. 1
(which Grindenko had also premiered), only adding tubular bells and a celesta to the First’s
piano, harpsichord and strings. Like the first two concerti grossi, the Concerto Grosso No. 3
actively engages with the traditions and forms of the genre, but they are implemented in a
more complex and mediated way. Baroque figurations are almost completely confined to the
first of the five movements, after which the music changes mood and style. For Alexander
Ivashkin this ‘articulates a dispute between two concepts of the past. One – the illusory-
realistic one, like a daguerreotype – is based on stylistic allusions. The other is more symbolic,
associated with musical monograms and quotes from the music of the past’ (Ivashkin, preface
to Collected Works, Series III,Volume 22).
The work was written to commemorate the anniversaries in 1985 of five composers: the quat-
ercentenary of Heinrich Schütz, the tercentenaries of Bach, Handel and Domenico Scarlatti and
the centenary of Alban Berg. All five were represented on the programme at the work’s prem-
iere, Berg by Schnittke’s adaption of his 1930 canon for the opening of Frankfurt Opera House.
Handel and Scarlatti are referenced in the work only in fleeting allusions to the virtuosic solo
writing in Italian concerti grossi. Bach and Berg, however, are more central to the conception,
and the work begins in the 18th-century sound world of Bach, then gradually moves into the
more contemporary environment of Berg.
Karen K. Ching suggests that the work can be heard as a sonata form: the five movements
introduction, exposition, development, recapitulation and coda respectively (Ching 2012, 133).
Twelve-tone rows occasionally appear, ‘a common denominator within the pervasive musical
diversity’ (Ching 2012, 168). Chigareva identifies a two-part cyclical structure, the break
occurring between the third and fourth movements.This more physiological reading also stresses
the unity of the whole ‘The five parts of this small cycle are a chain of interrelated episodes –
different states of the human soul, reflecting as a whole a multifaceted picture of the inner life of
a person’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 234–35).
The first movement begins in the Baroque toccata mode familiar from the earlier concerti
grossi, although the theme already sounds distant, as if a memory.The sense of order does not last
long, and, as Schnittke describes ‘the museum soon explodes, and we, along with the fragments
of the past, are left to face a dangerous and uncertain present’ (Köchel 1994, 102).The movement
has a clear binary-form profile, tonal and scalar to begin, atonal and arpeggiated in the second
half. The pivotal point at Fig. 4 is articulated with a B–A–C–H monogram. The following har-
monies are made up of diminished triads and sevenths, as well as the [0,1,6,7] collection.
Schnittke made numerous changes to the score during rehearsals (Ivashkin 1996, 188). The
edits are marked into the copy of the manuscript held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive. The
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most significant changes are to the second movement, where five individual bars of music have
been removed.13 In each case, the effect is to shorten the phrase from 16 to 15 bars. The stylistic
shift from the first to the second movement was obviously difficult to gauge. Another rehearsal
edit replaces the harpsichord with the piano throughout the second movement.
The second movement introduces nine 12-tone rows, their multiplicity harking back to
Berg.14 Berg’s serialism is also acknowledged in the structure of the rows, most of which dis-
play internal symmetry, a property associated with the Second Viennese School – the row heard
in the top voices of the solo violin parts at the opening, for example, has reflective symmetry.
Additionally, the chord progression G minor–D major is heard several times in the work, the
two triads described by the first five notes of the tone row for Berg’s Violin Concerto. Gordon E.
Marsh describes the movement as a chaconne: a theme, six variations and coda (the variations
numbered as per the rehearsal figures) (Marsh 2017, 130).Within this structure, the tone rows are
introduced sequentially in pairs, one governing the melodic line the other the chord roots. The
five ‘melodic’ series all begin with monograms based on composers’ names: HEinriCh Schütz –
B, E, C, E♭; B–A–C–H; George FreDeriCk HAndel – G, E, F, D, C, H, A; (GuiSEppe) DomeniCo
ScArlatti – G, E♭, E, D, C, A; Alban BErg – A, B♭, E, G.
Schnittke’s rehearsal edits to the third movement were more modest, only swapping over
the two solo violin parts between Figs. 5 and 6. The movement is more continuous in texture
than the second but continues many of its technical processes. Eight of the second movement’s
12-tone rows are again employed, to which Schnittke adds five new rows (violin I Fig. 2, Fig. 5,
bar 44; violin II bar 64; tutti violin I Fig. 11), all of which start or end with the B–A–C–H mono-
gram, in some cases in retrograde. The rows also often appear in retrograde, although not inver-
sion or transposition, maintaining the B–A–C–H formula.
The movement is abstract and virtually devoid of stylistic reference, although Marsh identifies
an allusion to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 at the climax, Fig. 12 (Marsh 2017, 130). Unlike
in other movements, the soloists, keyboards and ensemble are independent of each other in terms
of pitch and rhythm. Chigareva hears this as a distillation of the competing expressive tendencies
in the work, three ‘characters’: the chordal textures of the harpsichord representing the detached
and the sublime, the lyrical solo violins the human emotions, and the measured, step-wise motion
of the string orchestra, the ‘categorical imperative’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 235).
Chigareva describes the tubular bells as having a destructive function in the work, in refer-
ence to their first appearance, at Fig. 4 in the first movement, where the tonal stability is first
challenged. Schnittke’s only rehearsal edit to the fourth movement was to reduce the bells, which
played continuously until Fig. 17, but which were then reserved for a few short appearances
towards the end of the movement. The bells also denote the B–A–C–H monogram, and the
initial saturation of bell sounds was presumably to emphasise the Bachian reference. Instead, the
movement opens with the harpsichord playing the B–A–C–H motif, each of the notes held
in the strings as the basis of an accumulating ppp cluster. The harpsichord line continues with
two quotations from The Well-Tempered Clavier, the fugue subjects from the C♯ minor and F
minor Fugues of Book 1 (bars 3–4 and 5–7 respectively, the wholetone stepwise descent in bar
4 suggests Schnittke is quoting the second entry in the C♯ minor Fugue). Chigareva describes
the Bach quotations as representing the ‘voice of time’ or the ‘eternal aesthetic’ (Kholopov &
Chigareva 1990, 236), an idea supported by the cruciform profile of each of the motifs.
Nevertheless, a Modernist style soon predominates, recalling the finale of Berg’s Violin Concerto.
As in the finale of the Symphony No. 3, this is achieved by contrasting dodecaphonic melodic lines
with tonal harmonies, and, apart from Figs. 15–17, the soloists’ music is all based on the rows from
the second and third movements.The movement ends with senza metrum duet cadenzas, based on
the B–A–C–H 12-tone row from the second movement, the tutti sonority beneath a verticalised
version of the Schütz row.
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Schnittke’s main edit to the final movement was to redistribute the keyboard part, ori-
ginally just for harpsichord, to harpsichord and celesta, a change of historical connotation
as much as balance. Marsh writes that: ‘The entire movement functions as a cluster cadence
using the gradually amassing of triadic objects arranged according to the second movement’s
row’ (Marsh 2017, 130) (the row that defined the harmonies at the opening of the second
movement). This is achieved by designating a tonal triad to each of the orchestral string
instruments, their roots spelling out the row from bottom to top (in retrograde from the initial
second movement appearance). The notes of the triads are then played out in unsynchronised
arpeggios. Over this, the harpsichord then celesta play a line based on the Scarlatti row
pairing. The soloists recall the second movement themes, and then the main theme of the first,
now sounding like a distant memory. This first-movement texture continues to the end, from
Fig. 10 based on the B–A–C–H monogram. Chigareva describes this as an act of return, but
not in a literal sense as much as a ‘purely meditative completion of the cycle’ (Kholopova &
Viola Concerto
The Viola Concerto came about as a result of Schnittke’s close friendship with violist Yuri Bashmet.
Bashmet suggested the concerto in 1976, but Schnittke put the project off, and so it ‘matured’
over almost a decade. He began serious work in the mid-1980s and completed the concerto in
1985. Schnittke later speculated that, had he written it earlier, it would have been completely
different (Kholopova 2003, 188). Bashmet proved an ideal collaborator. Schnittke said, ‘Apart
from the range I did not have any technical limitations on the solo part to consider, for Yuri
Bashmet can play anything. Everything seemed possible’ (Chang 2007, 50).
The work is harmonically adventurous, but its aesthetic is Romantic, the expressive and sombre
sound world often recalling Mahler and Berg – a ‘20th-century Romanticism’ (Kholopova &
Chigareva 1990, 246). It is in three movements, but slow–fast–slow, a reversal of the traditional
concerto structure.The main themes are presented in the Largo first movement and are developed
in the dramatic music of the sonata form second, Allegro molto. The Largo last movement recalls
the first but addresses issues of culmination and closure – it is simultaneously a reprise, finale and
coda. That focus on closure is closely associated with death, and the entire work conveys a sense
of reckoning, an acknowledgement of mortality.
That confessional subtext is apparent from the opening phrase. Schnittke uses a large
orchestra, but without violins, focusing the string tone in the mid and lower range. The viola’s
mournful opening monologue is supported by the lower strings, each part ‘ghosting’ the notes
of the solo line, holding them in ppp harmonics. Kholopova suggests that the technique derives
from Schnittke’s film music, where ‘sound mirages’ add a mysterious dimension to the drama
(Kholopova 2003, 191).
Two thematic ideas recur throughout the concerto. The first is a monogram based on
Bashmet’s name, derived from the German transliteration of his surname: B-A-S-C-Hm-Et =
B♭–A–E♭–C–B–E. This is first heard in a phrase (one bar before Fig. 3) in which the soloist
performs a long palindromic pitch pattern across 12 bars, while the strings perform a chorale
beneath. Bashmet’s monogram pervades the work (often appearing in retrograde and retro-
grade inversion) and is not limited to the solo part, or to positive or affirmative passages. This is
demonstrated by its next appearance, in the brass and percussion at the cluster tutti that abruptly
breaks off the viola monologue at Fig. 5.
The other important motif is presented two bars after Fig. 6, a cadence figure, intoned
by the soloist and first bassoon. The figure includes two important aspects of 18th-century
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Example 5.27 Viola Concerto, movement II, from Fig. 17
Example 5.28 Monologue for Viola and Strings, Fig. 4, solo viola only
cadential rhetoric, the trill with final turn and the dominant seventh resolving to the mediant
of the tonic chord (here F). Chigareva points out the similarity of this figure to the introduc-
tory theme of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 (oboes bar 23) (Chigareva 2012, 169). Coming as
it does immediately after a climax based on 12-tone clusters, it offers ‘a hint at the possibility
of harmony’. The figure is symbolic of resolution and closure, particularly as Schnittke usually
avoids cadences.
The second movement is characterised by an aggressively repeating arpeggio motif in the solo
viola, beneath which similarly strident themes are presented in the orchestra. The first is based
on the Bashmet monogram overlaid with the opening motif of the first movement, but the viola
motif itself is the movement’s main theme. It is interspersed with quiet interludes, each moving
into banal or generic styles: the lyrical song-like theme at Fig. 3, the ‘grotesque waltz’ (reminiscent
of the Piano Quintet) at Figs. 6, 11 and 14 and the dreamy, otherworldly ‘burlesque’ (Kholopova
2003, 190) from Fig. 17 (see Example 5.27). The burlesque theme is based on the cadence motif,
now extended into a long sequential melody. The meaning of the passage is complicated by
unusual duet partners – double bass then trombone – and accompaniment figures – artificial
harmonics in the strings, piano arpeggios and off-beat bell chimes: Schnittke clearly intends a
double meaning. When asked about the incongruous beauty of this passage, Schnittke replied,
‘But there is poison in it, it is sweet and vile!’ (No v nei zhe otrava, eto sladkaia gadost!) (Kholopova
2003, 191).Yuri Bashmet recalled how Schnittke instructed him to play the passage:
When I premiered the concerto in Amsterdam, I performed it three evenings in a row.

Alfred could not come because of illness, and I brought him … recordings of these
three performances … He was only really satisfied with the third performance, and
when we got to the famed middle movement, he fell to the floor laughing, he became
almost hysterical with laughter … On this [last] recording, I played a little differently
to the other two evenings – I deliberately exaggerated his ironic Romanticism and
supposed beauty. He said: ‘Yes, yes, that’s exactly the way it should be – it should be so
pretty that it becomes sweet in the mouth, and then even saccharine and repellent – and
then it’s as if all of that is cut off just in time!’
(Bashmet 2003, 149–50; translation draws on Schmelz 2021, 189)
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The third movement returns to the Largo of the opening, but from the opening chords it is
clear that changes have taken place. In the opening bar, the soloist performs quadruple-stopped
chords of C minor and G minor, and the music that follows, while still dissonant, gradually settles
into the key of A minor. The movement acts as a compendium of the concerto’s themes, with a
recurring chorale particularly prominent. From Fig. 16, Schnittke fragments and combines the
thematic ideas into a single line for the soloist,15 moving seamlessly from one theme to another.
Recollections appear compressed and merged into a stream of consciousness (recalling the self-
quotations in Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata).
These recollections lead into the work’s sombre ending – memory giving way to death. From
Fig. 18, the note A is established in the double basses, which remains as a pedal until the end,
with the harmonies above moving between diatonic clusters and A minor triads. The solo part
gradually reduces in range and activity, until finally fading away, slowly alternating the notes C♯
and B♯ over a C♮ pedal, an effect Bashmet likens to ‘the hero’s refusal to accept defeat while the
clenches of death draw tighter and tighter’ (Hall 1999, 19).
The concerto is remarkable for the lack of a transcendent coda – Schnittke often evokes death
in his finales, but there is usually a sense of moving beyond death’s finality, as in the reaching-
to-the-heavens conclusion of the Cello Concerto No. 1, completed the following year. In the
absence of such an ending, we are left with death as an absolute finality, an impression emphasised
through the firm establishment of the A minor tonality. It is also repeatedly anticipated by the
cadence motif, a memento mori appearing in every movement, with its last appearance, from bar
146, just before the final A pedal is established.
Schnittke later came to understand the funereal character of the concerto as a premonition.
He suffered his first stroke soon after completing the work, a life-changing event presaged in
the concerto’s form, with the third movement recreating the first, but transformed through the
experience of the second:
In a sense it has a (tentatively) conclusive meaning – 10 days after completing the work
I suffered a serious stroke and I could at first only enter very slowly into the next stage
of my life, which I am now passing through. Like a premonition of this happening, the
music of the second movement is as a race through life, while the third is a slow and sad
overview of life on the threshold of death.
(Köchel 1994, 96–97)
Cello Concerto No. 1

The Cello Concerto No. 1 was written for Natalia Gutman, to a commission from the Munich
Philharmonic to mark the reopening of the city’s renovated Herkulessaal concert hall. Before
Schnittke was able to complete the work, he suffered his first stroke, on 21 July 1985. The before
and after stages of the work’s composition were quite distinct. Schnittke returned to his desk and
found the sketches he had written but remembered little about them. Most of the work’s melodic
material was already composed (Ivashkin, liner note to Chandos CHAN 9852). ‘By summoning
up all his strength he managed to start composing again … [continuing] seamlessly, as if he had
“laid down the pen only yesterday”’ (Savenko, liner note to BIS-CD-507).
The final page of the autograph score states that the work was written ‘Oct 85–Mar 86’,
suggesting that Schnittke did not consider the work before the stroke significant. Nevertheless,
the style of the music suggests two stages of composition, with the lyrical themes at odds with the
esoteric developmental processes and the more dissonant harmonies beneath. The form of the
concerto also indicates a new direction for Schnittke’s music. As in previous works, he eschews
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formal closure, but here he takes the idea further, deliberately eliding the first movement sonata
form and presenting the following movements as alternatives to the absent closure. And a greater
continuity is introduced, both within and between the movements, all joined attacca. Ivashkin
writes: ‘The profile of his “new” music appears to be more expressionistic, without any lyrical
rests at all. He uses more and more dissonances, apparently feeling quite comfortable in this
disturbing, nervous and restless world of “disharmony”’ (Ivashkin 1996, 190–91).
The work’s fourth movement stands apart from the earlier three, and the concerto can be
heard as a two-part cycle. Schnittke originally pursued a three-movement structure, culminating
in a presto finale (Ivashkin 1996, 191). But the need for a different solution is clear from the simi-
larity of the first three movements, which, while ‘dissonant, complex and full of contradictions’
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 251), lack any sense of polarising formal contrast. Schnittke
described the conception of the fourth movement in mystical terms: ‘I was planning it as a work
in three movements, and I had almost finished the third when a fourth, climatic summing-up
movement seemed to be given to me, a movement of which I had not even thought, never
imagined. And suddenly … This was one of two or three rare incidents in my life …’ (Makeeva
2001, 47).
Both the structure of the concerto and the circumstances of its composition invite narrative
interpretations. Ivashkin reads the slow pesante opening as a ‘vision of the future’, which soon
collapses ahead of the ‘real life’ moderato that follows (liner note to Chandos CHAN 9852).
Although it seems like an introduction, this passage acts as exposition, presenting the two main
themes of the movement and of the work: the upward arpeggio figure at the opening and the
turn motif at Fig. 2.
The developmental structure of the movement can be related to the first movement format
of many Shostakovich symphonies, with the melodic material continually refreshed and the
development processes accelerating towards the reprise (Kholopva & Chigareva 1990, 251). The
reprise, at Fig. 53, is cut short, and does not include the turn motif that has acted as the second
subject.The solo cello is not heard here: it has been ‘wiped off the surface of the music’ (Ivashkin
1996, 191). Schnittke explained, ‘there is no reprise, or rather, the form “fractures” [lomaetsiia] at
the reprise. Because the start of a reprise is at the limit of what could still be drawn, but any-
thing further is impossible. When I wrote it, I understood that this was sonata form, but after the
opening of the reprise, something else was necessary’ (Ivashkin 2003, 59).
The slow, quiet second movement appears as a subdued echo of the first. The arpeggio motif
has been replaced by a motif based on a descending semitone followed by a rising third, a cross
motif and a symbol of suffering. The movement traces the course of the first: gradually rising
in the cello part towards a statement of the turn motif at Fig. 61, followed by a reprisal of the
brass chorale from Fig. 9 at Fig. 64. Yet there is no architectonic form, and the first movement
motifs recur as echoes beneath the soloist’s almost continuous lyrical line, a ‘continuous stream of
human consciousness, tense, tormented, searching for truth’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 252).
The scherzo third movement opens with an unambiguous statement of the turn motif, ‘the
second subject from the first movement reappears, as if resurrected after a disaster at the end
of the first movement’ (Ivashkin 2003, 59). Yet ambiguity soon returns, with the identity of
the motif eroded, even as the emphatic march and waltz accompaniments continue beneath.
Chigareva hears the movement as a grotesque parody, progressing towards an impasse, where, in
desperation, the composer turns to irony, with thematic ideas from the earlier movements now
transformed into these march and dance forms.
A sense of resolution, absent from all the preceding movements, is apparent even from the
quiet, low opening of the fourth. A tonality of D minor clearly forms the basis of the repeating
melody and is firmly grounded in a D pedal from the double basses, which recurs throughout the
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movement. Ivashkin characterises the movement as a passacaglia, based on the recurring four-bar
theme, solo cello bar 9. Chigareva gives a compatible structural model of theme and variations,
with the four variations beginning at Figs. 100, 102, 106 and 109 (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990,
253). The theme is reminiscent of Orthodox Znamenny chant and offers sufficient thematic sta-
bility for the solo instrument finally to establish a distinct voice (Savenko 1990, 138, 141).
Although there is little dramatic tension, there is a mild conflict in the tonality, which moves
to the tonic major (D major) at Fig. 102 and C major at 106, where the pedal note moves from
D to C. An open-sounding compromise is reached in the coda, Fig. 111, where the pedal moves
back to D, while the harmony remains in a now modal C major. This gives a liturgical flavour to
the transcendent ending, emphasised by tubular bells.
From Fig. 102, Schnittke states that the solo cello should be amplified with a microphone, so
that it can float above the orchestra. This is necessary due to the balance between the soloist and
the large ensemble, but, according to Rozhdestvensky, is also symbolic of the role of modern
technology in the conception of new music:
[t]here are many works today that are not suitable for performance without tech-
nical means – modern technical equipment and a skilful sound engineer. For example,
Schnittke’s First Cello Concerto. It is impossible to perform without sound enhance-
ment. The way many composers, including Alfred, relate to their material, to the sound
in their heads, is inseparable from modern recording techniques … And I believe that
is not a miscalculation, but something quite deliberate.
The First Cello Concerto proved a significant personal victory for Schnittke over his
illness. And although the concerto speaks of a different temperament and altered artistic
outlook, it also signalled a continuation of the composer’s prodigious creativity. But,
where he hoped for continuity, the music instead suggests a new beginning, leading the
composer to lament after the first performance: ‘This is my opus one.’
(Kholopova 2003, 208)
Concerto for Piano Four Hands and Chamber Orchestra

The Concerto for Piano Four Hands and Chamber Orchestra was completed in 1988 and dedicated
to the pianists Victoria Postnikova and Irina Schnittke, who gave the premiere in Moscow. The
piece employs both serial techniques and tonal harmonies, yet the resulting musical language
is remarkably unified. The most radical aspect of the concerto is its form, a single movement
made up of five sections. Subtle thematic connections link the sections together, and unity is
also maintained through careful proportioning and pacing of the music. The composer said of
the concerto:
The idea of a concerto for four hands is not new, but it has been realised extremely
rarely. There are of course reasons for this – it is a thankless task to play a duet (with
each player disturbing the other) on one instrument. But it also has advantages – the
sound of the instrument becomes more richly layered and more extensive; so to speak,
the monologue of a double being. And this feeling, that somebody always ‘plays on’
(even if sometimes resting), influenced from the very beginning the sound illusion of
the double concerto during the process of composition.
(Köchel 1994, 98)
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Schnittke’s idea of a ‘monologue of a double being’ leads to a close but complex relationship
between the two soloists. In many passages, they play in rhythmic unison, but just as often,
they play separate but complementary lines: similar textures at different tempos, rapid imitation
between the parts, or a dominant line in one part accompanied by chordal or repetitive textures
in the other.
Stylistic allusions in the work are few and fleeting. An arpeggio figure, first heard at bar 57 hints
at the First Prelude of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, while a snare drum accompanied passage
from bar 177 suggests a march. But these are exceptions in a musical discourse that otherwise
coheres around a small set of thematic ideas. Two tone rows provide the basis of the work’s the-
matic structure.The first appears in the opening four bars as D–C♯–E♭–C–B–A♯–G–F–E–B♭–A,
and the second, in the left hand of the primo part at bar 89 as D♯–E–G–G♭–F–D–C♯–B–C–
B♭–E♭–A♭. Although neither is a strict 12-tone series, both are subject to serial procedures of
retrograde and inversion. The two intervals at the start of the first series, a descending semitone
followed by a rising tone, recur as a unifying motif between many of the melodic lines.
The result is a quasi-serial linear style, moving through small intervals and often employing
most or all pitch classes within a few bars. Harmonies are occasionally tonal, but more often
based on narrow clusters, dissonant chords or simple intervals moving in parallel stepwise
motion. Phrases gradually increase or decrease in volume and intensity, the result a progres-
sion through a series of emotionally ambiguous climaxes. These are never valedictory and often
deteriorate immediately, as in the aborted climax at bars 74–75 and the falling away after the
climax at bar 173.
Schnittke said that the rhapsodic structure was based on Liszt, ‘I turned to a form which I
(and also others after Liszt) have used on a number of occasions, a work consisting of several
movements in one movement, beginning and ending slowly and in between striving to depict
a world of sound full of contrast …’ (Köchel 1994, 98). This compound movement structure,
exemplified by Liszt’s B minor Piano Sonata, leads to a formal outline of five sections, or sub-
movements,16 beginning at bars 1, 129, 211, 337 and 460. The opening section seems like an
introduction, with quasi-liturgical bell sounds (from the tubular bells and vibraphone). However,
this first section is the exposition, presenting the two rows as well as recurring textural ideas.The
division of the following four sections is articulated both through the dramatic outline and the
relative prominence of the two series in each. The section bars 129–210 has equal, but tenuous
links to both series.The section bars 211–336 is based on the second series, while the section bars
337–459 is based on the first. The final section, from bar 460, creates a cyclical closure through
reminiscences of the opening section, particularly the bell sounds.The Bach-like theme from bar
57 recurs, transposed, at bar 460, and bar 466 has the indication a tempo (the only tempo marking
Schnittke gives in the entire work). The final phrases are ambiguous, with the strings ascending
to the highest register, where they are joined by the pianists in a pianissimo chord of stacked major
sevenths – an attempt at transcendence, but one that ultimately proves futile.
Monologue for Viola and Strings

Like the Viola Concerto four years earlier, the Monologue for Viola and Strings was written for Yuri
Bashmet. One copy of the manuscript in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive includes a dedica-
tion to both Bashmet and Johannes Wasmuth, organiser of the Bashmet Festival in Rolandseck.
Wasmuth’s name does not appear in the Sikorski first edition, and Irina Schnittke believes that
the composer decided to dedicate the work solely to Bashmet prior to that publication. The
work is in a single movement of around 18 minutes and, despite the paradoxical title, displays
many of the concertante features also found in the Viola Concerto.
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Schnittke described the Monologue as ‘a movement that develops almost strictly in sonata form,
actually a monologue for the soloist. But at the same time it only has the semblance of the nature
of a solo, as always voices and events from outside affect the lonely world of the viola monologue’
(Wagner 1999, 89). The sonata form is initially clear, although the formal contrasts later become
less defined. The structure can be interpreted as: first subject – Fig. 4; second subject – Fig. 12;
development – bar 113; recapitulation – Fig. 17; first subject – Fig. 18; second subject – Fig. 22;
Coda – Fig. 29.
The work draws heavily on the Viola Concerto, and both open with quiet viola solos, the
orchestral strings ghosting the individual notes then holding them to form dissonant harmonies.
The broad arpeggio figures and repeated double-stopped notes that characterise the solo part
of the concerto’s second movement are also used here to dramatic effect, and the main theme
of the Monologue, Fig. 4, bears a passing similarity to the burlesque episode from Fig. 17 of the
concerto’s second movement (see Examples 5.27 and 5.28). Both also end quietly, the coda of
each work recalling the opening.
Although the viola is accompanied almost throughout, a sense of inwardness, of ‘lonely …
monologue’, is continually expressed through its solo line. For example, the second half of the
first phrase, bars 3–4, is a chromatic inversion of the first half, and the following growth of the
line is countered from bar 12 by a double-stopping effect in which the upper line descends and
the lower line ascends to meet it. The accompanying textures are almost all homophonic and in
rhythmic unison. Schnittke’s idea of ‘events from the outside’ affecting the viola’s monologue is
apparent from the interplay between soloist and ensemble from Fig. 6. Also, the second subject
is a chorale in the lower strings, to which the viola responds, but when the theme is reprised, at
Fig. 22, the viola’s response is completely different.
A disparity is felt between the relatively strict adherence to sonata form and the continuity
of the melodic line, which acknowledges the required contrasts, yet opposes the tensions of the
form. The solo line is reflective rather than dynamic, and the accompaniment is gently sup-
portive rather than confrontational.The result feels like a distant memory of the concerto, equally
expressive, if less dramatic and on a smaller scale.
Cello Concerto No. 2

The Cello Concerto No. 2 was written for Mstislav Rostropovich in 1989–1990. It is clearly
modelled on the First, especially in its structure. Chigareva argues that both concertos can be
heard as five-movement structures, owing to the independence of the introduction to the Cello
Concerto No. 1 (Chigareva 2017, 185). In both works, the structure plays out as: short introduc-
tion, dramatic opening movement, slow movement, fast movement, slow chorale-based finale.
The dominance of both final movements supports this reading, as does the structural significance
of chorales.
But the Cello Concerto No. 2 goes further than the Cello Concerto No. 1 in its use of these
musical devices, and to different expressive ends. Schnittke described the Cello Concerto No. 2 as
‘tougher’ than the Cello Concerto No. 1 (Ivashkin 2003, 159), and the music has more dissonance
and greater internal tension. The final movement of the Cello Concerto No. 1 is in D minor, but
the finale of the Cello Concerto No. 2 is in C minor, a key Schnittke associated with loneliness and
suffering (Piano Quintet, Faust Cantata).
Another idea from the Cello Concerto No. 1 that is expanded in the Cello Concerto No. 2 is the
inclusion of ethereal episodes,‘unreal’ interludes.These episodes take the form of ghostly chorales
(movement II, Fig. 17), spectral harpsichord interjections (movement III, Fig. 10) and dissonant
woodwind calls (movement IV, opening). A conflict between these ‘unreal’ elements and more
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Example 5.29 Cello Concerto No. 2 (a) movement I, bars 22–28 (solo cello only); (b) movement II,
ending, from bar 329 (solo cello only); (c) movement III, ending, from bar 122; (d) movement IV, ending,
from bar 18
grounded means of expression is apparent throughout the work. As in most of Schnittke’s music,
phrases end ambiguously, but that ambiguity is increased by the use of upward glissandos in the
solo cello, as if the music is simply evaporating. This idea is first heard at bar 18 (anticipated by
a similar upward timpani glissando in bar 12) and goes on to become the closing gesture for the
second, third and fourth movements (see Example 5.29).
The relationship between the soloist and the orchestra plays out as a similar process of struggle
and resistance. Chigareva writes of the opening, ‘there are three elements: the introductory dec-
laration of the leitmotif on solo cello, an obstacle against which it collides, and a break’ (Chigareva
2017, 185). This becomes the model for the entire concerto, the solo cellist, unaccompanied in
this bold thematic statement, is suddenly subsumed as the orchestra enters, with dissonant brass
chords at bar 8 that render the continuing solo line inaudible.
The opening motif, A4 descending to D♯4, then ascending to G♯4 then B4, suggests a cross
motif, and the first two notes also spell Schnittke’s initials – A, E♭. But Schnittke identified
another source. When asked if the opening was a deliberate reference to Shostakovich’s Cello
Concerto No. 1, Schnittke replied cryptically, ‘this is the interpretation of symbols given to me by
the poet Alexei Moroz (who lives in Moscow). He gave me this set of letters from his poems. He
just showed me poems, and I was interested in this specific set of letters’ (Ivashkin 2003, 159).
After the assertive opening statement, the theme later appears as ghostly, ‘unreal’ recollections,
at Fig. 16 in the second movement and Fig. 23 in the fifth. Another important recurring theme
is the trombone chorale at Fig. 4. This also appears in the second and fifth movements, and
anticipates the passacaglia theme of the fifth: the opening notes – B, A♯, B, C – the rising
semitones A♯, B, C mirroring the chromatic descent of the passacaglia’s second phrase.
As in the Cello Concerto No. 1, a suppressed polystylism is occasionally felt. The passage at
Fig. 15 in the second movement is a Bergian Viennese waltz. The sense of ironic distance and
faded memory here is compounded by a sul ponticello recollection of the opening theme, directly
following at Fig. 16, and of the first-movement trombone chorale at Fig. 17.
The Lento third movement is a single arc of melody, with the cello playing almost continu-
ously. A simple ternary form is suggested by the return of the opening theme at Fig. 16. But,
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as Chigareva points out, this slow movement is more complex than that of the First Concerto:
‘vividly expressive, emotionally raw, full of dynamic and timbral contrasts’ (Chigareva 2017,
186), including several instances to the obstacle and break pattern. Orchestral instruments often
shadow the cello: the double bass (Fig. 8), vibraphone (Fig. 11), bass clarinet (Fig. 13) and harp-
sichord (Fig. 14). The accompanying instruments follow the cello in canon, but the harpsichord
and vibraphone play the cello line in retrograde, further emphasising the sense of opposition.
Ivashkin writes that the sense of instrumental dualism ‘brings us to a point where nothing is
straightforward and everything is doubtful and has two meanings’ (Ivashkin 2009, 28).
The penultimate movement, Allegretto vivo, acts as a false finale, hinting at summation but not
closure. Tensions are apparent from the moto perpetuo opening, especially between the soloist and
ensemble, a ‘confrontation between a hero and a mob’ (Ivashkin 2009, 28). The growing sense of
disorder reaches a crisis around Fig. 18. Four bars before, the solo cello intones, ff, a version of the
opening motif in which the intervals are expanded almost beyond recognition: A4 down to D♯4,
then up to G♯4 and B4 becomes B4 down to C4 then up to F♯4 and D5, then, at 5 after Fig. 18, B4,
C4, F4, E5.Then the cello is engulfed in a huge orchestral tutti, drowned out even though playing fff.
The finale is a passacaglia. The theme is taken from Schnittke’s music for the Elem Klimov
film Agony. The passacaglia theme is harmonised in a clear C minor, creating stability, even
though most of the diatonic harmonies include additional notes.The 26 repetitions of the theme
also maintain a continuity, despite the increasingly dense orchestral textures and the erratically
expressive solo line. Chigareva identifies the music up to Fig. 10 as exposition, ‘a gradual reve-
lation of the theme’s potential as it is passed from instrument to instrument (trombones, French
horns, trumpets, solo cello, celesta, piano, harpsichord)’ (Chigareva 2017, 187). But from Fig. 10,
the orchestral textures are increasingly saturated with canons, presenting the passacaglia theme in
different rhythmic values and also in inversion. At Fig. 17, the tuba introduces a new version of
the theme, in which the constituent intervals are expanded to fourths and sevenths, and this new
version is then passed around the orchestra in tandem with the original.
The climax, at Fig. 21, is dominated by the brass, playing the passacaglia theme in three
different keys simultaneously, although excluding the home key of C minor. The cello plays a
wildly gesticulating line, ranging across the fingerboard fff, yet is completely inaudible – unlike
in the Cello Concerto No. 1, no electronic amplification is stipulated. The effect resembles the
cadenza visuale in the Violin Concerto No. 4, but the message here is more sinister: the soloist ‘is
completely inaudible and practically “killed” by the massive, brutal orchestra’ (Ivashkin, liner note
to Chandos CHAN 9722).
Salvation is at hand, and a transcendental coda follows, from Fig. 22, yet the mood remains
subdued and the cello’s escape from the oppression of the orchestra never feels complete. The
massive, held string fff dissonance gradually diminuendos, revealing the continuing passacaglia
theme, along with the concerto’s opening theme, in the vibraphone followed by the harpsichord
and celesta, the bells and finally the harp. And, as a final gesture, the cello reaches up into its
highest register, the phrase opening with the first-movement chorale, and the following ascent
grounded by an open C2 double-stopped beneath. The orchestra subsides, and finally acts to
support the cello. As Schnittke described ‘the fading sound of the orchestra guides this clock-like
mechanism of life towards an unheard eternal movement’ (Chigareva 2017, 189).

The Concerto Grosso No. 5 was one of 13 works commissioned to commemorate the centenary of
Carnegie Hall in 1991. Almost all the others were by American and British composers; the only
other exception was Takemitsu’s From me flows what you call time. Also, the commission stipulated a
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concerto grosso, yet only one other commissioned work was in a generic form, the Violin Sonata
by Anthony Davis.
Schnittke’s long-standing champion Gidon Kremer was stipulated as the soloist, but in several
other respects, the composer appears to have been uneasy with the terms of the commission.
The work he produced is a concerto grosso almost in name only, with few Baroque stylings and
a second concertante instrument, the piano, only playing briefly at the ends of movements, and
from off-stage. Four years after the premiere, Schnittke removed the piano from the official title
of the work, further moving it toward the status of violin concerto.
The work was written for the Cleveland Orchestra, and so employs a large, modern orchestra.
The only concession to Baroque instrumentation is the harpsichord, providing quasi-continuo
accompaniment to many solo passages. The violin plays almost continuously throughout, and
there is little sense of ritornello interchange between solo and tutti. The four movements all
follow a common pattern, beginning with unaccompanied violin and ending with the offstage
piano. Schnittke’s own description of the work was uncharacteristically nebulous (Köchel 1994,
102–103). He talks of the concerto grosso as a ‘form that already appears dead, but that came
back to life and now undergoes a new development’ adding that, when Carnegie Hall first
opened, the form did not appear to be viable.
Schnittke said that one of his tasks was to ‘grasp the meaning of the current epoch’. This,
combined with the improbable rebirth of the genre, leads to a formal concept (Formkonzept)
based on the course of the year, in which the work’s four movements represent spring, summer,
autumn and winter. The first three movements gradually increase in speed, with the ‘winter’
fourth movement a ‘concluding petrification’. This movement structure follows Shostakovich’s
Symphony No. 6 and would later return in Schnittke’s Symphony No. 9.
Gordon E. Marsh describes the Concerto Grosso No. 5 as a soundscape which ‘obsessively explores
ways to add density until the total texture-space is filled in’ (Marsh 2017, 131–32). The opening
bars present a theme with two elements, a turn figure in adjacent semitones and in compound
time, followed by an arpeggiated motif on stacked fourths. The two ideas alternate and interact
throughout the work, the turn (often double-stopped by the soloist in parallel intervals) consoli-
dating the thematic identity, and the arpeggios (the fourths often becoming sevenths) eroding
it. The solo violin begins each of the first three movements with a variant on the turn motif
(see Example 5.30 – the final movement is also introduced with a violin cadenza, but less closely
related), but the orchestral textures that follow in each case serve to erode that identity while filling
in the texture-space. The piano interjections conclude this process, although the interjections are
increasingly positive, evolving from the simple cluster that closes the first movement to an ele-
gant melodic line at the end of the fourth. This brief coda counters the thematic erosion and
contains elements of both the stepwise movement and the larger intervals from the opening
theme. Eventually, the piano line descends to the lowest reaches of the keyboard, and the final
gesture is a transcendent, if irregular, upward glissando by the solo violin, the point of exchange
between the two instruments marked by a cluster spelling out the B–A–C–H monogram.

One of Schnittke’s very last works, the Concerto Grosso No. 6 was written for the pianist
Viktoria Postnikova, who gave the premiere with her son and husband, Alexander and Gennady
Rozhdestvensky, in Moscow in 1994. At 15 minutes, it is only half the length of any of the pre-
ceding concerti grossi and employs an orchestra only of strings.
The most obvious model is the Concerto Grosso No. 5, also written for violin and piano soloists,
although here the roles are reversed, with the piano predominating. In the first movement, the
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Example 5.30 Concerto Grosso No. 5 (a) opening; (b) movement II, opening; (c) movement III, opening
piano plays with the strings, the second is for piano and violin, and only in the third do both
soloists and ensemble play together. As in the Fifth, Baroque models are all but ignored, and the
work instead coheres around a small group of recurring musical ideas.
The concerto opens with a seven-bar unaccompanied piano solo, the motto for the entire
work. The diminished seventh opening chord becomes the defining sonority, and the rising bass
figure – F, G♭, A♭, B♭, B – the basis of the most of the melodic material.
The centrality of this motif is clear from Fig. 1, where the piano plays a repeating figure
based on the diminished seventh chord followed by a two-part texture based on the scalar bass
figure, both employing the original pitch classes untransposed. Christoph Wechselberger argues
that the structure of the first movement is based on a Beethovenian sonata form model and
that the work is closer in structure to a three-movement Classical-era sonata than a Baroque
concerto grosso. The opening piano solo is the adagio introduction, but it also contains all the
thematic material, of which the first and second subjects, Figs. 1 and 2, are merely the ini-
tial developments. Even so, these ideas are reprised at Figs. 11 and 13, and followed by a long,
Beethovenian coda (Wechselberger 2013, 55–58).
The start of the second movement reprises the opening motto but interpolates a violin phrase.
The opening notes of this line (the first notes the violin plays) are a monogram based on the
name of the intended soloist, AlExanDer roSCHDESdestvenski=A, E, D, E♭, C, B, D♭ (spelled
as C♯) (Segall 2013b, 275). The notes of the answering phrase – B♭, A♭, G♭, F, E – are the com-
plement of the monogram set, excluding G, which is provided immediately before in the piano.
This suggests the opening motto was formulated to accommodate the monogram, especially as
the answering phrase contains the same notes as the motto’s rising bass figure. But the monogram
also introduces new material for the second movement, and in the brief interplay that follows,
both instruments make extensive use of the fourth and seventh at the start of the monogram,
before the opening violin phrase returns in its entirety to end the movement.
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The final movement is faster, but the opening textures are closely related to those of the first.
The following music is more texturally varied, suggesting some context for the much-repeated
ideas. At Fig. 4, the strings attempt to resolve the first movement’s diminished seventh chord,
into a chord that is more dissonant but that is clearly based on B major/minor. The violin line
incorporates the intervals of the monogram (sevenths and fourths), the scale passages common
to both the monogram and the opening formula, and the rising arpeggio idea with a repeated
second note, until now confined to accompanying textures. This equal distribution of material
gives the impression of the soloists and ensemble interacting as equal partners, an idea supported
by the coda, which first revisits the opening seven-bar motto on the piano, then the monogram-
based violin theme from the opening of the second movement, before concluding with a com-
plex 10-note tutti chord, expanded from the piano sonority in bar 3.
Concerto for Three

Concerto for Three was written in 1994, in response to a commission from Mstislav Rostropovich,
funded by the London Symphony Orchestra, to celebrate the composer’s 60th birthday. Schnittke’s
third stroke later that year interrupted preparations for the work’s publication, leaving the score
with few tempo or dynamic indications.
The intended soloists were Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Rostropovich, the performers
‘who play my music most’ (Schnittke 2002, vii).The Russian title, Kontsert na troikh, is an untrans-
latable pun. ‘Na troikh’, a note in the Sikorski score explains, ‘may also be construed as three
people finishing off the contents of a bottle’. Schnittke also suggested a subtitle ‘Rostropovich
will provide’, another pun, the cellist organising the commission but also supplying the vodka
(Schnittke 2002, vii fn).
Rostropovich was clearly amused by the joke, recounting it in his Foreword to A Schnittke
Reader. Kremer had reservations, mentioned in the Kommersant review of the premiere in
Moscow (Pospelov 1994); his concern was presumably that it was at odds with the serious mood
of the music. The work is in Schnittke’s austere late style, and the economy of means is apparent
in the size of the conductorless ensemble, three each of first and second violins, violas and cellos,
and one double bass. The orchestral sections shadow their respective soloists, with the first three
movements solos for the cello, viola and violin respectively, and the ensemble building up from
one movement to the next, initially just double bass and cellos, then violas added in the second
movement and violins in the third.
The first movement is based on the opening turn motif and an upward stepwise progression,
presented as a 12-tone row at Fig. 2, but later only in fragmentary form. Neither theme retains
its motivic identity, the turn gradually expanding in both note values and intervals, and the
stepwise figure becoming increasingly fragmentary. Following the exposition of the two ideas,
the movement follows a loose binary form, with the arpeggio textures at Fig. 10, the minor
sevenths at Fig. 30 and the double-stopped triplet crotchets at Fig. 21 returning at Figs. 25, 30
and 36.
The second movement, for viola (editorial marking larghetto), also expands gradually from
narrow intervals. And, as in the first movement (at Fig. 10) it makes fleeting use of diatonic
harmonies (Fig. 3). The movement is structured as a series of build-ups to climaxes about every
20 bars: bars 21, 44, 63, 79. The third movement, a largo for violin, has a clear ternary form,
the opening returning at Fig. 6, followed by a coda (bar 53) based on Fig. 4 in retrograde. The
movement ends with an unambiguous B–A–C–H monogram in the solo part.
The fourth movement (editorial marking allegro) acts as a brief summation. The double bass,
a continuous presence up until here, falls away, and the soloists and their respective ensembles
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Figure 5.8 Sketch for the Minuet associated with Concerto for Three
are introduced one by one, again appearing from the bottom up: cello, viola, violin. As a closing
gesture, a piano, performs a cluster, silencing the ensemble. The piano’s notated cluster has an F2
as its lowest note, reflecting the F major/minor tonality of the movement. This harks back to the
first movement of the Concerto Grosso No. 5, which ends in a similar way. In the first performance,
the piano cluster was performed by Mikhail Pletnev, who had conducted the rest of the concert
and returned to the stage for this single gesture (Pospelov 1994).
A Minuet for the three solo instruments is associated with the concerto. Schnittke originally
intended the Minuet to form the final movement but decided to include it in the published score
‘as if it were an encore’ (editorial note in Sikorski score). A sketch for the Minuet (photocopy
held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive) shows Schnittke was experimenting with monograms:
Mstislav Rostropovich = E♭, A, E♭, C;Yuri Baschmet = B♭, A, E♭, C, B, E; Gidon Kremer = G, D, E,
E; and with ways to combine them into a single unit (see Figure 5.8). The only clear monogram
in the concerto or Minuet is Kremer’s G, D, E, E (also used in the Fourth Violin Concerto), which
appears at the start of the third movement and provides the melodic contour for the music that
follows, as well as returning at Fig. 6 in the second violins. Traces of the other monograms are
evident elsewhere: in the second movement, at Fig. 4, the E♭, C, B of the Bashmet monogram
appears in the solo viola part, the entire monogram appears at Fig. 10, interpolated over four bars
and the opening B♭, A is heard in the double bass at bars 3–5, as well as in the solo part at bars
44, 51 and 84–85.
The monograms make similarly tenuous appearances in the Minuet. The E♭, A, C of the
Rostropovich monogram appears as the first notes of the cello’s upper line bars 30–32. The B♭,
A of the Bashmet monogram appears in the middle viola part at bar 27. And the Kremer mono-
gram appears in bars 52–53, both in the lower violin part and distributed between the three
instruments. The open G, D also recurs double-stopped throughout the cello part. Schnittke
suffered a stroke before completing the Minuet (although, unlike in the concerto, he did include
dynamic markings). In the autograph, the music stops at bar 40, and is followed by several lines
of empty staves – clearly intended for an unwritten transition – before the final 16 bars appear
at the bottom of the page. The three performers decided to repeat the last eight bars, make the
accompaniment pizzicato the second time and to add a resolution in C minor in the cello part,
changes the composer later endorsed (typewritten note held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive).
Despite Schnittke’s reluctance to link the Minuet directly with the concerto, its inclusion offers
a valuable perspective on the preceding music. Susan Bradshaw writes that, ‘With hindsight, the
Concerto imparts a valedictory purpose that is openly expressed in the Menuett …’ (Bradshaw
2001, 27). And despite the Minuet’s relative tonal conformity, Rostropovich highlighted how its
expression lies in the continuous ‘wrong’ notes: ‘The music may remind you of Lully, but it has
to be put in one key. Each instrumentalist plays a beautiful melody. But the chords that form the
harmonies always sound inappropriate. The three players, with the exception of the one playing
the melody, seem to have gone wrong and lost each other. This is precisely where the beauty
lies …’ (Schnittke 2002, xii–xiii).
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Viola Concerto No. 2

This score is one of several that were found among Schnittke’s papers after his death. The hand-
writing resembles that of the Symphony No. 9 manuscript and the two works are similar in style.
Ivashkin dates the work to 1996–1998. As with the symphony, Schnittke wrote the concerto
with his left hand and, while the score is complete, it will need similar decipherment if it is ever
to be performed.
The score is made up of 26 numbered A3 pages. The work is in a single movement of around
650 bars, perhaps 15–20 minutes duration. Ivashkin describes the work as a ‘Piece for Viola and
Orchestra’ (Schnittke 2002, xxv), rather than a concerto.The interactions of soloist and ensemble
suggest a concerto model, although the solo part has little virtuosic flare, with no double-
stopping, extended techniques or bravura effects. It is not clear if any further movements were
intended, although the substantial duration and the conclusive coda suggest none were planned.
The score only gives the notes, with no articulations, dynamics, tempo or performance
directions. The only words written on the manuscript are ‘KLAVIER’ above the first line,
presumably to indicate that the piano is playing here, and Schnittke’s name on the last page.
Instrument names are given as German initials, as in the Symphony No. 9. The work calls for a
chamber orchestra of single woodwinds, two horns, trumpet, trombone, piano, possibly harp,
timpani and strings.
Like the Symphony, No. 9 the concerto is monothematic, the theme rising in large steps and
then descending by scale. But the interval and rhythmic structure change constantly (both are
difficult to decipher, especially pitch).The work opens with a typical Schnittke device, an isolated
statement of the main theme from the soloist, accompanied by a held pedal in the piano. The
melodic lines are long and made up of stepwise movement, although the irregular accidentals
continually compromise any tonal or modal identity. The orchestral writing soon becomes more
intricate, and although the lines are mostly made up of this regular scalar movement, they interact
in complex counterpoint, usually within the strings or winds, the two sections mostly kept
separate.
The work has a broad ternary structure, possibly modelled on sonata form, although without
clear thematic contrasts. A pause in the last system of p. 9, the first break in the otherwise con-
tinuous flow of music, suggests the end of the exposition. The more rhythmically complex and
contrapuntal music that follows implies development – the first phrase employs Schnittke stretto
in the string section. The recapitulation begins in the last system of p. 21, where an emphatic
theme in the solo viola and woodwinds is accompanied by isolated cluster chords in the strings,
an unusual texture in the music’s otherwise legato flow. The coda begins in the second system
of bar 24. In the final pages, the woodwinds continue their contrapuntal interaction with the
soloist, while the strings move to held cluster sonorities. The work ends with the viola holding a
long middle C, while the strings play a series of, presumably quiet, clusters and the timpani and
piano (or possibly harp) play a repeating-note figure. The ending is therefore very similar to that
of the Symphony No. 9.
Other orchestral works
Poem about Space

Poem about Space (Poema o kosmose) was written in 1961 to a commission from the Ministry of
Culture to commemorate the first space flight by Yuri Gagarin. Schnittke also submitted the
score in application to join the Composers’ Union. The application was successful, but the work
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was never performed. Schnittke was still a postgraduate student at the time of the composition,
and later distanced himself from the piece, requesting that it be omitted from his works list, drawn
up by Ivashkin, and even from the ‘Early and Incomplete Works’ section (Ivashkin 2003, 293fn).
As in the earlier Nagasaki oratorio, Poem about Space includes both tonal, melodic sections and
more experimental passages. The outer sections include parts for three electronic instruments:
ekvadin, campanolla and theremin. There is also an alternative version, with these instruments
omitted.17 The work can be read as a tone poem recounting Gagarin’s space flight, with these
outer sections a representation of space, the void before and after man’s conquest.
Gagarin’s space flight is outlined by the structure, an arch form. Schnittke described the work
as a ‘compressed cycle: a slow introduction and conclusion, with an Allegro section between and
a slow episode at the centre’ (Shulgin 2004, 36). Although each reprise is varied, the themes and
tempo markings give the following structure:
A- Andantino
B-Fig. 8, Maestoso
C-Fig. 10, Allegro
D-Fig. 24, Quasi Andante – the slow central episode
C-Fig. 28, Allegro
B-Fig. 53 Maestoso
A-Fig. 56 Tempo initiale
Schnittke contrasts the nebulous ‘cosmos’ music of the opening, which is based on circling, atonal
motifs using small intervals, with the strident main themes of the Maestoso and Allegro sections,
which open with upward arpeggios. The central Quasi Andante is based on scales rather than
arpeggios, but is similarly tonal and ascendant.
Several features of Schnittke’s later music are evident in the score. He uses parallel inversion,
where the bass mirrors the top line in chromatic inversion – a technique much used in the
Symphony No. 2 – 2 bars after Fig. 53. There are also several instances of Schnittke stretto, most
significantly at Fig. 46.This may be the first of Schnittke’s scores to employ celesta.Textural build-
ups based on the gradual accumulation of repeating motifs, an idea used extensively in Passacaglia
and Symphony No. 3, form the basis of the nebulous outer sections. The harmonies in the faster
sections are often based on stacked intervals, a common feature of Schnittke’s early music (for
example, the Nagasaki oratorio), but the outer sections instead employ the higher partials of the
overtone series. This is clearly evident at the end of the work, from Fig. 60, a gradually accumu-
lating harmony based on the harmonic series of C. The idea was inspired by the tonal spectra of
the electronic instruments employed, which emphasise the upper partials. Schnittke points out
that the idea is also used in the finale of the Symphony No. 1 (Shulgin 2004, 36). It would become
even more significant in the first movement of the Symphony No. 3, there as here used to signify
nature, although in more terrestrial form than in this representation of the cosmos.
Music for Chamber Orchestra

Music for Chamber Orchestra was composed in 1964, the same year as Music for Piano and Chamber
Orchestra. Both works take a highly experimental approach to serial technique, but the experiments
in the two cases are very different. In Music for Chamber Orchestra, Schnittke’s primary concern
is the application of serial techniques to parameters other than pitch, particularly rhythm, an
idea he relates to Boulez’ Structures (Shulgin 2004, 40). Schnittke’s most radical departure from
Boulez’ model is to base the work around the number 13. This proves problematic for the serial
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Figure 5.9 Music for Chamber Orchestra, Opening as represented in the sketches
Example 5.31 Music for Chamber Orchestra, opening
ordering of pitches, but less so in its application to phrasing, instrumental structuring and even
tempo relationships.
The work is written for 13 instruments and is in four movements. The first three movements
are short and connected attacca, the first for strings only, the second for winds, the third for
percussion and keyboards. The fourth movement is more substantial, bringing together all the
instrumental sections.
Compositional sketches at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive show Schnittke working with a
basic (13-note) set, from which he also derives a rhythm series (see Figure 5.9). At the opening,
the series is arranged vertically to give the pitches in each part (see Example 5.31). The first five
pitches of the series are assigned to violin I, violin II, viola, cello and bass respectively, pitches
6–10 give each of their second notes, etc. Schnittke applies the durations series in a similar ver-
tical fashion.This, in theory, could associate a specific duration to each pitch class, as in Messiaen’s
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Mode de valeurs et d’intensités, but Schnittke only uses the first 12 terms for the pitch sequence
(as there are only 12 pitch classes), and all 13 for the duration sequence, so they soon move out
of phase.
Where the first movement uses the series to determine the duration of each note, in the
second, the woodwind and brass movement, all notes are semiquavers, and the number of notes
in each phrase is determined the same way. Tempos in this movement are organised according to
the series, and accordingly, 13 distinct metronome markings are given.The short third movement
is written for percussion, celesta (Schnittke recommends amplification) and piano. Schnittke
reports that some of the rhythms here are not serially organised (Shulgin 2004, 40), presumably
the tremolo in the piano, a trivial concession that demonstrates the rigour of the serial thinking
elsewhere.
In the finale, the overall structure is organised according to the number 13, with the clearly
distinct phrases denoted by 13 rehearsal marks. The textural density (numbers of instruments) as
well as the numbers of notes in each phrase are organised according to the series.The movement
acts as a culmination, bringing together all of the instrumental groups that had previously
performed separately. Schnittke clearly also intended it as a revelation of the underlying serial
structure, as, for the first time in the work, the series is presented as a horizontal, rather than
‘verticalised’, tone row. In keeping with this spirit of revelation, the series is now presented as 13
pitches (where it had been 12 in all previous applications to pitch), simply by repeating the first
pitch class at the end. Its newly revealed identity is further emphasised by having it presented
in prime form in all 12 transpositions, although one of these is only implied as it is played by
untuned percussion. Peter J. Schmelz gives a detailed analysis of the fourth movement (Schmelz
2009c, 234–41). He notes that the series is gradually revealed, only appearing complete in the
first violin at the very end, as: F, E, C♯, D♯, G, D, G♯, A, C, B♭, G♭, B, F. Schmelz points out that to
describe this as the prime form is arbitrary (Schmelz 2009c, 240 fn), given its concealed nature
earlier in the work. That point is underlined by the fact that this form is a transposed inversion
(I11) of the series as Schnittke wrote it in the sketches (see Figure 5.9) and used it to relate the
pitches to the rhythms.
Music for Chamber Orchestra was first performed in Leipzig in 1967, but Schnittke was not
pleased with the results, and immediately distanced himself from the score (Ivashkin 2003, 81).
When Ivashkin came to draw up a composition list in consultation with the composer, this work
was relegated to the ‘Early and Incomplete’ appendix. Nevertheless, the experiments here proved
influential for some of Schnittke’s later serial works, particularly pianissimo….
pianissimo…
pianissimo… for large orchestra was written commissioned by the Donaueschinger Musiktage
festival and premiered there in 1969. The work represents Schnittke’s most sophisticated engage-
ment with the Western avant-garde, in line with the ethos of the festival, one of the most
important institutions for German musical Modernism at the time.
The work bears a strong resemblance to Ligeti’s Atmosphères, another Donaueschingen
commission from eight years earlier. At the time of pianissimo…, Schnittke had studied Ligeti’s
music, and Ligeti had sent Schnittke several of his scores, but he was not yet aware of either
Atmosphères or the similarly textured Lontano (1967). Schnittke later described the similarities
as ‘purely external’, saying that pianissimo… is more like a quartet with ‘stratified unisons’ and
clusters as the individual parts (Shulgin 2004, 26).
Where Atmosphères is essentially static (Schnittke described it as ‘an outwardly motionless
cloud of sound …’ (Schnittke 2002, 149)) the textures in pianissimo… expand and grow, its
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rhythms contracting as the pitch intervals, and later dynamics, increase. Yet the compositional
techniques are similar to Ligeti’s, with the surface level ‘neutralised’ by the application of rigorous,
in his case serial, techniques, the result a paradox of stasis and dynamism.
The inspiration for pianissimo… came from ‘In the Penal Colony’, a short story by Franz Kafka.
In it, an unnamed man visits a prison camp and is told of an execution machine, which, over
12 hours, inscribes the prisoner’s crime many times onto his body. As Schnittke describes, ‘The
plate continuously moves and vibrates in different directions, causing a very complex pattern
on the skin of the convict – first on one side of the body, and six hours later on the other. The
offender, at first, perceives this as senseless torture, and then he begins to understand that there
is regularity and meaning in it – the figure itself is a tangle of a huge number of variants of the
same thing, namely the law that the prisoner has violated’ (Shulgin 2004, 54–55).
Schnittke concedes the significance of the number 12 – the hours of the ordeal – and the
number plays a crucial role in the music’s structure: as well as the 12-note serialism (also applied
to durations) each of the orchestral groups – woodwind, brass, percussion/keyboards (including
possibly Schnittke’s first use of electric guitar) and strings – is made up of 12 players, and the
work is structured as a series of 12 variations. However, Schnittke also cautions that ‘there is no
programme in the piece directly related to the story; there is only the idea of the multiple repe-
tition of the same structure, and its clarification at the end’ (Shulgin 2004, 55).
The serial techniques are derived from Boulez – Schnittke cites Structures – but are even more
complex. The processes are explained in an appendix in Kholopova & Chigareva 1990 (317–19),
undoubtedly a result of conversations with the composer himself.
The work is based on a series – C♯, A, B♭, E♭, C, D, F♯, E, B, F, A♭, G – which is expanded
into two matrices, as in Boulez’ Structure Ia (see Figure 5.10). The first matrix determines pitch,
the second, which is derived from the inversion of the series, the rhythms. But unlike in Boulez,
the numbers here do not refer directly to pitch classes. Instead, Schnittke employs an unrelated
‘auxiliary’ series, structured as a regular pitch wedge around the first term, F♯: 1 – F♯; 2 – G; 3 –
F; 4 – A♭; 5 – E; 6 – A; 7 – E♭; 8 – B♭; 9 – D; 10 – B; 11 – C♯, 12 – C. Initially (the system soon
changes), the numbers in the pitch matrix refer to the sequence positions in the auxiliary series.
Figure 5.10 pianissimo… Pitch (left) and Rhythm (right) Matrices18
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Example 5.32 pianissimo…, opening
Example 5.32 shows the first page of the score.The pitches of the 12 violin parts are determined
by the 12 rows of the pitch matrix, beginning from a chromatic cluster C♯4–C5.The top violin line
begins on C, which is the 12th term of the auxiliary series, and so it follows the second line of the
matrix, as that begins on 12. Rhythms are determined by the second matrix, without mediation,
although the precision is compromised by the proportional notation. The top violin line derives
from the second line of the rhythm matrix, the note durations describing the sequence 1, 5, 4, 11,
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2, 12… Another mathematical formula is used to determine the expanding phrase lengths. This is
based on the algorithm: 12; 12 + 1 = 13; 13 + 2 = 15; 15 + 3 = 18, etc.This sequence is applied ver-
tically (simultaneously to the different instruments of the same group) and horizontally (from one
phrase to the next). Its vertical application is apparent in Example 5.32 from the phrase markings
under each of the violin lines, which, when read from top to bottom give the 12, 13, 15, 18 sequence.
The complexity of the system soon increases. Schnittke describes the work as ‘a series of 12
intertwined variations, in which the structural projections of the series are related to a constantly
expanding tonal space, ranging from the chromatic scale through wholetone and thirds and
fourths scales to an octave scale’ (Köchel 1994, 105). So, in the second section the same matrix
operations are employed, but to a pitch space made up of wholetones. This can be seen in the
violas in Example 5.32. The pitch sequences of the four voices begin:
Va I: D♯, B, B, F
Va II: C♯, A, C♯, D♯
Va II: B, G, E♭, D♭
Va IV: A, F, F, B
This maps on to the opening pitches of the violin parts II–V: the intervals between the first
pitches of each line have grown from descending semitones to descending tones, while the
intervals of the horizontal sequences have also doubled. The viola I line doubles the interval
sequence of the violin II: violin II (in semitones) two descending, six descending, nine ascending;
viola I 4 descending, 12 descending, 18 ascending. The same relationship is apparent between
violin III and viola II, violin IV and viola III, and violin V and viola IV.
Schnittke gave conflicting accounts of the number of variations, telling Shulgin that the
intervals grow in semitone steps up to the octave (Shulgin 2004, 55) but saying elsewhere (pre-
sumably in a public lecture transcribed by A. E. Petrova (Schnittke 2003, 47)) that there are nine
variations, with the intervals of perfect fifth, minor seventh and major seventh excluded. This
model can be applied as: semitone series, opening; wholetones, bar 4; minor thirds, 16; major
thirds, 20 (beat 4); perfect fourths, 56; tritones, 66; minor sixths, 76; major sixths, 89; octaves, 106.
In the story, the execution process results in a moment of epiphany. The machine is described
to the visitor by the operating officer, who is so enthusiastic about its effects that he frees the
condemned man and applies the machine to himself. Schnittke presents this epiphany in two stages:
clarity and revelation. At bar 106, the broadening interval pattern reaches the octave, and for three
bars, the winds and percussion perform the note C, distributed among the octaves according to serial
principles – an ‘octave scale’ across the orchestra’s eight-octave range, expanded above and below
to make 12 through the implied tones of the unpitched percussion (Köchel 1994, 105). This is the
moment of clarity and is followed by the moment of understanding. The climax proper, from bar
111, presents the basic series on which the music is based, but without the mediation of the matrix or
the auxiliary series. The row appears simultaneously in prime, retrograde and inverted forms. These
are distributed across the instruments and registers in such a way that a contracting pitch wedge is
formed, with the music receding from the broadest range and loudest dynamics back down to the
ubiquitous ppp – the moment of death following immediately on from the moment of revelation.
Passacaglia for Large Orchestra

Passacaglia for Large Orchestra was commissioned by the Southwest German Radio Symphony
Orchestra and premiered by them in Baden-Baden in 1981. The work is structured as a series
of waves of sound, each constructed of detailed counterpoint within the orchestral sections.
It therefore resembles Ligeti’s orchestral micropolyphony of the 1960s,19 recalling the SWR
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Orchestra’s close association with that music (one of their most famous recordings was the version
of Atmosphères used in the film 2001). Unlike Ligeti, Schnittke retains a tonal basis for his com-
plex textures, and the multiple lines of counterpoint are all broadly diatonic and in keys related
to C major/minor, with a C major triad reiterated in the bass throughout much of the work.
Schnittke relates the waves of sound to the experience of observing the ocean: ‘You can sit
by the sea for hours and experience the magical effects of waves, but we never fully understand
their structure. Where does a wave begin? Where is its peak? Where does a new wave begin? Is
it one wave – or several waves at different stages? My wonder before this unfathomable law of
nature became my impetus for the creation of Passacaglia’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 149).
Although not stated in the score, Schnittke endorsed the use of a tape recording of sea
sounds to accompany the work (Ivashkin, programme note for performances at the Moscow
Conservatory 10–11 January 1991). A compositional sketch mentions taped ‘sea storm with
thunder’ sounds and related orchestral effects, from drums, bells, harps, double basses, trombones
and horns (SCHN_COLL_275).
The sheer quantity of surviving sketches, over 100 pages (now in the Juilliard collection)
demonstrates the huge amount of planning behind the project. Schnittke initially toyed with
the idea of a multi-movement format. One plan was for eight sections or movements: Dance,
Chorale, Instrumental movement (concerto grosso), March, Song (melody with accompaniment),
Funeral March, Adagio, Scherzo (SCHN_COLL_257). This diverse and possibly polystylistic
plan contradicts Schnittke’s claim that the work was inspired by the sea, but on the next page
(SCHN_COLL_258) the movements are already organised into ‘waves’, distinguished by instru-
mental grouping, as in the finished work. Schnittke eventually decided on a structure based on
seven themes, each of a different length and metre (the different metres are expressed through
phrasing and beaming; the score is written in 4/4), and the majority of the remaining sketches
are rhythmic calculations to allow the themes to be performed simultaneously.
The sketches also reveal that Schnittke created seven counterpoints, one for each theme
(SCHN_COLL_210).The themes are all conceived in four-part harmony, while the counterpoints
are each just a single line, but they correspond in length, metre and key, allowing each counter-
point to be overlaid onto each corresponding theme.
The counterpoints are presented independently of the themes. Figure 5.11 gives a thematic
outline of the work – the triangles, parallelograms and squares represent the registral spans of
Figure 5.11 Passacaglia: Thematic Outline
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the waves, and the design is based on a similar, but provisional, table in Schnittke’s sketches
(SCHN_COLL_220).
The work opens with the seven themes presented in turn in the strings. The waves are built
up by continually repeating the short phrases as more are added. The counterpoints are then
presented by the woodwinds and brass at Fig. C (these letters, A–I, are added by Schnittke to the
manuscript score to identify the starting points of the individual waves; numbered rehearsal fig-
ures also appear). As Figure 5.11 shows, the themes and counterpoints are initially distinguished
by timbre, but as the work goes on the complexity increases, especially with the application
of Schnittke stretto within the groups from Fig. E. The specifics of the thematic construc-
tion become less important as the sound mass increases. This, as Ivashkin points out (Moscow
Conservatory programme note), is unusual for Schnittke, who usually makes the details of his
musical textures clear to the listener.
A major shift comes at the climax, Fig. H, where the tonality shifts from C to D,20 creating a
modest sense of progression to counter the stasis of the layered harmonies. From here the waves
recede, the textures reducing, and the final section, from Fig. I, is a reflective coda. The sketches
talk of a ‘Kitschreprise’ in this final section, before settling instead on ‘something blurred’ (etwas
verwischt) (SCHN_COLL_242 and 271).The individual themes begin to separate out and for the
first time are distributed among the sections. The untuned percussion is the final sound, articu-
lating the rhythms of the themes, and also providing rhythmic definition to the taped sea sounds.
Although not polystylistic itself, Passacaglia demonstrates an important technical feature
of Schnittke’s polystylism – the integration of Modernist techniques (from Ligeti and Polish
Sonorism) with tonal harmonies and voice leading. The genesis of Passacaglia, as demonstrated in
the compositional sketches, was a process of development for this approach, from a polystylistic
conception to a more integrated final work. But the quantity of sketches shows that this involved
a long process of refinement, with the metric and tonal contrasts between the themes gradually
reducing. The detail with which the textures are constructed would soon enable the composer
to apply similar tonal/Sonoristic techniques in even larger-scale works, particularly the Symphony
No. 3, written immediately after.
Ritual
Schnittke rarely addressed political events or humanitarian crises in his music, but two signifi-
cant exceptions stand out: Sutartinės, written in 1991 as an immediate response to the blood-
shed in Vilnius as the Soviet army attempted to suppress the independence uprising, and Ritual,
composed in 1984–1985 to a commission from the Yugoslav embassy in Moscow for the 40th
anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade.
Given that just six years later, Schnittke would be commemorating victims of the Soviet army,
the politics behind Ritual are puzzling. The dedication reads ‘In memory of the victims of the
Second World War (on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade)’, so
is not specific to the Belgrade victims. He also avoids the term ‘Great Patriotic War’, despite
writing in Russian. Even so, the climax is capped with a clear reference to the Internationale
(tubular bells Fig. 15), which Schnittke mentions himself in his short commentary on the piece
(Köchel 1994, 108).
The ritualistic nature of the work is clearly apparent in its structure. Schnittke described his
Symphony No. 4 and Concerto Grosso No. 3 as ‘calculated’ compositions (Ivashkin 2003, 51), and
Ritual, dating from the same years, clearly falls into this category as well. The work is rigorously
structured, with 32 rehearsal figures, all 8 bars apart. A texture is introduced every other rehearsal
figure, on odd numbers, and maintained, almost without exception, for 16 bars. The first half of
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the work builds to a climax at the halfway point, Figs. 15–16, and the second half is modelled on
the first, but in retrograde, returning to the nebulous quiet percussion textures of the opening.
All of the themes (apart from the Internationale reference) derive from a melody first heard
in the bass at Fig. 1. Any suggestion of Socialist Realism in the piece is countered by the aton-
ality of the theme, which avoids any recognisable modality, although the pitch centres hint at
E♭ major. The theme gradually accumulates in the winds, piano and electric guitars, generally
rising in register, and made more complex by appearing in stretto within the groups, but always
untransposed. Beneath this, the strings build a texture based on repeating lines, all based on
ascending figures with repeating notes, and each using faster rhythms than the last.The chords in
the keyboards and harp, and later in the winds, are extended triadic harmonies, initially G minor
sevenths in the harp at Fig. 3, but gradually expanding into ninths, 11ths and beyond.
The melodies and harmonies repeat, as do the bass drum and tam tam, heard on alternate bars
throughout the first half, underlining the ritualistic mood. In the second half, ideas of memorial
and loss is emphasised by reducing this sense of ritualistic certainty. From Fig. 19, the distribu-
tion of themes in the strings is inverted, and where the first half gradually accumulated the string
textures building from the bottom, now the lower instruments are gradually removed, leaving
only the violins. But Schnittke accelerates the reduction in texture, making the second half much
more sparse. At Fig. 21, the main theme migrates to the flutes and tubular bells, already a pale
reflection of its earlier prominent statements, and the harmonies that ascend through the violas
and violins Figs. 23–27 are piano clusters rather than the earlier extended triads. From Fig. 27,
only percussion is heard in what becomes an extended coda: a sense of grief, loss and remem-
brance expressed both through the ritual itself and through the premature erosion of its ritualistic
symmetries.
(K)ein Sommernachtstraum
(K)ein Sommernachtstraum was written in response to a commission from the Salzburg Festival. It
was originally planned for a 1984 premiere, but due to illness Schnittke was unable to meet the
deadline, and the work was instead performed at the 1985 festival. The commission stipulated a
work connected with Shakespeare, hence Schnittke’s punning title, and the concert at which the
work was performed also included Aribert Reimann’s Fragmente aus der Oper Lear, performed by
Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, and Prosperos Beschwörungen by Egon Wellesz.
For Schnittke, the Salzburg connection was more significant than the Shakespeare theme. His
commentary on the work focuses largely on his early experiences of the festival – watching Jedermann
on news reels when he lived in Vienna as a child. Of these, he recalled ‘a certain Mozart-Schubert
sound which I carried round within me for decades’ (Köchel 1994 107).The work attempts to cap-
ture that sound by recreating one of Schnittke’s earlier works, his Greeting Rondo for Violin and Piano,
composed in 1973 for the 50th birthday of Rostislav Dubinsky.21 Schnittke associated Dubinsky
with the Austrian Classical tradition, and so created a pastiche of Mozart or Schubert.
Most of (K)ein Sommernachtstraum follows the Greeting Rondo closely, but with the textural
density often increased through stretto devices. Schnittke commented that ‘here my First
Symphony creeps into the music of the Greeting Rondo’ (quoted in Preface to Collected Works,
Series VI,Volume 1, Part 6). His approach to the orchestration is as light-hearted as the original
work itself, for example the opening, where the main theme is presented as a solo by one of the
back-desk players in the second violins.
Schnittke sets the Greeting Rondo faithfully up until Fig. 22, and until here the rehearsal figures
correspond. The stretto effects that he adds within the orchestral sections are anticipated in the
original work by the two-part canonic imitation between the hands of the piano from Fig. 5.
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At Fig. 22, the orchestral work diverges, and Schnittke completely rewrites the climax to
greater dramatic effect. The music moves to 4/4 (the whole of Greeting Rondo is in 3/4), and the
climax is structured as two phrases based on rising sequences. The first, Figs. 22–25, is based on
an inversion of the final cadence of the main theme, bars 7–8, and the second, Figs. 25–34, on
the bridge passage at Fig. 3.
The drama and harmonic density are heightened in this new climax, which reaches its peak
in a fff tutti chromatic cluster before Fig. 34. But then Schnittke returns to the Greeting Rondo for
the coda, and the music from Fig. 34 to the end closely follows the original.
The scoring of (K)ein Sommernachtstraum is for a large, modern orchestra, so Schnittke’s evoca-
tion of the Classical style is deliberately distanced. This is also apparent in the way that Schnittke
recontextualises Classical devices. For example, the chromatic cluster of the climax gives way to
a descending diminished triad, which is, as Ivashkin points out, ‘a familiar herald of changes in
early-Romantic music’ (liner note to Chandos CHAN 9722). On the other hand, the ending,
where the main theme fragments and then evaporates in an unaccompanied flute solo, has no
precedent in the Classical style. But Ivashkin draws a Shakespearian parallel in the paradox
between the gentle pastiche of Greeting Rondo and the more dramatic music of its orchestral
realisation: Like Shakespeare, he suggests, Schnittke is ‘playing with tragic and with humorous
symbols at the same time’.
Four Aphorisms for Chamber Orchestra

The Four Aphorisms for Chamber Orchestra were premiered in West Berlin in 1988, by the Bolshoi
Soloists, and the work was presumably commissioned for this tour. It is written for a chamber
orchestra of 20 players: full symphonic winds and percussion, but only one-to-a-part strings.The
four movements are all short, marked Lento, Moderato, Allegretto, Lento.
The Aphorisms are contemporaneous with the Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5 and can
be heard as preliminary sketches for that work, particularly its expansive third movement. But in
Aphorisms Schnittke sets aside elaborate formal structuring, and even thematic development, in
favour of a series of texture studies. Fleeting thematic references to the symphony occasionally
appear, such as the climax of Aphorism No. 1 (bar 31), which resembles the first subject theme of
the symphony’s third movement (Fig. 9), but otherwise the thematic content is minimal, and in
the second movement is simply a descending chromatic scale.
Textural and harmonic connections with the symphony are more significant. The music has a
surprisingly dramatic profile, given its brief duration, and most passages are build-ups or diminu-
endos. As in the Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5, these are achieved through effects like:
rapidly ascending/descending lines based on stacked fourths/sevenths (Aphorism No. 1, opening),
chromatic clusters growing outwards symmetrically from mid-register (Aphorism No. 4, opening)
and ascending string glissandos in stacked double-stopped tritones (Aphorism No. 3, bar 13; see
Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5, movement III, Fig. 61). Harmonies are dense and often
based on superimposed tonal triads, but also on the [0,1,6,7] collection, another distinctive fea-
ture of the symphony.
Sutartinės
Sutartinės was composed as an immediate response to the ‘January Events’ of 1991 in Lithuania.
In March 1990, Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union. But violence flared the
following January, when the Soviet military attempted to regain control, killing 14 civilians and
injuring 702 others.
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Orchestral works
Schnittke, who had long associations with Lithuania, especially through the Lithuanian
Chamber Orchestra and its conductor Saulius Sondeckis, was in Moscow when the events took
place, 11–13 January, and composed Sutartinės as a tribute to the victims over the following three
days, 13–16 January (the score also records a day of work on the piece the following week in
Hamburg, 26 January).
The title refers to a tradition of polyphonic folk singing, which survives in south-eastern
Lithuania (Antanavičius & Čiurlionytė). The word derives from the Lithuanian ‘sutari’, to be in
accordance. The characteristic melodic profile employs duple metre and clearly delineated syn-
copation. The entries of the polyphonic lines are one or two bars apart, the first note of each
a diatonic step upwards or downwards from the first voice. The result is a chain of unresolved
major or minor second dissonances. The simplest form of sutartinė involves just two voices
(always female), but Schnittke creates a more sophisticated form, with three voices in over-
lapping four-bar phrases, creating a continuous chain of two-part counterpoint. The work is
scored for strings, percussion and organ, with the counterpoint playing out within the individual
string sections, one instrument to a voice, supported by sustained chords based on the implied
harmonies.
The score for Sutartinės was taken to Lithuania by the pianist Justus Frantz and presented to
Saulius Sondeckis, who premiered it with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra on 5 February
1991, just three weeks after the events it commemorates (Petrauskaitė 2008, 113). Sondeckis
later wrote: ‘The meaning of this small piece is very great for Lithuania, because no such world-
famous artist had condemned the aggression against Lithuania and did not stand up to defend us.
Even Lithuanian artists did not compose anything like that.’ Since then, a concert has been given
annually in Vilnius, on January 13, the ‘Memorial Day of Freedom Fighters’, the programme each
year opening with Sutartinės.
Hommage a Grieg
Hommage a Grieg was composed in 1992 for the Bergen International Festival, where it premiered
the following year, the 150th anniversary of Grieg’s birth. The work is an arrangement of the
act II Overture from Schnittke’s ballet Peer Gynt. That overture is the only part of the ballet that
alludes to Grieg’s incidental music for Ibsen’s play. It does so without any thematic reference,
merely a stylistic allusion, to the woodwind textures and pastoral mood of Grieg’s ‘Morning’.
The arrangement reduces the instrumentation to chamber orchestra and increases the length
by around a third by repeating the first page of music. The repeat introduces a solo violin, which
acts as an obbligato. Both the Overture and the Hommage retain a G major tonality throughout,
but the melody diverges at bars 6–7 with a rising wholetone scale. The solo violin takes this
wholetone scale as a starting point (repeat of Fig. 1) for an obbligato line wholly unrelated to the
tonality. The violin line looks back to the ballet score, and freely rhapsodises on motifs associated
with the title character: the rising seventh figure and the syncopated figure of stacked fourths/
tritones, both first heard in the ballet in act I, No. 3, ‘Peer’s Imagination’, Figs. 35 and 39 (see
Example 2.1(c)).
Symphonic Prelude and For Liverpool

Symphonic Prelude (Sinfonisches Vorspiel) and For Liverpool were written in quick succession in
1994, to commissions from the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg and the Royal
Liverpool Philharmonic Society respectively. Both are similar in style to the first movement of
the Symphony No. 8, premiered the same year. For Liverpool is predominantly in 3/2, resembling
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Orchestral works
the 6/4 of the symphony, and the first bar of its main chorale theme is identical in rhythm and
pitch structure to the passacaglia theme in the symphony. That similarity is also emphasised by
the recurring use of low horns and the main theme’s compound intervals.
A link with the work’s commission is suggested by the fact that the opening chorale plays
out the rhythm of the words ‘For Liverpool’ – minim, dotted minim, crotchet, dotted semibreve.
The chorale is harmonised with major chords voiced in parallel motion, alternating D♭ major
and C major. The answering phrase, trumpets and trombones bars 3–8, approaches functional
tonality, the major chord sequences G-D-G, A-D-E-D-A describing perfect and plagal cadences
respectively.
The theme for Symphonic Prelude is taken from the Overture to act II of Schnittke’s ballet Peer
Gynt, at Fig. 2 (also quoted in Hommage a Grieg). The theme appears as a gentle countermelody
in the ballet, played piano by the strings, but is transformed here into a stern trumpet fanfare. The
rising figure is harmonised in thirds to imply movement from the third to the fifth of a major
triad. But the tonal implications are less emphatic than in For Liverpool: the theme is usually
harmonised with a single major chord, and elsewhere clusters are the basis of most harmonies.
Although both works have a duration of around 15 minutes, the scores are slight. (The Sikorski
editions22 are unusually inaccurate, and the copies at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive have errors
marked in pencil, presumably by Ivashkin, 68 in the 20 pages of For Liverpool.) Both works play
out as a continuous series of increasingly divergent variations on their opening themes. But a
larger structure is also evident in both scores, of five parts in Symphonic Prelude and six parts in
For Liverpool.
In Symphonic Prelude, each part opens with the chorale and ends with a local climax: (1)
opening; (2) Fig. 6; (3) Fig. 11; (4) Fig. 28; (5) Fig. 44; (6) Fig. 52 (Coda). The ascent of the
opening theme is often answered with a descent, through a non-modal scale or less regular
descending figure. One of these recurs and takes on thematic significance. It first appears at Fig. 5
as B♭-A-B♭-G.This goes on to become a dominant theme in the fourth part, appearing in quasi-
choral guise in parallel fifths in the flutes at Fig. 29 and trombones at Fig. 31, finally appearing in
an extended form in the trumpets three bars before Fig. 34.
For Liverpool has a similar but more organised structure. Its six parts begin at: (1) opening;
(2) Fig. 10; (3) Fig. 17; (4) Fig. 22; (5) Fig. 27; (6) Fig. 31 (Coda). The second of the two main
sections (Fig. 10) maps closely onto the first, phrase by phrase,23 but is shorter, with each subsec-
tion shorter than the one before. Figs. 17 and 22 both open with the chorale, and, as in Symphonic
Prelude, every section ends with a local climax.The section from Fig. 27 briefly alludes to a waltz,
the only overt stylistic allusion in the work, and reminiscent of Shostakovich.
As in the Symphony No. 9, Schnittke increases the activity of the untuned percussion, from
Fig. 41 in Symphonic Prelude and Fig. 24 in For Liverpool, as the first concluding gesture. But both
endings are abrupt. For Liverpool ends with a cluster-based tutti chord, a device that sits uneasily
with the triadic and optimistic tone of the opening. Symphonic Prelude reaches a similar climax
before Fig. 52 but ends reflectively and quietly. This is again out of keeping with the optimism
of the opening, but a gesture on a similar scale, and better prepared by the gradual process of
thematic dissimilation.
Notes
1 These include a truncated quotation from the third movement of Schnittke’s Serenade (1969) (Medić
2010, 57). Medić claims that all the themes in the second movement are derived from earlier Schnittke
works.
2 For a detailed analysis of the relationship between the prime number sequence and serial technique in
the Symphony No. 1, see Tremblay 2007.
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3 A sketch for the work (Juilliard Manuscript Collection, SCHN_COLL_114) indicates that Schnittke
considered an eight-movement structure—Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Benedictus, Credo/Et incarnatus, Crucifixus,
Et resurrexit, Agnus Dei—but later reverted to the standard order.
4 The main theme appears at the opening and recurs at Fig. 36. The other themes first appear (and recur)
at Figs. 2 (35+3—Medić gives 35+2), 3 (35), 7 (34+3), 9 (34), 9 woodwind (34), 9 brass (33), 10 (33+2),
17 (32).
5 For a full list, see Medić 2013, 200.
6 There are two sets of rehearsal figures, numbers and letters. The letters generally represent the start of
each of the structural sections while the numbers appear more regularly, every four or five bars.
7 This structure may have been influenced by Weinberg’s Symphony No. 10, which has a first movement
entitled ‘Concerto Grosso’ (Schmelz 2019, 31).
8 This passage is included in the 2001 recording by Valery Polyansky, Chandos 10180 (Schmelz 2021, 319)
9 The programme note for the premiere also mentions ‘musical anagrams of the names of several German
towns, possibly as a tribute to ... Kurt Masur’. Tiba identifies monograms here on the words ‘America’,
‘Leipzig’ and ‘Hamburg’, but the evidence is tenuous (Tiba 2004, 100).
10 Tiba also argues a ‘quasi-sonata’ form in this movement: first subject, opening; second subject, Fig. 1;
quasi-development, Fig. 9; reprise, Fig. 17; second subject, Fig. 18.
11 The collection in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive consists of 31 A4 photocopies, of which three are
duplicates, and three appear to be for a different work.
12 For detailed analysis of the canonic processes in the movement, see Chigareva 2012, 265–74.
13 At 1 bar before Fig. 2, 2 before Fig. 3, 2 before Fig. 4, 2 before Fig. 5 and 1 before Fig. 6.
14 This analysis is based on Ching 2012, 139ff and Sullivan 2010.The serial structure of the Concerto Grosso
No. 3 is also discussed in Peterson 2000.
15 See Chang 2007, 81–83 for a detailed analysis of this passage.
16 For a detailed formal and thematic analysis of the work, see Storch 2011, 72–101.
17 The copy of the score in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive includes alternate versions of the opening (to
Fig. 8) and ending (from Fig. 57). The opening is four bars longer in the electronic instrument variant.
18 From Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 318.
19 Ligeti’s ‘internal canon’ technique is mentioned in the compositional sketches for Passacaglia in the
Juilliard collection, SCHN_COLL_312.
20 SCHN_COLL_253 shows that Schnittke initially planned a move to D♭.
21 The copy of the Greeting Rondo manuscript in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive includes later pencil
markings suggesting instrumentation and giving additional contrapuntal lines for the orchestral version.
22 In Symphonic Prelude, the rehearsal numbers of the Sikorski score disagree with the autograph, because
in the autograph Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 are duplicated. The figures given here are those of the Sikorski score.
23 The opening chorale reappears at Fig. 10, the horn motif at Fig. 1 in the clarinet at Fig. 11, the ostinato
idea at Fig. 7 at 4 bars after Fig. 14 (through the figure is different), the rising sevenths motif at Fig. 8 at
Fig. 14, and the textural build-up at Fig. 9 at Fig. 15.
188
6
CHAMBER WORKS
Introduction
Chamber music, with its clearly delineated voices and complex small-scale interactions, proved an
ideal medium for Schnittke’s explorations into stylistic and expressive diversity. Here, individual
lines can take opposing stylistic positions, or can combine to create different levels of agreement
and unity. And the audience’s personal identification with the individual players moves these
interactions beyond technical experiments into a more immediate sphere. That can result in
great drama as well, and one of the defining features of Schnittke’s chamber music is his regular
recourse to extreme dynamics.
Russia has little history of chamber music, but it was ascendant in the early decades of
Schnittke’s career. Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet was a sensational success from its first perform-
ance in 1940. The work was soon adopted as wartime propaganda and initiated a new phase of
official endorsement for chamber music by the Soviet authorities, who were previously sus-
picious of its bourgeois connotations. This led to the founding of many chamber ensembles,
most significantly the Borodin Quartet (Kuhn 2010, 43). These developments would influence
Schnittke’s music – his Piano Quintet (1972–1976) draws directly on Shostakovich’s, and his String
Quartet No. 1 (1966) was premiered by the Borodins.
Chamber music dominates Schnittke’s student work, especially from 1953–1955, his first years
of study at the Moscow Conservatory. His Fugue for Solo Violin (1953) already anticipates many
features of his mature music: A Baroque model – Bach’s solo violin music – adapted to a more
modern style. The music is noted in D minor, but regularly diverges through chromatic and
tonally ambiguous movement. The work shows Schnittke exploring the expressive and dramatic
potential of multiple-stoppings and of bariolage, the latter put to particularly dramatic effect at
the climax, from bar 105, which resembles similarly complex passages in his later A Paganini.
The Violin Sonata No. 0 (1954–1955) was the earliest work that the composer acknowledged
in his list of early composition, which he drew up in 1993, giving the work the ‘No. 0’ designa-
tion at the same time. The work is in two movements, a substantial first movement and a scherzo-
like second. The work anticipates Schnittke’s later sonatas. The first movement is in sonata form,
but the focus throughout is on the long, lyrical line of the first subject, as in many of Schnittke’s
later sonatas and concertos. And, as in many of Schnittke’s later works, the scherzo is substantial,
the dramatic focus rather than an interlude (Vashchenko 2016, 99).
189 DOI: 10.4324/9780429274046-6

Chamber works
In 1959, Schnittke, now in his postgraduate studies, wrote a string quartet. In 1960, he transcribed
the entire work to create the Concerto for Electric Instruments. The concerto is for theremin and an
ensemble of keyboard-based synthesisers. Solo parts for camerton and crystadin are accompanied
by a ripieno group of four ekvodins, and the score includes a part for a shumophone (noise
maker). The second movement Fugue is serial, and its theme and series were later reused in the
Prelude and Fugue for Piano (1963) (Shulgin 2004, 38). In 1960, Schnittke wrote four short works
for violin and piano. A copy of the manuscript is held in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive, where
they are listed as Early pieces for Violin and Piano, but they do not appear on any published works
list.The first is a ‘Fuga a 3 voci’, tonal (C major) and somewhat resembling the Violin Sonata No. 0.
The second is in a similar style, but has no key signature, and wanders freely between keys distant
from its framing E minor. The third, in D♯ minor, is a scampering pianissimo, accompanied by
light staccato textures in the piano bass.The fourth is another long, lyrical violin line over regular
quaver accompaniment. The tonality here is particularly ambiguous, with no written key signa-
ture and the local key areas continually shifting. The ending is ambiguous (see Example 1.10),
eventually arriving at the D minor with which the piece began, but by particularly chromatic
means. The piano part anticipates many of the open-ended codas of Schnittke’s mature works.
In Schnittke’s early adult career, writing for chamber forces increasingly became a necessity.
The composer relied on a small number of increasingly high-profile performers who championed
his work, but in the Brezhnev era even they could only present more adventurous works at
small-scale events. Peter J. Schmelz writes: ‘Charismatic and strong-willed musicians such as
the conductors Bazhkov and Rozhdestvensky, the violinist Kremer, the cellist Gutman, and the
pianist Lubimov, could sneak dangerous works onto their programs in a way that composers
could not … This explains why so many Soviet pieces that were written in the 1960s are for
small chamber ensembles, often for one or two performers’ (Schmelz 2009c, 205).
Later, as Schnittke’s reputation grew in the West, summer music festivals became another
important avenue for commission and performance, and these often focused on chamber music
repertoire. In the 1980s, Schnittke wrote for festivals in Witten, Kreuth, Evian and Kuhmo,
although usually for performance by Russian musicians.
Schnittke’s instrumental sonatas and string quartets date from two distinct periods: the Violin
Sonatas No. 0–2 and the String Quartet No. 1 from 1955–1968 and the String Quartets No. 2–4, the
Violin Sonata No. 3, as well as two cello sonatas and three piano sonatas, from 1978–1994.The absence
of sonatas and quartets in the 1970s may be due to the fact that Schnittke’s funereal style of this
period was not suited to the forms. But his renewed interest in the 1980s coincided with an increase
of activity in other established genres: symphony, concerto, concerto grosso. A common feature of
both the early and late sonatas and quartets is the distance Schnittke maintains from traditional forms.
He regularly uses slow outer movements as introductions or epilogues. Even the Violin Sonata No. 1
(1963), which is nominally in a traditional four-movement form, seems more like a Baroque suite
for its slow–fast–slow–fast movement arrangement and the extreme contrast from one movement to
the next (Vashchenko 2016, 90). As with his symphonies and concertos, Schnittke engages with the
history and traditions of chamber music genres, but rarely conforms to their structural conventions.
Works for string quartet
String Quartet No. 1

Schnittke began work on the String Quartet No. 1 around 1965, but was interrupted by a pressing
commission from the Jyväskylä Festival in Finland for the Violin Concerto No. 2. The two works
are similar in technique and construction, although very different in tone and expression. He
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Chamber works
resumed work on the project at the behest of Rostislav Dubinsky, then first violin of the Borodin
Quartet. Dubinsky had heard a rumour that Schnittke was writing a quartet and urged him to
complete the work (Dubinsky 1989, 221–22). The Borodin Quartet premiered the quartet in
Leningrad in 1966, and included it in their 25th anniversary celebrations in 1970.
As in the Violin Concerto No. 2, Schnittke employs serial techniques, but in a loose and esoteric
fashion, creating a spectrum between serial order and chaotic disorder. Textures are generally
canonic, but with increasingly divergent imitation. Schnittke describes this as the opposite of
the consolidating processes in the Violin Concerto No. 2; instead we hear ‘progressive destruction’
(Shulgin 2004, 50).
The model of Webern is important, as the sense of order from which the music diverges.
Kholopova describes a move away from Webernian abstraction towards a more lyrical, expressive
style. She considers the ‘organic synthesis’ of Webern with ‘spoken’ intonations a distinctively
Russian combination, citing late Stravinsky as a model (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 52).
The quartet is in three connected movements – Sonata, Canon, Cadenza – but Schnittke
cautions that the titles should not be taken literally, pointing out that the Sonata has no reprise,
and the Canon no exact imitation (Shulgin 2004, 50). A broader symmetry is enacted across the
span of the quartet, transcending the movement boundaries. Kholopova writes of a ‘spherical’
form, based on symmetries in the pitch material and in the polyphonic structure of the canons
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 53). This is most clearly apparent in the music’s pitch centres.
Clear phrases articulate the music, often separated by pauses, and the canonic textures that follow
usually beginning on a single, unaccompanied note. These trace a move from C at the opening
to F♯, Figs. 9–27, returning to C at Fig. 38 and ending on a conclusive C unison. The ‘spherical’
idea is also apparent in the rotational symmetry of the tone row on which the quartet is based:
C, D, C♯, A♯, D♯, B, F, A, E, G, A♭, G♭. The structural significance of the tritone shift, from C to
G♭, is also acknowledged: those notes are the first and last terms of the series and there is also a
tritone, B-F, at the mid-way point.
The work opens with the series gradually articulated in imprecise canon. The opening phrase
uses just the first two notes, C and D, the second the first three and the fourth the full series. The
instruments play at different speeds and with different performing techniques. This becomes the
standard texture throughout the quartet, polyphony that tends towards heterophony.
The Sonata movement is intended to sound harmonious and structured, the order from which
the later movements will diverge. Schnittke’s sonata form without recapitulation is outlined by
Kholopova, who locates the second subject at Fig. 9, the development at Fig. 16, and the culmin-
ation at Fig. 27. She also highlights two Russian-sounding elements, the Stravinskian transition
at Fig. 2 and the dactylic rhythms, most clearly heard at Fig. 12.These resemble the agogics of the
Russian language, contributing to the music’s ‘spoken’ character.
The culmination at Fig. 27 acts as a transition to the Canon movement. It also plays out in
microcosm the transition from F♯ to C as the pitch centre, via textures that gradually expand to
a repeated fortissimo chord encompassing all 12 pitch classes.
Schnittke’s warning that the Canon movement title should not be taken literally proves well-
founded, as the imitation here is even less precise than in the Sonata. He describes the canonic
textures as ‘spreading, eroding with false shadows and reflections (false because the reflections
contain other notes)’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 50).
The Cadenza is a logical extension of the increasing disorder, the previous canonic imitation
now so tenuous as to be abandoned in favour of a monologue, passed between the instruments
(a texture anticipated at Fig. 26). Schnittke says that the quartet is treated here as a single
16-string ‘super-instrument’, with a very large sound space in which the players seem to impro-
vise (Shulgin 2004, 50). Dubinsky described the climax as ‘disintegration’, adding, ‘After the
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Chamber works
scrupulous exactness and organisation of all the music, everything suddenly fell apart. The ana-
logy with Soviet society clearly suggested itself ’ (Dubinsky 1989, 222). Schnittke acknowledged
that the writing here was so difficult that even the members of the Borodin Quartet were unable
to play it accurately, transposing some of the notes down an octave and not synchronising the
parts. However, he conceded that a lack of synchronisation here is permissible in performance
(Shulgin 2004, 50).
The coda, from Fig. 57, returns to the straightforward serial exposition of the opening, the
textures now even simpler and more homogeneous. Schnittke characterises this as a deferred
recapitulation to the Sonata, but it is too short and diminutive to fulfil that purpose. Instead, it
becomes a recollection of the order that preceded the chaos of the Cadenza. The coda fulfils a
structural role, within the ‘spherical’ form, but also demonstrates how the erosion through the
interpolated movements is at odds with the symmetry proposed at the outset.

The String Quartet No. 2 was written for the 1980 Evian String Quartet Competition. Although
the work shows signs of having been written for a competition (the first movement moves
methodically through a range of performance techniques as if to demonstrate each in turn), the
work was primarily a homage to the filmmaker Larisa Shepitko (see Chapter 8), who died in a
car accident in July 1979, aged just 41.
Schnittke bases the entire quartet on Znamenny chant, a form of Russian Orthodox liturgical
music from the 16th and 17th centuries. A note by the composer on the title page of the auto-
graph lists the chants used, numbered according to his source, Works of the Russian Singing Art by
Nikolai Uspensky (Uspensky 1971). Schnittke also annotates the music to show where the chants
appear. These chants are as follows, numbered as in Uspensky:1
10: Stichera Gospodi vozzvakh, movements II and III

16: Stichera Gospodi vozzvakh, movement III
34: Stichera Gospodi vozzvakh, movement III
92: Budi imia Gospode, movements II and IV
102: Izhe kheruvimy, movements II and IV
The choice of hymns is significant, and Emilia Ismael-Simental writes that ‘In their original,
liturgical context, each has iconic and symbolic significance, invoking the ideas of origins, eter-
nity and, most significantly, the spatial relations between God and his subjects.’ Hymn No. 92:
Budi imia Gospode is treated with particular reverence: ‘It is the only hymn that appears in the
work only in almost unadulterated form. In the liturgical context, the hymn is meant as a dec-
laration of faith and submission’ (Ismael-Simental 2017, 56–57).
Clearly, the Orthodox chants are closely linked with the music’s funereal intent, and the music’s
structure is closely linked to their strophic form. Pauses and caesuras regularly occur between
phrases, giving the music the air of a memorial address, often stopping for contemplative silences.
But in most of the quartet, the aesthetic is deliberately distanced from the sound of liturgical
chants. Schnittke explained that ‘Reproducing them in a quartet would be tactless’ (Kholopova &
Chigareva 1990, 183), and that ‘this material is treated quite freely: diatonic themes become chro-
matic, their intervals are diminished or augmented, the complicated playing techniques lead to
an instability of the scale degrees’ (Köchel 1994, 122). In order to integrate this music, Schnittke
must accommodate the change in context and function, and also address the conflicting tempor-
alities, reconciling the stasis of the chant with the progressive nature of the chamber music idiom.
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Chamber works
Example 6.1 String Quartet No. 2, movement II, Fig. 16
The identity of the chants is compromised through extended performing techniques,

dissonant harmonies and complex polyphony. Kholopova points out that the polyphonic
techniques link back to Russian folk music, in particular the heterophonic style of impre-
cise canonic counterpoint in the second movement (see Example 6.1). This technique is
similar to the quasi-improvisatory podgoloski polyphony of Russian folk music, itself a prob-
able source for the polyphonic techniques later applied to Znamenny chant (Kholopova &
Although Schnittke manipulates the pitch content of the chants, he usually maintains the note
values and phrase structuring. This, combined with the caesuras between phrases, means that the
pace of the music is closely aligned to the chant. So, at the local level, the music maintains the
contemplative and non-linear character of chant, aided by the attacca links between movements,
the sharing of chant material from one movement to the next, and the generally slow pace: only
the second of the four movements is fast. Nevertheless, each of the movements has a clear formal
structure, which Ismael-Simental summarises as: ‘simplified sonata form (A–B–A’–Coda) for the
first movement, rondo (A, B, A, A’, C, A, D, A’’) in the second, variations ((A–A1–B–B1 –C–C1)–
(A2 –B2 –C2)–(A3–A4) – coda) in the third and again a rounded binary form (A–B–A’) in the
fourth movement’ (Ismael-Simental 2017, 51).
The movement is a short prologue. It opens with a high pp flageolet effect, recalling the
opening of the Shostakovich Piano Trio No. 2. The opening phrase is played in canon at the
augmented octave – the first note of each entry G, F♯, F, E. The resulting pitch set, [0,1,2,3], is
fundamental to the pitch organisation of the quartet, continually reappearing, through contra-
puntal entries, or as a minor third cluster. The first chant quotation occurs at the end of the
movement, at Fig. 8 in the lower three parts. The non vibrato marking here alludes to the lack of
subjective expressivity in the Orthodox church music (Ismael-Simental 2017, 52).
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Chamber works
The agitato second movement immediately disrupts the meditative mood of the first. It is the
most symphonic and developmental movement, full of sudden contrasts. It is structured as a
rondo with five refrains, the refrain theme based on the hymn Izhe kheruvimy, but with the voices
broadly arpeggiated, each at a different speed. The intervening episodes all allude to folk styles in
various ways, including the use of podgoloski imitation. The first episode, at Fig. 2, was composed
‘from moaning intonations’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 186). The episode at Fig. 16 (see
Example 6.1) heightens the folk atmosphere with parallel seconds in the accompaniment, as well
as rustic open strings. In each of these episodes, Schnittke reduces the constituent intervals of the
hymns, so that the melodies move through stepwise chromatic movement within a minor third,
further emphasising the [0,1,2,3] collection.
The third movement opens with a statement of the Stichera Gospodi vozzvakh, sul tasto, pp
and double-stopped in the viola and cello, the only unadulterated presentation of Znamenny
material. From here, the movement builds dramatically in texture via statements of two other
Gospodi vozzvakh hymns. The sectional structure suggests both the strophic form of Orthodox
hymnody and a variations format. Occasionally, however, tensions between the ancient and the
modern erupt, as at Figs. 6 and 9, where the hymn in the lower parts is drowned out by atonal
outbursts from the violins, an effect reminiscent of the Concerto for Piano and Strings (also Fig. 6).
The final movement acts to resolve the work’s dramatic tensions. As in the third movement, a
measured, even pace is achieved through the phrase structure of the hymns. Their melodies are
presented unambiguously, conclusively moving the music into the sound world of Orthodox
chant. From Fig. 10, an explicit sense of return is evoked through a recapitulation of the first
movement, the canon from the opening appearing, now in a more consolidated sound at louder
dynamics. At Fig. 12 the Budi imia Gospodi hymn, first heard at the end of the first movement,
returns, and in exactly the same arrangement. The very end, too, looks back to the work’s
opening: having initially descended from the heavens, it now returns into the stratosphere, the
quiet dynamics tending towards silence.

The String Quartet No. 3 was written in 1983, to a commission from the Mannheim Gesellschaft
für Neue Musik (the autograph includes a dedication to Evgeny Altman, cellist of the Beethoven
Quartet, but this does not appear in the published score). Schnittke appears to have been inspired
by the source for the commission – Mannheim arguably the birthplace of the Classical style – to
create a work within the Classical tradition. Accordingly, the quartet is modest in scale, its three
movements contrasting, and its second a clear minuet/scherzo, including full exposition repeat.
Schnittke also includes some historical perspective on his Classical model, basing the entire work
on three quotations, presented at the start and labelled in the score. Schnittke takes a broad view
of his subject, taking quotes from Lasso, Beethoven and Shostakovich, ‘I wanted these three fig-
ures, separated by centuries and completely different, in this composition to meet. It is, in general,
a kind of constant: the breaking of time, to overcome its unidirectionality and thus bring all times
together’ (Meilakh 2014, 292–93).The Lasso quote is taken from his Stabat Mater of 1585. Schnittke
employs two cadential formulas, from bars 22 and 45. The Lasso is in a mixolydian G, but this is
compromised by the juxtaposition of the second cadence, into D minor. The Beethoven quote is
taken from the Grosse Fuge, and the Shostakovich quote is his musical monogram – D, E♭, C, B –
mostly voiced in rising intervals, rather than the closed form preferred by Shostakovich himself.
The three themes are closely related in pitch content. When rendered as pitch class sets, they
all show narrow groupings: Lasso [0,1,3], Beethoven [0,1,2,3,4,5] and Shostakovich [0,1,3,4].
The three sets are nested, the Shostakovich a subset of the Beethoven, and the Lasso a subset of
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both (Jacobs 2013). These set theory relations remain relevant for the regular transpositions and
retrogrades (although not inversions) to which the themes are subjected.
Several monograms are employed in parallel with the quoted themes. The B–A–C–H mono-
gram appears in retrograde in the Beethoven theme, and the chord 1 bar before Fig. 1 is an
amalgam of B–A–C–H and D–S–C–H. Although the Bach monogram is not exploited inde-
pendently, it may explain why Schnittke initially presents the Grosse Fuge theme transposed from
G to B♭. Both di Lasso and Beethoven are also represented in monograms: orlAnDo Di lASSo –
A, D, D, A, E♭, A♭, shared between the violin parts bars 11–12, and luDwiG vAn BEetHoven – D,
G, A, B♭, E, B, in the violins bars 15–16. The high A♭ bars 12–14 represents Schnittke’s initials, a
self-reference in the spirit of Shostakovich monogram.
Schnittke also focuses his attentions on the history of counterpoint, and a stylistic progres-
sion is felt through the work from early forms of counterpoint through to the Second Viennese
School. This helps explain the choice of Beethoven and Shostakovich quotes, both used by their
respective composers as fugue subjects in string quartets. The Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8
provides a link back to Lasso, as there Shostakovich writes several fugues in 16th-century style,
just as Schnittke does here, for example at movement I, Fig. 3.
Hartmut Schick traces three parallel narratives in the quartet (Schick 2002). He argues that
the quartet can be read as an essay on the development of Western polyphony and points out
that the explicit marking of the quotes at the start gives the impression of citations in a schol-
arly essay. The work can also be read as a history of the string quartet medium and, finally, as
autobiography. This last idea is based on the presence of two near self-quotations: the opening
resembles that of the Piano Quintet, while the first violin line on the very last page resembles the
Violin Sonata No. 2. These varied readings demonstrate the breadth of signification in the work:
Schnittke may be explicitly naming his sources, but the treatment that follows is open to wide
interpretation.
Maria Bergamo (Bergamo 1984) describes the structure of the first movement as A; A1
(Fig. 3); B (Fig. 5); A2 (Fig. 8) – the A sections based on Lasso, the B on Beethoven. The section
from Fig. 3 is in strict Baroque-style canon and in Lasso’s mixolydian G. Schick also draws
parallels here with the other two composers, pointing out that Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15,
op. 132 opens in a similar manner, as does Shostakovich’s monogram-saturated String Quartet
No. 8 (Schick 2002, 248-9). A sense of historical progress is apparent from here through to the
Beethoven theme at Fig. 5, now appearing in Beethoven’s original key of G. The move from
Baroque subjectivity to Classical expression is also illustrated through the increasing use of vibrato:
Fig. 3 sul tasto, non-vibrato; Fig. 4 poco vibrato, ord; bars 41–42 vibrato; Fig. 5 all notes trilled.
The ascending stepwise/arpeggiated shape of the Beethoven monogram theme proves useful
for Classical-era pastiche. At Fig. 7 in the first movement it is used for a ‘Mannheim rocket’,
referencing the source of the commission. For the second movement main theme, it becomes
an almost exact, if transposed, replica of the Pathétique Sonata finale theme. But the harmonic
progression of Beethoven’s theme is immediately frustrated, and instead the figure circles around
until finally erupting into a wild gesture in lieu of a cadence. In fact, this phrase ending, bars 7–8,
is symbolic of completion in two ways: the Beethoven monogram is not presented complete in
the opening figure, but is here, in the second violin. Over this, the first violin plays a 12-note row,
based on the Beethoven monogram. The passage evokes Webern’s String Quartet, op. 28, another
possible endpoint for Schnittke’s history of contrapuntal string quartets.
The second movement is in a rondo form: A B A C A. As well as the Pathétique theme, it
suggests several other allusions to the named composers. The second violin accompaniment
under the theme, and recurring throughout the movement – quaver, quaver, minim – suggests
the ‘Mityenka’ theme from the third movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, another
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Example 6.2 String Quartet No. 3, movement III, bars 97–99 (violin I only)
movement saturated with the D–S–C–H monogram. Also, the B passage, from Fig. 6, is a chorale,
suggesting the Heiliger Dankgesang of Beethoven’s op. 132.
The feeling of historical progression continues into the last movement. Where the first
movement is dominated by counterpoint of Lasso’s era, and the second by Classical rhetoric
of Beethoven’s, the third moves between late Romantic and Modernist idioms. Thematically,
however, this final movement is closely integrated with the previous two, and the unadulterated
return of the first movement themes suggests a sonata recapitulation.Yet the strict, Baroque coun-
terpoint is less evident, with more diverse textures and more sophisticated harmonies, including
the Tristan chord two bars before Fig. 6.
Schnittke includes several 12-note rows expanded from earlier themes, and, as in the finale of
the Symphony No. 3, these can be interpreted as both symbols of completion and as signifiers of
the Second Viennese School. At Fig. 12, the Grosse Fuge theme is expanded to a 12-note row, and
two bars before Fig. 17 the second movement chorale (itself derived from the Beethoven mono-
gram in retrograde) is similarly expanded to 12 notes.
The morendo to silence ending evokes Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 and Bartók’s String
Quartet No. 6. The final gesture in the first violin is particularly significant (see Example 6.2). In
triple-stopped pizzicato, it outlines the themes of the three composers simultaneously, above the
Beethoven monogram, below the Lasso cadence, and between the Shostakovich monogram, for
the first time in the work presented in closed form, just as Shostakovich himself used it.

The String Quartet No. 4 was commissioned by the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft for the Alban
Berg Quartet. Speaking soon after the 1989 premiere, Schnittke recalled: ‘It was played by the
remarkable Alban Berg Quartet, which combines very high technical accuracy with complete
freedom and emotional openness. I have never heard anything like this in quartet playing.’ But
he also noted that, ‘At the same time, I felt that [the Fourth Quartet] was one of my saddest
compositions. In a sense, this is a new development for me – the three previous quartets were not
like that’ (Schnittke 2003, 71). Aaminah Durrani writes that the work ‘is a passionate essay, full of
fervor and anguish expressed through an eloquent and highly refined style’ (Durrani 2005, xii).
It is set in five movements in an arch-like Lento–Allegro–Lento–Vivace–Lento.
Compositional sketches for the work are held in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive.The pages are
numbered 1–17 (page 2 is missing) and constitute an almost complete draft. They suggest a rapid
rate of composition, with very few alterations, mostly the redistribution of voices between parts
and the occasional addition of transition passages. They also show that the work was originally
conceived in four movements, with movement III added after the other four were at least near
completion.2
A process of accumulation takes place across the quartet, a ‘constructive process [that] begins
with discrete objects – melody, triads and homorhythms [motifs played in rhythmic unison] –
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that are treated individually and then scattered throughout the five movements of the Quartet’
(Durrani 2005, 147). Many are introduced as ‘silhouettes’ in the first movement, before taking on
greater weight later on. Durrani identifies two competing forces at play – chorale and canon, the
former creating textural stability, the latter tending towards disorder and complexity. In the second
and fourth movements, ‘A shift from chordal to canonic textures is the driving force behind the
intensification procedures …’ (Durrani 2005, 7).This suggests a constructive tension, and the two
textures are not always competitive. Nevertheless, tensions are rarely resolved. Movement endings
are particularly nebulous and all employ quartertones.
The first movement opens with an unaccompanied cello theme. The theme begins with a
12-note row, but the serial implications are not explored. Instead, the descending, lamento char-
acter becomes important, as do the notes played in semibreves – C, D, E, G, A – a pentatonic
collection. The inversional symmetry of the pentatonic set introduces similar pitch symmetries
throughout the work, but the actual pitches are also significant. At the end of the cello solo,
in both its first and second statements diatonic triads appear. These have semantic significance
throughout the otherwise atonal work, appearing only in inversion in the first movement and
only in root position from then on.
Several other ideas are presented in vestigial form. The canons in later movements begin here
as clusters with the staggered note entries cascading down the four parts. An alternating semitone
motif becomes significant in the second movement (Fig. 2). This is already heard developing in
the first, initially as a quartertone alternation in the viola at Fig. 4, then as semitones at Fig. 5.
Five bars after Fig. 5, the first violin plays another 12-note melody, the opening four notes of
which – a descending semitone, tone, then ascending semitone – become the basis of the third
movement theme, as well as reappearing in the fifth (Fig. 12).
The fast second movement has a binary structure. The two halves are of almost exactly equal
length (bars 1–121, 122–244), and each unfolds as an arch, although the second is more dramatic-
ally intense.The sketches (p. 3) show that the opening rhythmic theme originally had an ostinato
feel, with the F, B, E♭, D figure, now in the second violin at bar 5, repeated continuously without
rests. In the final version, the two violins play the idea in disjointed, irregular canon.
The defining feature of the movement is the rhythmic figure, first heard at Fig. 21. This idea
has its origins in movement I, where the passage at Fig. 1 closely anticipates the theme, both
in the alternating semitones and the double-stopped cluster that follows. There, as with the
semibreves here, the cluster fills the pitch space B♭–F. This figure has a Classical cadential pro-
file, yet offers no closure, and so the concept of closure becomes central to the discourse, see
Chapter 1, Sonoristic cadences.
The third movement is slow and brief, in a three-part form: A; Fig. 4 B; Fig. 10 A; 9 bars after
Fig. 11 coda. The opening four-note figure was first heard in movement I, four bars after Fig. 5.
The opening of the movement plays out in rhythmically variable canon, like the podgoloski coun-
terpoint in the String Quartet No. 2. There are also other connections with the first movement.
As in the opening cello theme, the first section is laid out in five-bar phrases. Also, the structural
nodes of the theme describe the same pentatonic collection as those of the cello theme: Bar 1
G, 11 C, 20 A, 22 D, 26 G.
The fourth movement is a scherzo with a clear ritornello structure: A; Fig. 3 B; Fig. 5 A; Fig.
8 transition; Fig. 9 C; Fig. 12 A; Fig. 15 coda. Durrani writes that ‘The clear, sectional form
functions as scaffolding for the intensification process that energizes the movement’ (Durrani
2005, 87). This involves increased dynamic levels and textural complexity in the ritornello
sections, and in the episodes increasingly intricate rhythms combined with expanded range and
dissonance. Durrani also identifies pitch symmetries at work in every section (Durrani 2005, 89).
For example, the ending, Fig. 15, is a wedge progression, much like the opening cello theme,
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but now in canon, the voices in mirrored pairs. The sketches show that Schnittke originally
considered col legno for this passage, but even without that effect, the ending recalls the brittle,
woody sounds in the string quartets of Ligeti, whom Schnittke had recently succeeded as com-
position teacher at the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg.
The fifth movement acts as a culmination for many of the thematic processes begun in the
first. Its structure is based on varied restatements of its opening theme: Theme; Fig. 2 varied
restatement; Fig. 4 link; Fig. 5 varied restatement; Fig. 7 interlude; Fig. 11 varied restatement;
Fig. 12 bridge; Fig. 22 chorale; Fig. 26 coda. The theme is presented in double mirror canon, a
culmination of similar processes in the earlier movements. The first movement is recalled by sev-
eral features of the following music.The second statement of the main theme (Fig. 2) is truncated
and transposed, just as the second statement of the cello theme in the first movement (Fig. 1). In
the bridge passage, at Fig. 13, the bass line articulates the descending semitone, tone, ascending
semitone, first heard after Fig. 5 in the first movement.
The ending is characterised by two discursive shifts, a chorale harmonisation of the opening
cello theme, followed by a sudden fff double-stopped cluster. The cello theme is harmonised
exclusively in root position triads, in extreme contrast to the dissonant counterpoint that
precedes it.The first two harmonies, B♭ minor–A major, recall the rhythmic theme of the second
movement. Durrani contends that the chorale is the end point in a process whereby separable
properties of the cello theme ‘appear individually, scattered throughout the quartet as local events’
and are now brought back together. ‘Only in retrospect does the listener understand such events
as adumbrations of the concluding hymn’ (Durrani 2005, 6, 35).
The fff cluster that follows adds a final layer of ambiguity. Samuel Wilson relates this to the
rhythmic theme of the second movement, as a reversal of that intervention.Where, in the second
movement, an associative idea is interjected into otherwise highly abstract music, here, ‘it is
a foreign object that disturbs a reflective and historically evocative pseudo-tonal chorale; the
immediate enters the historical’ (Wilson 2014, 326). This allows the music to end in a textural
abstraction not governed by the associations of the chorale, fading out to the desolate sound of
alternating quartertones in the first violin.
Canon in Memoriam Igor Stravinsky

In 1971, the British periodical Tempo published 17 short works, ‘Canons and Epitaphs’, written
to commemorate the death of Igor Stravinsky.3 Schnittke wrote his Canon in Memoriam Igor
Stravinsky in just one day, in order to meet the deadline.
The request stipulated either a string quartet or a work for flute, clarinet and harp. Perhaps
recalling the Canon second movement of his String Quartet No. 1, Schnittke took the quartet
option. He produced a score of 25 bars, with the rhythms written in proportional notation. After
the score had been published in Tempo, Schnittke revised the notation, and the later version uses
standard rhythmic notation, with the same music divided into 49 bars.
The work is based on a monogram derived from Stravinsky’s name: iGor FEDoroviSCH
StrAvinSky= G, F, E D, E♭, C, B, E♭, A, E♭. The monogram only appears in full at the end, and
the earlier sections are based on slightly elided versions. Kholopova describes the structure as a
theme, eight variations and reprise, with each variation a statement of the monogram. In the
revised score, the sections begin: Theme 1;Var. 1–13,Var. 2–16,Var. 3–19,Var. 4–23,Var. 5–26,Var.
6–29, Var. 7–31, Var. 8–33, Reprise–34 (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 320). The opening and
close of the work are punctuated by general pause (GP) silences, but these are within the theme
and do not separate the variations. One of their functions is to avoid an accidental monogram
statement within the theme – D, E♭, C, B, the Shostakovich monogram. Here, and throughout
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the work, Schnittke finds ways to separate the final B in order to avoid this unintended reference
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 69).
Progression is achieved by gradually expanding the tessitura then bringing all the instruments
back to the middle register in the final reprise.The relationship between the instruments is one of
loose heterophony (as in the Canon movement of String Quartet No. 1). Schnittke assigns different
performing techniques to the individual notes, and shapes the phrases with hairpin dynamics,
all of which is also imitated between the instruments. The composer explained that the pitch
content of the work is based on two complementary sets: the first the notes of the monogram,
the second the four pitch classes that the monogram omits: F♯, G♯, A♯, C♯ (Shulgin 2004, 62).
These are gradually introduced but are always subsidiary to the monogram itself.They are usually
heard as the lower note of a double-stop, beneath a note of the monogram. But Schnittke also
gives these subsidiary notes an unexpected prominence at the end, making them the only notes
of the final chord, apart from a G double-stopped octave in the viola, held over from the final
monogram.
The work proved indicative of new tendencies in Schnittke’s composition. The idea of only
stating the thematic material in full at the end would become an important structural principle
in the late 1970s, but before Canon in Memoriam Igor Stravinsky the only analogous structure
had been the Violin Concerto No. 2. The memorial character of the work is equally significant.
The following year, Schnittke’s mother would die, leading to many works in her memory, all
dominated by this same funereal mood.
Variations for String Quartet

Variations for String Quartet was probably Schnittke’s final work. The score, along with that of
the Viola Concerto No. 2, where discovered in the composer’s Hamburg home after his death
(Ivashkin, liner note to Toccata CD 0091). The autograph is written on two sides of A3 manu-
script, Schnittke writing with his left hand. But, unlike with the Symphony No. 9, the simplicity
of the music ensures that there are few ambiguities.The premiere and first recording of the work
used a transcription of the score by Alexander Ivashkin.
The music uses only white notes, but the relationship with C major is ambiguous. The theme
opens with the first violin and cello playing roughly in inversion. Schnittke originally wrote the
first 12 bars of the cello part an octave higher, the only significant change in the manuscript.The
harmonies hover around C, F and G, although the cello avoids the roots of the implied chords.
The theme is mostly in stepwise movement, with an answering phrase that outlines an almost
complete descending C major scale. This descent is repeated several times, first slower then faster
(Schnittke writes Allegro here – all other tempo and dynamic indications are editorial, as is the
title). Despite the harmonic ambiguity, Schnittke follows the rules of counterpoint, although the
final cadence, a relatively clear G7–C, includes parallel motion between the violins and a dom-
inant seventh resolved upwards in the viola.
Of the three variations, the first and third preserve the 17-bar duration of the theme. Yet
the structure of the theme is ignored within the variations, which move to two-bar phrasing
to accommodate imitation between the violins in Variations I and II, and a repeating two-bar
melodic shape in the cello solo of Variation III. Progression is articulated through shortening
note values and gradually introducing repeating notes, the repeated notes becoming prominent
in the cello solo.
These anticipate the coda, in which scale and arpeggio figures are presented in repeating
semiquavers. A cadence at a structural level is suggested by the G7 pedal above the cello solo in
Variation III, resolving to C major in the coda, the purity of which recalls the final movement of
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the Symphony No. 8. The repeating C octaves at the end seem to lack finality, but the manuscript
makes clear that the work is complete, ending with a double bar and Schnittke’s name written in
large letters vertically down the stave.
Works for violin and piano/violin duet/violin solo
Violin Sonata No. 1

The Violin Sonata No. 1 was written in 1963 at the request of Mark Lubotsky, who gave the
premiere the following year, accompanied by the composer. Schnittke described the work as his
‘first encounter with dodecaphonic technique’ (Köchel 1994, 118), although he had previously
employed serial pitch ordering in the second movement of his student string quartet and its
arrangement as the Concerto for Electric Instruments (1960).The sonata combines tonality with seri-
alism and is therefore an important precursor for his later polystylism. Schnittke later considered
the sonata to be experimental and unrepresentative of his style – his motivation for writing the
Violin Sonata No. 2 was that he was unhappy with the Violin Sonata No. 1 (Shulgin 2004, 52).
The work is in four movements – Andante, Allegro, Largo, Allegretto scherzando – comparable to
Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 – Nocturne, Scherzo, Passacaglia, Burlesque. Shostakovich’s
Piano Trio No. 2 is also an influence: both works have passacaglia third movements and symmet-
rically structured finales. Schnittke described the opening of his third movement as a quasi-
quotation of the Shostakovich (Köchel 1994, 118).
The balance between tonality and serialism results in ‘a tonal journey on atonal roads’ (Köchel
1994, 118). The relationship is deeply encoded into the work, with the first movement based on
a tone row made up of interlocking diminished and augmented triads. The row changes from
movement to movement, its intervals gradually expanding. The second movement row is based
on minor triads, the third on major triads and the fourth on a combination of diminished, minor,
major and augmented (see Figure 6.1).
Figure 6.1 Violin Sonata No. 1, Series
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The idea of triadic tone rows has an important precedent in Berg’s Violin Concerto, which is
referenced at several points, particularly movement II, bars 100 and 120. The first movement
row is symmetrical (reflective, R symmetry), while the second movement row is made up
of two hexachords, the second a tritone transposition of the first. The third movement row
accommodates the chord progression of the passacaglia – C major, G major, D major, F♯ major,
C♯ major, G♯ major.The triads in the first three series overlap, but those in the fourth are discrete,
affording the finale a more functional tonality.
The sonata opens with an Andante movement in ternary form: main theme; bar 15 recitative
middle section; bar 27 reprise; bar 34 coda. Schnittke’s experimental serialism is apparent in his
literal use of retrograde in the coda, which imitates the opening, but with both the row and the
instrument roles reversed: a solo violin line followed by piano chords becomes a solo piano line
followed by violin pizzicato chords.
The second movement has a more complex two-part structure – Part 1: main theme; bar 31
middle section; bar 64 local reprise. Part 2 (Trio): bar 74 theme; bar 101 central episode; bar 142
compressed reprise and coda. Schnittke acknowledged a debt here to Stravinsky, particularly in
the ‘limping patterns’, ‘frequent returns to the same vertical formation’ and ‘asymmetrical, stum-
bling ostinati’ (Shulgin 2004, 26). At bar 114, the pianist is instructed to press his free hand against
the sounding strings, but the logistics on a grand piano are awkward, suggesting he originally
conceived the passage on an upright.
The third movement is a passacaglia with seven variations. The passacaglia chord progres-
sion spells out C, B, D, C♯ in its top notes – the first example of the B–A–C–H monogram in
Schnittke’s music, albeit in transposed form. The opening also alludes to Pictures at an Exhibition,
the extreme dynamic contrasts from one chord to the next, suggesting ‘Catacombs’, and the move
from C to C♯ as a tonal centre reminiscent of ‘Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle’ (Héarún-
Javakhishvili 2002, 75).4
As the movement progresses, the serialism increasingly opposes the tonal implications of
the passacaglia theme. In the third variation (bar 25), Schnittke inverts the bass line while
leaving the chords above in the original harmonies. The arbitrary dissonance that results is
extended in the fifth variation (bar 51), where the right-hand chords appear in exact inver-
sion in the left, resulting in bitonality. The movement concludes in the seventh variation/
coda (bar 55) with a gentle culmination. The violin flageolet is reminiscent of the ending of
Prokofiev’s Five Melodies, op. 35bis, while its melody resembles the Russian folk song Barynya
ty moya (‘Oh, my Lady’).
The finale opens with an allusion to the Mexican folk song La Cucaracha (‘The Cockroach’),
which had become popular in Russia following the 1957 International Youth Festival held in
Moscow (Ivashkin, preface to Collected Works score Series VI, Volume 1, Part 2). The movement
is in an A B A C A rondo form, but with the refrain growing ever more dissonant. Closure is
achieved through the increasingly tonal harmonies and through reminiscences of the previous
movements (another connection to the Shostakovich Piano Trio No. 2).They begin at bar 75 with
an allusion to movement II. From 78, this continues, but in counterpoint to the B–A–C–H motif
(still transposed) from movement III (Lubotsky writes that the reference to Bach contrasts the
‘ugly rampage’ of the finale, Lubotsky 2015, 71), followed at bar 96 by the second movement
Trio.The music comes full circle in the coda, from bar 179, which is based on the first movement
opening theme, before a final statement of the transposed B–A–C–H at bar 193. But the ending
remains paradoxical, with the piano’s C major opposed by C minor in the violin, the work’s har-
monic dualities and tensions continuing until the very end.
Despite Schnittke’s reservations about the Violin Sonata No. 1, he orchestrated the work in
1968, for an ensemble of strings and harpsichord. The harpsichord takes a quasi-continuo role,
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independent of the string section. Much of the original piano part is transcribed directly to
the harpsichord, including the openings of the first, second and fourth movements. The strings
employ a wide range of performing techniques. In the fourth movement, bar 9, for example, the
isolated staccato accompaniment notes are given to different string sections, and each is played
differently: col legno – sul ponticello – ord. – pizzicato – Bartók pizzicato (double basses).
Schnittke also worked on a version for large orchestra, made up of one-to-a-part winds, per-
cussion, piano, harpsichord, organ and strings. The use of Bartók pizzicato and other performing
techniques in the strings clearly derives from the chamber orchestra version, but the harpsichord
is not as prominent, and the accompaniment figures are distributed more evenly between the
sections. This last version is incomplete and ends at bar 24 in the third movement.
Violin Sonata No. 2

Along with the Symphony No. 1, the Violin Sonata No. 2 was the seminal work of Schnittke’s
polystylistic project. Disparate stylistic allusions are juxtaposed, as commentary on the history
of its genre. It delivers a bleak message, with the constituent music rarely satisfying its structural
obligations, the form instead articulated through drama and gesture.
The sonata was written in 1968 for Mark Lubotsky and pianist Lyubov Edlina. The dedica-
tion in the first Russian edition, published in 1970, was disguised as ‘To Luba and Mark’, as both
musicians had recently emigrated to the West.
Composition of the sonata coincided with Schnittke’s work on Andrei Khrzhanovsky’s car-
toon film The Glass Harmonica. In the film, figures from famous artworks are cut out and
animated in collage, an idea reflected in Schnittke’s use of stylistic allusions in the sonata. The
story concerns a musician who plays a magical instrument, the glass harmonica, and inspires
a spiritual awakening in a previously mercenary society. Schnittke’s music for the instrument
is the B–A–C–H motif, appearing over late Romantic harmonies. That setting appears sev-
eral times in the Violin Sonata No. 2, and the B–A–C–H motif is the work’s primary thematic
material. The monogram first appears, transposed, at bar 76, but is presented more clearly at
Fig. 13, the Glass Harmonica harmonisation, on the correct notes and in the key of G minor,
the home key of the sonata. Solomon Fenton-Miller argues that the B–A–C–H motif is also
significant as a representative of the pitch class set [0,1,2,3], the four adjacent pitches within
a minor third. This collection is first heard in the violin in bar 4, and after the B–A–C–H
monogram is presented untransposed at Fig. 13, the melodic version of the monogram and
the transposable minor third pitch collection closely interact, most clearly at Fig. 24 (Fenton-
Miller 2016, 87–88).
That motivic unity proves valuable in a musical environment where multiple techniques and
ideas are at play, and where serialism, tonality and graphically notated indeterminacy all have
equal footing. Schnittke wrote that this approach was based on an impulse. ‘All of a sudden,
I had to write this piece, without relying on constructive rules … Between this triad and
a dissonant violin chord the solution [consists] in not solving anything’ (Köchel 1994, 119).
Schnittke describes how ‘everything … is conditional – there is almost no material’ (Shulgin
2004, 52). Peter J. Schmelz characterises the result as ‘a series of loosely connected episodes
and gestures: the hammering piano chords – minor, diminished-seventh, or simply clusters –
and the furious, yet somehow empty because directionless, virtuosic violin passages’ (Schmelz
2009c, 254). Silences between episodes make thematic connections even more tenuous. These
were inspired by a production of Macbeth at the Mikhoels Theatre in Moscow (Shulgin 2004,
54). In the production, everything suddenly froze at moments of tension, and then the ‘collapse’
would continue. That inspiration also points to a dramatic impulse, and Ivashkin characterises
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the various motifs as ‘characters’ in a drama (Ivashkin, Preface to Collected Works, Series IV,
Volume 1, Part 3).
The work’s complex relationship with its genre is acknowledged by the subtitle, ‘Quasi una
Sonata’, especially as Schnittke’s intent was to highlight the differences rather than the similarities
to Beethoven’s op. 27 Piano Sonatas:
It seems to me that our current situation is the exact opposite to that of Beethoven.
He was composing at a time when the formal organization of music was increasing
(for example with the sonata allegro form, which was just starting to emerge in the
Fantasias of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach). We are now at … a point where the opposite
tendencies, towards disintegration, have reached such a degree that even the concept
of the sonata is treated with a suspicion of insincerity, … where a work can only be
considered alive if its form is continually called into question, … where an element of
structural risk is always apparent, … where form must be gradually established from
moment to moment, and where an improvisatory character becomes the only possible
means of confirming its originality.
(Shulgin 2004, 52)
That ‘improvisatory character’ has significant repercussions on the work’s form, an interplay of
tonality and serialism, but with neither structurally dominant. Nevertheless, the work follows
an architectonic outline, which Schnittke described as a ‘closed three-part cycle: the first part
being constructed in sonata form with an incomplete recapitulation, and the third part a rondo-
like structure with some contrasting invasions’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 317). Kholopova
worked out the details of this scheme and included it in an appendix to her and Chigareva’s
monograph. However, the form is deliberately ambiguous, and, as Ivashkin notes, ‘the com-
poser deliberately refrains from giving the traditional tempo indications that might confirm the
presence of these three overlapping movements’ (Collected Works Preface). In an article published
after Schnittke’s death, Dmitri Smirnov proposed a different structure, a single sonata form
movement. Smirnov writes ‘We can see ambiguity in every division of the sonata: it looks like
one thing, but it functions like another. But there is nothing wrong in that! A similar ambiguity
can be found in some sonatas by Mozart and Beethoven’ (Smirnov 2002, 8). Both schemes are
outlined in Figure 6.2.
The sonata opens with an isolated G minor chord, and the opening section plays out as
an alternation between violin and piano. Smirnov, unlike Kholopova, treats this (including
the silences) as the main thematic material. He notes that the G minor chord and the dis-
sonant harmony that follows at bar 4 are analogous to a tonic and dominant polarity in
tonal music (Smirnov 2002, 5). The following music is expositional only to the extent that
it introduces new textures and dramatic effects. Schnittke was clearly aware of the precar-
ious nature of this music and conceded that traditional thematic elements were required in
transitional sections (i.e. Fig. 8), ‘otherwise, obviously, the whole structure would crumble’
(Shulgin 2004, 53).
Both structural models identify Fig. 14 as a development section. The music is serially derived
(apart from the piano right hand). The violin plays a row four times, the second time transposed,
the third inverted, and the fourth transposed and inverted. The piano does likewise, but with the
retrograde form. At Fig. 15 a new row is introduced in the violin, opening with the B–A–C–H
monogram in transposition. This row appears two more times, at Fig. 29 and bar 214 (piano:
Schnittke describes this as a fugue subject (Shulgin 2004, 53)). A final tone row appears at bars
236–37, as an allusion to the Berg Violin Concerto.These three rows each have a different function.
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Figure 6.2 Violin Sonata No. 2, Structural Models (Continued)
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The tone row at Fig. 14 is employed for functional serialism and subject to transposition, inver-
sion and retrograde. The series extrapolated from B–A–C–H is symbolic of completion, like the
monogram-derived 12-note rows in the finale of the Symphony No. 3. The Berg series simply
facilitates the stylistic allusion.
The serial extension of the Glass Harmonica quote at Fig. 28 harks back to its previous presen-
tation at bar 94, but also introduces several stylistic allusions, to works from the Austro-German
canon (see Figure 6.2) by Beethoven, Webern, Berg, Brahms (the Brahms with a monogram on
the composer’s name – B♭–A–B–D♯(E♭)).
The final conflict between the two structural models occurs at Fig. 41, which Kholopova
considers the coda, but Smirnov the climax. Given the many allusions to Beethoven, it may
be a reference to his expanded codas, satisfying both models. Tonal chords are played by the
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piano but repeated so often as to negate any tonal function. Schmelz writes that ‘this ending
is so overstated as to border on the absurd, like the comic sketch about the pianist who is
unable to conclude his piece, stuck instead in a seemingly endless series of stereotypical
cadential patterns’ (Schmelz 2009c, 254). This is followed by a senza tempo passage (Fig. 49),
where the violin plays over a held piano cluster. The cluster allows the undamped piano
strings to vibrate in sympathy with the violin, and Schnittke also recommends that another
piano be included offstage, with the sustain pedal depressed (Smirnov 2002, 6), although this
is not mentioned in the published score. The work comes to an end where the violin plays
the B–A–C–H monogram, double-stopped in two lines, the lower line the monogram in
retrograde (see Example 1.6).
Despite the ambiguity of these closing gestures, Schnittke considered this an affirmative coda,
consolidating the form by highlighting its constituent elements: the G minor triad, diminished
seventh chord, held silence and B–A–C–H monogram, ‘the real form of the work turns out to be
regulated by these traditional elements, which, working within the quasi-tonal, quasi-dialectical
structure, endlessly conflict within it, working as the fasteners of its form, as its support’ (Shulgin
2004, 53).Yet the message remains as bleak as ever, in contrast to The Glass Harmonica, where the
same Bach music was unambiguously redemptive.
In 1987, Schnittke made an arrangement of the work for violin and chamber orchestra,
consisting of pairs of woodwinds and horns, piano doubling harpsichord, and 5–4–3–3–1 strings.
Schnittke annotated a copy of the published piano score with detailed notes on the orchestra-
tion, and the orchestral score was realised by his regular copyist, Yevgeny Shchekoldin. Much
of the original piano writing is retained in the ensemble piano part, although occasionally it
is shared with other sections, for example at Fig. 7, the piano right hand part is retained, while
the left-hand cluster is given to the strings. Other piano textures are rendered through divisi
effects: the cluster at Fig.1 is precisely notated as a build up from the bottom of the string
section. Elsewhere, new aleatoric notation is devised for the strings, with the individual string
parts notated in graphic lines at Figs. 3, 23 and 25. The instrumentation of the Glass Harmonica
music is largely avoided, although the woodwind chorale at Fig. 28 recalls the organ sound on
the cartoon soundtrack.
Violin Sonata No. 3

The Violin Sonata No. 3 was composed in 1994 and was one of the last works that Schnittke
composed before his debilitating third stroke. Like the Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2, the Third is dedicated
to Mark Lubotsky. The sonata is in Schnittke’s sparse late style; although in four movements, the
manuscript covers just seven A3 pages. Most of the melodic lines are based on repeating interval
patterns, particularly semitones, although often with octave displacements, and the piano accom-
paniment often simply presents the pitches of the melodic line as harmonies: isolated, inscrutable
dissonances.
The Violin Sonata No. 3 has an ‘unreal’ quality, inspired by the music of Josef Matthias Hauer
(see Chapter 1) and conveyed through music that feels unanchored in rigorous theoretical
approaches. The feeling is emphasised by the lack of performance markings: many of those in
the Sikorski edition where added by Victor Suslin, apparently in consultation with the composer
(Aleksey Vulfson, Editorial Notes to Collected Works, Series VI, Volume 1, Part 4). But that lack
reflects the minimal means of expression in the notes too.
Connections with Hauer are evident both in the music’s theoretical underpinnings (min-
imal as they are) and in the cold, crystalline textures that result. As in Schnittke’s Sonata
No. 3, Hauer’s music ranges around the 12 pitch classes, but rarely conforms to ordered sets.
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Hauer’s approach was more philosophical than Schoenberg’s, and less systematic, a ‘con-
templation of the twelve-note universe’ (Covach 1992, 150). That approach is everywhere
apparent in the Violin Sonata No. 3, but the music also references textures and techniques
found in Hauer’s music.
The work opens with an unaccompanied violin solo.The opening three-notes – A♭, G quarter
sharp, A♭ – give the primary melodic material, appearing, with expanded intervals, at the opening
of the second and third movements.The following statement is a line of rising notes, the duration
reducing by one quaver value with each note, and the intervals between each by one semitone.
There are few other instances in the music that follows of this kind of systematic progression,
but, like much of the sonata, it demonstrates a ‘contemplation of the twelve-tone universe’. The
movement is framed by a return of the opening violin solo, with similar note values but different
pitches. The manuscript shows that this coda, from bar 41, was a late addition, perhaps prompted
by a similar recapitulation at the end of the third movement.
The second movement, Allegro (molto added by Suslin), is the only fast one. Schnittke indicates
in the score ‘Durchführung’ (development) at bar 130; and ‘Reprise’ at bar 244, suggesting a
sonata form, with the second subject at bar 71, reprised, substantially altered, at bar 319. As
Ivashkin points out, ‘the violin part is essentially a “horizontal” version of the chords found in
the piano part. The apparent chromaticism represents a kind of “summary” of various harmonic
elements, and incorporates a range of triads, chords and melodic lines built on the interval of the
perfect fourth. They are in a state of “equal tension” (to quote Schnittke’s description of Hauer’s
music)’ (Ivashkin, Preface to Collected Works score). The textures of Hauer’s own piano music are
also evident in the piano writing, especially where the two hands play in chromatic inversion (bar
47), and in the accompaniment based on unrelated tonal triads at bar 166.
The slow third movement is paradoxical, ‘reflective’ as Ivashkin notes, but cold and inexpres-
sive too. The B–A–C–H monogram appears at bar 70, significantly in transposition, just as it first
appeared in his music, in the Violin Sonata No. 1 over 30 years before.
The fourth movement is marked Senza tempo (tempo libero ma inqueto). This movement links
to the first, both in its avoidance of metre and in its pitch content, based on the chromatic scale
and on gradually expanding and decreasing intervals, the link suggesting an arch form. But, as
Ivashkin points out, the disorder here is greater, and a sense of ‘entropy or indeterminacy’ now
characterises the music, which seems ‘continually to be on the verge of disappearance’.
Close links are again evident with the ideas of Hauer. Each section is made up of a forte phrase,
in which one hand of the piano doubles the violin, while the other plays the same rhythm but
different pitches.This kind of three-part texture occurs often in Hauer’s music, and, like here, also
involves many octave displacements. John Covach refers to Hauer’s technique as ‘plaining’. The
violin solos that follow have the note durations, counted in quavers, written above each note in
the manuscript. These show the notes following systematic increase and decrease patterns, but
moving freely between the two, for example after Fig. 3 (ascending values italicised): 10, 1, 9,
2, 3, 4, 8, 7, 5, 6. Although Hauer never investigated such ordering principles for rhythm, this
approach is similar to his row ordering. In many of Hauer’s works, he employs ‘rotation’, starting
mid-way through a row and then looping back to the beginning. He also often combines rows,
interspersing one row with another, the second appearing in retrograde, a technique Covach
describes as ‘splicing’ (Covach 1992, 157).
Despite the disorder and entropy, the work ends conclusively, the last two bars bringing
together the piano and violin in a final emphatic gesture. This coda articulates two important
monograms, the B–A–C–H, still transposed, and, as the final two notes of the violin part, A–E♭,
Schnittke’s own monogram, a small but significant gesture in this increasingly nebulous and
intangible sound world.
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Suite in the Old Style

Suite in the Old Style was composed in 1972 at the request of Mark Lubotsky. The work is a
series of Neoclassical vignettes – Pastorale, Ballet, Minuet, Fugue and Pantomime – based on
Schnittke’s film music and arranged for violin and piano (or harpsichord). It is significant for
introducing a new approach in Schnittke’s concert music, a ‘new simplicity’ (Kholopova 2003,
127), employing tonal pastiche but without the stark juxtapositions of polystylism. It therefore
anticipates the funereal works of the late 1970s, such as the Requiem and the Piano Quintet, where
tonal styles are employed, but without any sense of irony or detachment.
The music for the Suite derives from two films, both comedies directed by Elem Klimov.
Pastoral, Ballet and Pantomime are taken from Adventures of a Dentist (1965) and Minuet and Fugue
from Sport, Sport, Sport (1970). Schnittke emphasises the surrealism of the stories by contrasting
the modern-day action with old-fashioned music. Sport, Sport, Sport is a comedy/documentary
about sporting activities in Soviet Russia. The music that became the Fugue accompanies the
opening sequence, a panorama of fans in the stands of a stadium. The Minuet music was written
to accompany a scene about a young female gymnast. Klimov added this section at the last minute,
and Schnittke wrote the music overnight and recorded it the following day to meet the deadline
(Shulgin 2004, 63).
Lubotsky was impressed with the music to these two films. He later wrote, ‘I admired this
beautiful, pure music, written by a composer who seemed to be wearing a costume from the
18th century. But that didn’t affect his refinement, imagination and wit, and it seemed to me
unjustified that these pieces should only be heard in this applied context’ (Lubotsky 2015, 72).
Although the ‘Old Style’ of the Suite sounds unified, no specific era is evoked. Alexander
Demchenko associates the Ballet and Fugue with Bach and the more melancholic Minuet
with Mozart. The Pantomime, he suggests, displays a more Russian sense of humour. But
Demchenko also points out that the development of themes often invokes Romanticism, espe-
cially Tchaikovsky in the use of sequences (Demchenko 2009, 91–92). Schnittke also acknow-
ledges that in each movement there is a small ‘blotch’ (kliakse) in relation to the earlier style
(Shulgin 2004, 63). He gives as an example the 3+3+2 syncopation in the Fugue (bar 96) and
also mentions dissonances in seconds between voices.
In all movements apart from the Minuet, the theme opens on an anacrusis (the emphasis on
the second beat in the Fugue creates a three-beat anacrusis). In the opening Pastorale, downbeat
mordents are an important melodic feature, although cadential mordents in the piano part, bars
28, 32 and 52, were apparently removed by Schnittke in the first edition (Vulfson, Editorial Notes
to Collected Works, Series IV, Volume 1, Part 5). The ‘blotch’ here is the ending, an interrupted
cadence ending on a jazz harmony, a dominant seventh with flat ninth.
The theme for Ballet also appears in the second movement of Schnittke’s Symphony No. 1. Here,
it is developed through extensive sequences from bar 25 before reprising in the home key of D
major at bar 104. The final two bars are the only section in the work that Schnittke altered in the
manuscript, initially writing quadruple-stopped A7–D chords as the last two notes of the violin part.
The Mozartean dimension of the Minuet is apparent in its more progressive harmonies, with
diminished sevenths as early as bar 5.The movement has a ternary structure: A–B(48)–A(79).The
Fugue returns to the Baroque, the movement a well-structured three-voice fugue. The devel-
opment begins at bar 16, with an augmentation of the theme in the violin, recapitulation at bar
114 and coda at 123.
The Pantomime final movement is more stately, although the serene mood of the opening is
soon compromised. A ternary form is created through a repeat with a very long first time bar,
creating a contrasting central episode.The ‘blotch’ in this movement is the highly dissonant chord
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at the end of the first time bar, a G dominant seventh with added F♯ and A♭, bar 57. The chord
appears as the culmination of a passage, from bar 54, that switches jarringly between C major and
C minor harmonies. But the chord itself is closely related to the G dominant seventh with flat
ninth that closes the first movement, and that same chord and texture also reappear at the end of
Pantomime, as a rhyming, if unresolved, cadence.
Despite the immediate popularity of Suite in the Old Style, Schnittke was reluctant to take
credit for the work. He argued that the music was an ‘explicit stylisation’ and ‘not by me’ (Shulgin
2004, 63). He even declined to take a bow whenever the work was performed. Nevertheless,
the piece proved especially popular with performers, many of whom made arrangements.
Transcriptions were made for chamber orchestra by Vladimir Spivakov and Mikhail Milman, for
trumpet and piano by Vladimir Kafelnikov, for viola d’amore, harpsichord and percussion by Igor
Boguslavsky, and for flute quartet by Dmitry Varelas.
Schnittke himself returned to the score, making an arrangement of the Minuet for two violins5
around 1976 and of the same movement for cello and piano in 1992, the later version, written for
Mstislav Rostropovich and entitled Musica Nostalgica. Although Schnittke adds little new music in
these arrangements – the countertheme alternating notes A and E from bar 16 is the only thematic
addition – the textures are radically transformed in both versions. In the two-violin version, both
instruments regularly add multiple open string pedals, creating a broad open-sounding texture of
bare fifths.Two further textural ideas are added: at bar 63 (Fig. 8) a double-stopped glissando effect
in violin 1, and from bar 79 (Fig. 10) the main theme performed in artificial harmonics.
For Musica Nostalgica, Schnittke combines elements of the previous two versions, redistrib-
uting the material between the keyboard and solo line in comparison to the violin and piano
version. The new ideas in the two-violin version are again employed, the alternating A–E line,
the double-stopped glissandos and the theme in artificial harmonics (see Example 6.3). Where
the previous two versions are each a partnership of equals, in line with Baroque chamber music
conventions, Musica Nostalgica is very much a cello showpiece with piano accompaniment.
Greeting Rondo
Greeting Rondo was composed in 1973 to celebrate the 50th birthday of Rostislav Dubinsky,
then leader of the Borodin Quartet. The style is Neoclassical pastiche, and Ivashkin writes that
‘its elegant profile, reminiscent of Viennese music of the Classical era … reflects the unique
character of Dubinsky himself, his subtle artistic manner, and the unusual flexibility of his
performing technique’ (Ivashkin, Preface to Collected Works, Series VI, Volume 1, Part 6). The
work was premiered by Mark Lubotsky, rather than Dubinsky, although he was accompanied by
Dubinsky’s wife, Lyubov Edlina. Schnittke later reworked the material into an orchestral version,
(K)ein Sommernachtstraum (1985).
The Rondo was written the year after Schnittke’s Suite in the Old Style and takes a similar
approach to Classical-era pastiche. It is particularly close in style to the Suite’s Pastorale movement.
Both are in C major, with melodies that begin on emphatic anacruses and employ characteristic
downbeat mordents.
The theme has the character of a Viennese minuet, much like the Minuet movement of the
Suite. The theme itself, like the Suite’s Minuet, has a ternary form, the bridge passage at Fig. 3 a
brief contrast before the reprise at Fig. 4. (The rising arpeggio variant of the theme at Fig. 12 also
suggests a debt to the Suite’s Minuet, cf. Minuet bar 44.)
From here, the work outlines a rondo form, with refrains of the main theme at Figs. 9, 19,
31 (climax) and 41, and contrasting episodes at Figs. 5, 16, 23 and 39 (coda), the first and last,
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Example 6.3 (a) Suite in the Old Style, Minuet, bars 63–70; (b) Minuet for Two Violins, bars 63–70;
(c) Musica Nostalgica, bars 63–70 (reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd)
Figs. 5 and 39, based on the same material. Stylistically, these episodes diverge. Elena Zakharova
hears the first episode, at Fig. 5, as a Russian song. She also relates the quadruple-stopped chords
at Fig. 16 to Paganini, the violin melisma at Fig. 13 to Bach, and the textures of the climax, Fig.
38, to Beethoven (Zakharova 2010, 49). But the stylistic diversity is limited, and the music never
strays far from the character of the main theme.
Zakharova writes that the key centres of the episodes are derived from a monogram based on
Dubinsky’s name, explaining the many surprising key changes in the work (Zakharova 2010, 48).
She argues that the monogram A–D–F–Des–B–Es can be derived from Rostislav Dubinsky, but
including his patronymic, Davidovich, makes a stronger case: rostislAv DaViDovich BerlinSky.
This corresponds to the keys: A minor, Fig. 5; D minor, Fig. 16; F minor, Fig. 23; D♭ major,
Fig. 25; B♭ major, Fig. 29; E♭ major, Fig. 38.
The climax, at Fig. 38, is based on exaggerated Beethovenian gestures, an incessantly repeated
motif, culminating in a ff diminished seventh chord. From here, the coda enacts a cyclical return
to the start, revisiting the first episode, before a final refrain of the theme. And although the con-
clusion cadences in C major, it retains a sense of openness by ending with the violin unaccom-
panied and diminuendoing, a final homage to Dubinsky’s ‘subtle artistic manner’.
Prelude in Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich

After the death of Dmitri Shostakovich, in August 1975, Mark Lubotsky suggested to Schnittke
that he write a piece in the older composer’s memory, adding hesitantly ‘Can it be for the violin?’
(Lubotsky 2015, 82). Schnittke initially refused, but a month later presented Lubotsky with a
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prelude, for two violins, or violin and tape.The work was written in a single day, 5 October 1975
(Ivashkin, Preface to Collected Works, Series VI, Volume 3), although later it was edited to make
the multiple-stopped chords more convenient. It was premiered by Lubotsky at his last Moscow
concert before leaving Russian for the West.
Schnittke specifies in the score that ‘the second violin part should be played from backstage or
from behind a curtain (preferably with a microphone). It is also possible to pre-record the second
violin part to be played back during performance.’
The work is based on two monograms, the Shostakovich D–S–C–H (D, E♭, C, B) and B–A–
C–H. These are combined with open-string textures, and the resulting sonorities continually
suggest harmonies of G major and E♭ major. The piece is structured in four sections. In the
first, up to Fig. 6, only the first violin plays, and all the music is derived from the Shostakovich
monogram, with plucked open D string (the initial for Dmitri) a recurring accompaniment.
Schnittke describes this as ‘a kind of passacaglia with some variations’. At Fig. 6, the second
violin (or tape) enters, introducing the B–A–C–H monogram. Schnittke explained that the Bach
monogram appears ‘as an objective voice – bigger than anything that comes before, absorbing all
that precedes it into itself ’ (Shulgin 2004, 75). The quadruple-stopping in the second violin also
produces the pitches G–E–E♭, symbolising the German word Gestorben (dead) (Ivashkin, Preface
to Collected Works, Series VI,Volume 3).
From Fig. 7 onwards, the two parts play in strict canon. Schnittke points out that, initially, the
counterpoint within the two parts at Fig. 7 also gives the impression of double canon (Shulgin
2004, 75). The textures gradually reduce and simplify until the coda, at Fig. 12. From here, the
two monograms gradually come together, and Schnittke exploits the two shared pitches, C and
B, to create the impression of gradual unification. The C and B are separated out in the canon,
and end up as the final two notes of the piece, the textures gradually fading away, ending by
ellipsis, a final representation of death.
Simple musical processes here play out a subtle symbolic act, the gradual merging of the Bach
and Shostakovich monograms. ‘In no way do I want to say that Shostakovich is equal to Bach,’
Schnittke explains, ‘the D–S–C–H is returning to its source. I recall Balanchine’s production of
Prokofiev’s The Prodigal Son, which toured to Moscow in 1962. The ending was stunning, with
the Prodigal Son creeping up and crawling back to the father … This is the return to the source
I envisaged in the Prelude’ (Shulgin 2004, 75).
Stille Nacht
Stille Nacht for violin and piano was written as a Christmas present for Gidon Kremer – the
score is dated 24 December 1978. It is dedicated to Kremer and to violinist Liana Isakadze. The
work takes the Christmas carol Silent Night (Franz Xaver Gruber, 1818) and subjects it to an
increasingly distorted arrangement over four verses. Schnittke commented that: ‘The meaning
of the carol has not been changed, but rather supplemented through certain distortions and new
voices, and not to cause offence, but rather as an attempt to retain the Christmas flavour despite
the obvious bitterness of the tune’ (Köchel 1994, 197). Kremer agreed, saying the work would
encourage listeners to ‘adopt a different attitude to Christmas and to themselves by asking, for
example: what has become of this carol, what has remained, what has changed, what have people
made of the carol’s meaning and, indeed, of the meaning of life itself?’ (quoted in liner note to
Teldec CD 4509–94540–2).
Although the familiar melody is clearly heard throughout, Schnittke makes substantial changes.
The music is transposed from D major to G major, and Gruber’s harmony in thirds is only
employed in bars 9–10. The 6/8 bars are halved to create 3/4, and the move away from lilting
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compound time is emphasised by having the piano left hand playing a dissonant C♯ at the start
of every ‘offbeat’ bar from the second verse. Schnittke said: ‘There is always the possibility of at
least one interpretation, but there may be others too. For instance, one can hear in [the work] a
clear allusion to a broken clock. A listener may ignore this sinister side and not even notice the
broken clock and its relation to his own fragility’ (Köchel 1994, 118).
Schnittke introduces new harmonies, mostly based on the open strings of the violin. But he
paces the shocks, the first a diminished octave double-stop on the last note of the first verse.
The piano right hand then takes the melody at Fig. 1, and the pizzicato violin accompaniment
arpeggiates tonal triads and diminished and major sevenths. In the first two verses (written as a
repeat with the piano only playing the second time), the lyrical line is broken up by four bars of
pizzicato, bars 13–16, but in the fourth verse, the disruption becomes more incessant, the violin
regularly switching between pizzicato and arco, as well as breaking up the melody with com-
pound intervals and artificial harmonics.
At the end, the violinist detunes the G-string to glissando between G and the D below, an
effect that Schnittke would later also use in the codas to A Paganini and Klingende Buchstaben.The
creaking of the tuning peg adds to the eerie effect. The autograph includes a held G♯4 over the
scordatura in the last six bars.The Sikorski edition omits this, on the grounds that it is unplayable,
a view seconded by the editors of the Collected Works Edition.
A Paganini
A Paganini, for solo violin, was written in 1982, the idea for a Paganini-inspired piece coming
from Oleh Krysa. The work is styled on Paganini’s virtuoso violin writing and modelled on his
24 Caprices. Paganini is also represented through multiple layers of symbolism, but the result is
not a homage, so much as ‘an attempt … to reflect, and at the same time to overcome, the tragic
aspect of the composer’s personality’ (Ivashkin 2017, 200).
Schnittke contextualises Paganini’s violin writing, through earlier violin styles and ‘elements
of later music, in which the technique of violin playing was more fully developed’ (Liner note
to BIS-CD-697). Kholopova identifies Corelli’s version of La folia, Bach’s Chaconne from the
Second Violin Partita and the Berg Violin Concerto as additional stylistic references. She describes
the passage at Fig. 3 as a rapid evolution from Bach to Berg over just five bars (Kholopova &
Chigareva 1990, 189). The following passages, Figs. 4 and 5, are in a more stable late Romantic
style, which she relates to Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The Paganini Caprices
are also quoted directly, in Cadenza 1 at Fig. 8.This passage is made up entirely of short quotations
from 13 Caprices (a ‘Devil’s dozen’): Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 23 and 24.
Copies of eight pages of compositional sketches for A Paganini are held at the Ivashkin-
Schnittke Archive. These show that Schnittke originally intended ‘Slow funeral music, which
(through suggestion, etc.) becomes ever more ornamented and virtuosic.’ In one plan,
Schnittke describes nine sections, each with progressively shorter note values: Theme; I –
crotchets; II – quavers; III – triplet quavers; up to VII – demisemiquavers; then VIII – Langsam
[slow]; IX – Finale. These sections are retained in the final work, with the roman numerals
up to VII in the sketch corresponding to the rehearsal numbers. But Schnittke later expanded
that last section, adding two cadenzas, the first at Fig. 8 (moving the slow section to Fig. 9),
the second at Fig. 13.
Coded references to Paganini form the basis of the work’s thematic content. They play out
against a backdrop of ascending chromatic scales, the first a chromatic ascent of an octave, D4 to
D5, in the top line in the first 10 bars. Later, from seven bars after Fig. 1, most of the fast passage
work is based on chromatic ascents, displaced with regular octave shifts.
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The open-string D acts as the pitch centre, and the first note of almost every section. The
sketches show that this was intended to represent ‘Deus’. When Schnittke comes to represent
Paganini through number codes, he heads the sketch Irgendein ‘teuflisches’ Prinzip als Grundlage
(‘Some “devilish” principle as foundation’). After experimenting with monograms based
on Paganini’s name, Schnittke instead opts for his dates of birth and death: 27/10/1782 –
27/05/1840, focusing on the 27 common to both. In one sketch, Schnittke writes quotations
from Paganini’s Caprices, where groups of two notes are followed by groups of seven, noting ‘In
this way, quotations could be selected. Maybe not all from the beginning (also middle, end, etc.).’
This principle is evident in the quotation section, Fig. 8, where quotations are not always taken
from the start of a Caprice and groupings of twos and sevens predominate, although the sevens
are often broken up into smaller groupings.
Schnittke also devises a system for translating numbers into pitches by designating the C2 as 1
and then counting upwards in semitones.This system gives the ‘Deus’ D the number 27. His final
approach is to create motifs in which the intervals between pitches represent the digits of the
dates, when counted in semitones. This idea relates to the rising chromatic scales that predom-
inate in the work, because Schnittke adds one note of ascent in addition to each of the numbers
of his formula (see Figure 6.3). The digits of the birth date are applied predominantly as rising
intervals, while the digits of the death date are all applied as lowering intervals. This generates
the pitch patterns: birth – C, E♭, B, A♯, G♯, E, A, F♯; death – C, A, C♯, G, F, G♯, D♯. (Schnittke
miscalculates the A in the birth date, descending seven semitones, rather than the nine his sketch
indicates.)
Birth: 27–10–1782 Death: 27–5–1840
These patterns appear clearly in the Langsam passage and Fig. 9.The birth motif also returns at
Figs. 10 and 13, and the death motif as the highest notes of the arpeggio figures from four bars
after Fig. 11.
As with many of Schnittke’s works of the 1980s, the coda, Fig. 14, acts as a delayed expos-
ition. Schnittke says that the beginning and end of the work use ‘basically’ the same material
(BIS-CD-697). Like the coda, the opening has 14 bars, and seems like a disguised and frag-
mentary version of it. The ending presents a melody, which hovers around the ‘Deus’ D, held
as a drone on the string above. Given its structural significance, this melody is probably a
number cipher. In the first system that Schnittke proposed, counting pitches upwards from C2,
the first three melody notes – D, E, E♭ – give Paganini’s death date, the pitches representing
the numbers 27, 5, 40. This melody is also heard in the Langsam section, interpolating the
birth and death motifs (see Example 6.4). It is also repeated, in a different register and rhythm,
with the death motif after Fig. 10, bars 3, 7, 15–17. The whole Langsam section is heard over
an A pedal, the dominant of the ‘Deus’ D, suggesting a structurally significant destination
between the interrelated opening and closing passages. The significance of all three passages is
heightened by the sense of stillness they create in a score otherwise characterised by frenzied
virtuosic textures.
Figure 6.3 A Paganini, derivation of birth/death motif
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Example 6.4 A Paganini, Fig. 9 (reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd)
Madrigal in Memoriam Oleg Kagan

The violinist Oleg Kagan died in 1990 aged 43, and Schnittke composed his Madrigal in Memoriam
Oleg Kagan immediately after. The work is in two versions, one for solo cello and one for solo
violin, and Schnittke said that ‘it should ideally be played twice in the same concert: the violin
version at the beginning and the cello version at the end’ (Ivashkin, Preface to Collected Works,
Series VI, Volume 1, Part 7). Comparison of the autographs shows that the cello version was
written first (Maria Cook, Editorial Notes to Collected Works, Series VI, Volume 2, Part 1). The
violin version is an octave higher, has an artificial harmonic at bar 24 that does not appear in the
cello version, and in several of the double-stops, the lower note has been changed from an open
string on the cello to one on the violin.
The work is based on a monogram derived from Kagan’s name: olEG kAGAn – E, G, A, G,
A. Christopher Segall also identifies a monogram based on the name of Kagan’s wife, nAtaliA
GutmAn – A, A, G, A, and points out that the opening six bars present the two monograms
intertwined, the last A of bar 3 both the end of the Kagan monogram and the start of the Gutman
(Segall 2013b, 269).
Alexander Ivashkin outlines the form as A, B, A, B1, A, the refrains slow and based on the
Kagan monogram, the episodes faster. He describes the work’s symbolism (Ivashkin 2017, 202):
the music gradually lays out a 12-note row based on the Kagan monogram: E, G, A, G♯, F♯, F,
E♭, D♭, B♭, B, C, D, the presentation repeatedly interrupted by repetitions. After the final note, D,
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is given at bar 25, the row is not heard again in complete form, and is gradually elided through
the second and third refrains. The climax is at bar 44, reflecting the fact that Kagan died in his
44th year. Schnittke has to extend bar 44 to accommodate the climax, but Ivashkin reads this as
a symbol that ‘metrical orientation has disappeared and … time has completely stopped’. The
cello version ends on a double-stopped E2–F3, the first and sixth pitches of the note row. Ivashkin
writes ‘It would be hard here not to see this as a symbol of a life cut short at its halfway point’.
The violin version ends G♯3–A4, and Ivashkin associates the G♯ as Schnittke’s initials, A♭=As. But
the ending can also be related to the row: terms three and four, the central pitches of the first
half that E–F frames.
Polka for Violin and Piano

Polka was composed in 1993 for the violinist Alexander (Sasha) Rozhdestvensky, in the same
year that Schnittke composed his Concerto Grosso No. 6 for the same performer and his parents.
The music is taken from Schnittke’s incidental music to The Census List (1978), a play by Yuri
Lyubimov based on short stories by Gogol. There, it accompanies Gogol’s The Overcoat, at the
point where thieves steal a new coat from the hero, Akaky Akakievich.The movement appears in
Gennady Rozhdestvensky’s earlier arrangement of the music, Gogol Suite (1981), movement IV.
Schnittke’s arrangement retains the stable A minor tonality with occasional shifts to A major.
Dissonances between melody and accompanying lines are retained through double-stopping
in the violin line. There is no record of Schnittke giving the title Polka, nor does it appear in
the Gogol Suite. The word is written at the end of the music on one of the two photocopies
of the manuscript in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive, but not in Schnittke’s hand. The Collected
Works edition (Series VI, Volume 1, Part 6, 2010) includes several editorial additions by Sasha
Rozhdestvensky, virtuoso flourishes at bars 42 and 44, and an ending with piano clusters, rather
than the less decisive A major chord in Schnittke’s original.
Works for cello and piano/cello solo/cello and ensemble
Cello Sonata No. 1

The Cello Sonata No. 1 was composed in response to a commission from Universal Edition,
Vienna. The work is dedicated to the cellist Natalia Gutman, but Gutman knew nothing of the
project until presented with the completed score (Janof 1999). Instead, the work appears to have
an autobiographical motivation, sharing many technical features with the similarly confessional
Violin Concerto No. 3, written immediately before. Like the Violin Concerto No. 3, the sonata is in
three movements, connected attacca. The first is brief and slow, the second a frenetic, ‘diabolical’
scherzo and the third an expansive rondo, longer than the first two movements combined.
Schnittke described the sonata as ‘a straightforward work … not based on any technical
innovations.’ However, he qualified ‘One aspect of it is worthy of attention … the way in
which the musical language is simultaneously tonal and atonal. My idea here was to create
both a contrast and a meaningful interrelationship between the two’ (Kholopova & Chigareva
1990, 137). Tonal harmonies are often employed, but usually in isolation or with unre-
lated triads. In the second movement, Schnittke gives equal prominence to diminished and
augmented chords, and to wholetone and chromatic clusters, while in the third, a chord
combining major and minor triads of the same root becomes a defining sonority. Schnittke
describes these as ‘split’ triads that tend towards atonality (Köchel 1994, 123). The melodic
lines are generally scalar but avoid modality by switching accidentals each time the line returns
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to the same pitch letter. This links the melodic lines to the circulatio device of Schnittke’s con-
temporaneous religious works.
The first movement opens with an extended cello solo, the first textural connection with the
Violin Concerto No. 3. Schnittke observed that the opening of the sonata anticipates the ending,
as in the Violin Sonata No. 2 (Köchel 1994, 123). There is also a close relationship between the
cello’s opening figure and the horn-call motif in the piano at Fig. 1. The two ideas share most
of their constituent notes, but the piano version seems more tonally rooted (despite ranging
from C minor to C major and C♯ minor in just a few bars, a progression via major/minor third
substitutions), tonal and atonal ideas demonstrating a ‘meaningful interrelationship’.
The second movement is a mechanistic scherzo, recalling Shostakovich. The movement is in
sonata form: opening – 1st subject; Fig. 9 – 2nd subject; Fig. 14 – development; Fig. 18 – reprise;
Fig. 22 – 2nd subject; Fig. 29 – coda. The duel identity – scherzo and sonata – is evident in the
fact that the sonata form governs the textures but not the drama, which builds incessantly to a
climax at the end of the development, before Fig. 18, and then again to the climax of the entire
movement, before Fig. 29.
The first subject employs a repeating moto perpetuo in the cello of 13 bars over a repeating
16-bar pattern in the piano, a rare example in Schnittke’s music of phase shifting.The cello figure
is based on alternately ascending and descending lines, beginning with two notes, then gradually
increasing 3, 4 … up to 14.
Both the harmonies and the melodic lines are determined through varied applications of
major and minor thirds. In the opening cello line, most four-note cells are made up of the four
chromatic pitches within the space of a minor third. The piano accompaniment begins with a
repeated raising minor third in the bass and diminished seventh chords (stacked minor thirds). At
Fig. 4, the piano harmonies move to wholetone clusters (superimposed major thirds), and at Fig.
5 to major third clusters. At Fig. 6, the piano imitates the cello ostinato at half and quarter speed,
a mensuration canon.
Schnittke writes that the movement’s ‘frenzied course … finally runs dead. After it comes the
slow, reflective finale’ (Köchel 1994, 123). The last movement opens with an E♮ in the solo line
accompanied by a C minor chord, just as at the opening of the final movement of the Violin
Concerto No. 3.The movement is interspersed with quotes from the first two movements, another
feature of the concerto’s finale. The movement is in a clear rondo form: Opening–A; Fig. 2–B;
Fig. 3–C; Fig. 6–A; Fig. 7–B; Fig. 10–A; Fig. 12–D. Section C reprises the piano horn call from the
first movement, and section D reprises elements of both movements I and II, second-movement
motifs in the piano heard simultaneously with first-movement motifs in the cello. Schnittke
described the muted climax of this section (bar 157) as a ‘faint shadow of the presto vortex’
(Köchel 1994, 123).That reminiscence continues into the coda, with the final bars a ghostly echo
of the incessant ostinato that closed the second movement, then ffff, now ppp.
Cello Sonata No. 2

The Cello Sonata No. 2 was written in 1994 for Mstislav Rostropovich.The piece is in Schnittke’s
austere late style, more plaintive and confessional that the Sonata No. 1, the skeletal piano accom-
paniment giving the cello the predominant role.
The sonata is in five movements – senza tempo, allegro, largo, allegro, lento – the tempo indications,
if not the thematic material, suggesting an arch form.The first movement is made up of gradually
expanding phrases in the cello, all growing out of bell-like repeating low Cs in the piano, the
music structured around climaxes at bars 38 and 59. In the second movement, the piano plays a
series of gradually expanding clusters, while the cello plays a line that increases in notes from one
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Example 6.5 Cello Sonata No. 2, original coda for movement IV
to 12. Although the textures are different, this recalls a similar accretion process in the second
movement of the Cello Sonata No. 1. Two later passages also invoke that movement: see bar 84
and Cello Sonata No. 1, movement II, bar 392; Fig. 9 and movement II, Fig. 29. In the Largo third
movement, the piano plays a series of isolated and increasingly dissonant sonorities, linked by a
cello line made up wholly of notes from the piano chords. This approach is also followed in the
faster fourth movement, although the piano writing is more complex, creating rhythmic imi-
tation and interplay with the cello. The fourth movement functions as a finale, and the fifth an
epilogue. The final piano chord is on the notes of the B–A–C–H monogram: this, with the C♯
in the cello, also referring back to the last chord of the third movement.
The arch form of the sonata was an afterthought. A first draft of the score in the Ivashkin-
Schnittke Archive shows that the work originally had four movements, the fifth a later addition.
The fourth movement in the sketch is appended with a five-bar coda, in which the cello ends on
a high upward glissando: this and the movement’s later coda diverge at bar 56 (see Example 6.5).
Ivashkin writes that the growing phrases, from one to 12 notes, at the start of the second
movement are ‘a symbolic representation of the passing of time’ (Ivashkin, Preface to Collected
Works, Series VI, Volume 2, Part 2). He also relates the third movement to the work of Josef
Matthias Hauer, pointing out that Hauer also employed short melodic figures made up of the
notes from the accompanying harmony (see Chapter 1: Late Style 1985–1994). The first draft
of the score suggests further influences from Hauer. The idea of creating a sequence of pitches,
which then become the basis of both the chords and the melodies is also apparent in the second
movement. Here, Schnittke sketches out a series of piano clusters, as the basis for the movement.
The work appears to have originally been structured around the number 12, a number of iconic
significance to Hauer himself.This sketch for the second movement is in three sections, each of 12
chords. The first ends at Fig. 1 in the final score. Fig. 1 is marked ‘Durchführung’ (Development)
and continues for 12 chords up to Fig. 3, marked ‘Reprise’. The reprise also has 12 harmonies,
but Schnittke spreads them out over the following 100 bars, breaking the symmetry, the last the
octave F♯ pedal at bar 107. Schnittke later indicates the following section, from Fig. 11, to be the
reprise in the final version.
Many further examples of structuring around the number 12 are apparent in the finished
work, but in every case the actual number has been slightly increased, with a consistency to
suggest deliberate concealment. In movement I there are 13 low Cs. And the total bar numbers
of each movement are each just over a multiple of 12: 73, 127, 75 and 62. The first draft of the
score shows how the bar numbering increased. For example, in the third movement, the bar line
between bars 3 and 4 is a later addition, the two 2/4 bars originally a single 4/4; similarly bars
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59/60. Unusually, then, the number 12 appears to be used solely as a structuring principle, with
Schnittke ignoring its symbolic significance when making later edits to the score.
Dialogue for Cello and 7 Instrumentalists

Dialogue was written at the request of cellist Mikhail Khomitser. The score was drafted in piano
reduction in 1965. Schnittke was unsure about the orchestration and only returned to the work
in 1967, creating the version for cello and seven instrumentalists (Shulgin 2004, 44). The work
anticipates many of the stylistic features of Schnittke’s music in the late 1970s. Levon Hakobian
notes that it is the first of Schnittke’s works to play out as a ‘fable’, in which the soloist is the
voice of a ‘suffering human soul’ against an ensemble that represents ‘the hostile, vulgar, chaotic,
universe’ (Hakobian 1998, 273–74). The use of quartertones in the cello part, Hakobian notes,
emphasises the ‘human’ quality of the instrument’s voice, while the aleatory style of much of the
ensemble writing emphasises the ‘anti-human environment.’ Kholopova relates these features to
the Violin Concerto No. 2, describing Dialogue as a sketch for that work (Kholopova & Chigareva
1990, 31). As in the concerto, she hears the soloist versus ensemble as a good versus evil tension,
with the marimba the only sympathetic accompaniment to the cello.
Given the increasing focus on serial techniques in Schnittke’s music of the mid-1960s, the
pitch manipulation in Dialogue is surprisingly free and intuitive. Schnittke said that he was trying
to find a language independent of tonality, but not as strictly calculated as dodecaphony (Shulgin
2004, 44). He describes the work as a series of variations on a three-note motif – C, D, D♭ – a
three-note serialism.
The 1965 score for Dialogue is written for cello and piano, but the piano part is clearly a
reduction of an orchestral accompaniment. The original title given in this score is ‘Monologue-
Dialogue’.The score also suggests that the work was originally conceived in multiple movements,
the second movement beginning at Fig. 3.
Schnittke was indecisive about the size of the ensemble.The 1965 title page describes the work
as for cello and chamber orchestra. Instrumentation notes on the music suggest a larger orchestra,
including full strings, piano, bass clarinet and a large percussion section with xylophone, marimba
and bells. In the later arrangement for seven instrumentalists, strings were omitted on the grounds
that the cello can play in the violin and viola registers, as well as its own, while high woodwind
and brass – trumpet, French horn, oboe, clarinet, flute – were chosen to complement the cello’s
lower tone (Shulgin 2004, 44). The piano and percussion were retained from the orchestral
conception.
The number three plays an important role in the work’s structure, beyond the three-note motif
on which it is based. The work has 36 rehearsal figures (12x3), and most of the tempo changes
occur at rehearsal figures that are also multiples of three. Most of the metronome markings are
numbers divisible by three. Schnittke also describes a sonata form in the work (Shulgin 2004,
45), with the opening cadenza an introduction and the second subject also a cadenza solo. This
suggests a structure:
Opening – Introduction
Fig. 3 – Exposition
Fig. 9 – Second subject (‘birdsong episode’ (Shulgin 2004,45))
Fig. 12 – Development
Fig. 16 – Recapitulation
Fig. 26 – Second subject
Fig. 33 – Epilogue
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But Schnittke also acknowledges that the work is monothematic, with first and second subjects
based on the same theme, and contrast replaced with gradual intensification, towards the culmin-
ation at Fig. 30. The cello’s music leading up to this point is a summation of the sonata themes,
but at Fig. 30 the instruments try to drown the cello out with their own music. The epilogue
closely resembles the opening cadenza, and closes on the C, D, C♯ with which the work opened.
Despite its short duration and protracted genesis, Dialogue proved a significant turning point
for Schnittke, the first work in which he was able to break from the confines of strict serialism.
Schnittke observed that the quasi-serial technique on a three-note motif would later be signifi-
cant to the String Quartet No. 1, which begins on the same three notes (Shulgin 2004, 45). Also, in
the second phrase, the opening C, D, D♭ is ‘compressed’ to C, D♭, D♭♭; this process of compression
later becoming the main structural principle of pianissimo…
Hymns for Cello and Ensemble

The Four Hymns for Cello and Ensemble were written at separate times in the 1970s, with each
dedicated to a different cellist: Nos. 1 and 2 in 1974 for Heinrich Schiff and Valentin Berlinsky,
No. 3 in 1975 for Alexander Ivashkin and No. 4 probably in 1979. The Fourth is dedicated to
Karine Georgian, winner of the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition.
The music continually references Russian Orthodox chant, although only Hymn 1 quotes
chant directly. Schnittke aims for an abstract relationship with liturgical music, choosing instru-
mental combinations that distance the music from the sound of singing. But he also references
techniques that are specific to Orthodox liturgical music, for example ‘under-voice’ (podgolosochnoi)
polyphony, where voices ‘weave’ beneath the surface, without any single voice becoming dom-
inant. Schnittke described the results as hymns in a spiritual sense, rather than as evocations of
praises and chanting (Shulgin 2004, 74).
Hymn 1 is based on Sviatyi Bozhe, as deciphered by Mikhail Brazhnikov and published
as No. 89 in the Nicolai Uspensky collection Examples of the Ancient Russian Art of Singing
(Uspensky 1971). Schnittke scores the movement for (predominantly pizzicato) cello, harp and
timpani, avoiding winds to distance the music from the sound of a choir (Shulgin 2004, 72).
Emilia Ismael-Simental shows that Schnittke’s use of the theme also diverges from the words, his
rephrasing sometimes cutting words in half. She writes that a tension is set up between the chant
and the contemporary setting, the directionality of the modern music at odds with the stasis of
the chant (Ismael-Simental 2017, 35–37).
The Hymn is structured as six variations with the theme, the Sviaty Bozhe hymn, only stated at
the end (variations numbered according to rehearsal figures). Chigareva hears this as ‘the path of
our consciousness towards spiritual harmony’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 104). Textural pro-
gress takes the form of a gradual accumulation up to the Fifth Variation, followed by a reduction
in the textures. This section after the climax is linked with the theme, which appears in almost
unaltered form in the Sixth Variation, although obscured by imitation between the cello and harp.
Harmonic progression through the movement is via the tetrachordal scale derived from
Orthodox chant by Yuri Butsko (see Figure 5.3, Mode 1) and used extensively by Schnittke in his
Symphony No. 4. Schnittke describes a system of ‘Phrygian tetrachords’ (Shulgin 2004, 72), each
a collection of four pitches, spanning a perfect fourth and with the ascending intervals: semitone,
tone, tone. These tetrachords are stacked, and as they do not conform to octave equivalence, are
assigned to different pitch names in each register. Schnittke begins with the tetrachord C♯2–F♯2
in Variation 1, and moves up one tetrachord in the chain with each variation. When the music
reaches the final statement of the theme, it has reached the tetrachord A4–D5, the original pitches
of the hymn melody – a progression towards the hymn.
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Hymn 2 is written for cello and double bass, the two instruments so closely aligned as to
resemble a single instrument for much of the movement. The relationship with Orthodox chant
here is tenuous, merely an archaic atmosphere created by the dark, low timbres. The movement
is structured as a progression from triadic harmonies towards the overtone series. Ivashkin writes
that both the triads and the harmonic series are objective natural phenomena, and that these con-
trast a subjective ‘monologue of the human soul’ expressed through chromatic inflections, most
clearly from Fig. 4 (Ivashkin, liner note to BIS-CD-507). But the role of these ‘subjective’ effects
is subordinate in the overall progression, which treats the final harmonic series music as a point
of ethereal resolution, much like Sviatyi Bozhe at the end of Hymn 1.
Hymn 3 is scored for cello, bassoon, harpsichord and bells and comes closest in atmosphere
to the sound of Orthodox chant. The music was originally written in 1968. This was before
Schnittke knew the Uspensky collection, and the counterpoint was instead based on Schnittke’s
studies of Znamenny chant with Evgeny Golubev at the Moscow Conservatory in the 1950s
(Shulgin 2004, 74). The music is taken from Schnittke’s score to the Igor Talankin film Day Stars,
the scene depicting the funeral of Tsarevich Dmitri. In the film, the polyphonic statements are
sung by a children’s choir, while the refrains (here on tubular bells) are sung by a basso profundo
cantor, his every statement introduced by bell strokes.
Schnittke’s pastiche is remarkably close, with the irregular metre and the combination
of simple and asymmetrical patterns very similar to the text-based rhythms of Znamenny
chant. Although Schnittke was not yet familiar with the Uspensky collection, Ismael-Simental
demonstrates that the music could have been constructed wholly from quotations of melodic
fragments from the Uspensky hymns (Ismael-Simental 2006, 78–81). The structure, too,
closely resembles that of the stichera on the Beatitudes, sung on Sundays during the Divine
Liturgy. The polyphonic statements from the bassoon, cello and harpsichord represent the
sticheron verses – A, B, C (which they particularly resemble through the irregular phrasing),
while the tubular bells respond with the unchanging zapev refrain (x).The result is a structure:
A–x–B–x–C–x–B1 C1–x–A1–B1 C1–x–D. The final D section is a completely new melody,
and this too conforms to the stichera model, taking the role of the Lesser Doxology, which
closes the hymn.
Hymn 4 acts as a culmination, bringing together several features from the previous three
hymns. The large ensemble – bassoon, harpsichord, harp, cello, double bass, bells and timpani –
includes all the instruments from the previous hymns, and, as in Hymn 2, the cello and double
bass are paired. The theme at Fig. 4 is taken from the melody of Hymn 3. Other connections
are more subtle: The timpani glissandos (Fig. 10) from Hymn 1, the cello recitative (Fig. 5) from
Hymn 2.
Schnittke raises the tension between stasis and progression by casting this final hymn in sonata
form: Opening – first subject; Fig. 4 – second subject; Fig. 6 – development; Fig. 11 – recapitula-
tion (first subject only); Fig. 12 – coda. In fact, the relationship between first and second subjects
is closer to the voice exchanges in Znamenny chant. The opening, with two ensembles in imi-
tation, resembles a double choir, and the second subject the zapev responses of stichera forms
(Ismael-Simental 2017, 44). The harmonic structure also acknowledges both stasis and progres-
sion: The harmonies are triadic, but tonal function is negated by superimposing triads with roots
a major second apart. Progression is created by increasing the number of layered triads, from two
at Fig. 5 to seven at Fig. 12, creating a 12-tone cluster. This accretion seems ritualistic and evokes
Russian-period Stravinsky (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 107). The harp suggests the sound of
the psaltery, while the variable metre and cross-accents resemble Russian folk song, as represented
in Stravinsky’s ballets – the acknowledgement of Russian traditions proving the strongest link
between the four diverse works of the cycle.
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Klingende Buchstaben
Klingende Buchstaben (‘Sounding Letters’) for solo cello was written for the 40th birthday of
Alexander Ivashkin. It was written in a single day in September 1988 (Ivashkin, Preface to
Collected Works, Series VI, Volume 2, Part 1). The work is based on a monogram derived from
Ivashkin’s name, which becomes the basis for four variations and a coda (bars 8, 13, 17, 25, 36).
The attribution of the opening monogram has been a subject of controversy. Ivashkin claimed
that the first bar spelled ‘Alexander’, A–E–A–D–A; the second ‘Ivashkin’, E–A–ESchnittke’s
–C–B; the third ‘A. Schnittke’, A–E♭–C–B (Ivashkin 2017, 202–203). Kholopova argued that the
third bar, A–E♭–C–B, spelled both Ivashkin and A. Schnittke (Kholopova 2002, 39). Christopher
Segall ignored the link to Schnittke’s name to give the opening monogram as: bar 1, Alexander;
bar 2, Vasilievich (Ivashkin’s patronymic); bar 3, Ivashkin (Segall 2013b, 253). A compositional
draft in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive shows that Segall’s version is correct, as the monogram
he identifies is written at the top of the page, beneath Ivashkin’s full name.
But Schnittke’s name is plausibly identified by Ivashkin later in the work, in the final notes, a
repeating A–E♭, Schnittke’s initials. Ivashkin also identifies the prominent A♭s, bars 22 and 28, as
representations of Schnittke’s initials, and the high B4 and B♭5, bars 26 and 30, as the initials of
‘happy birthday’.
The entire work is derived from the monogram, although its note sequence is subject to inver-
sion and transposition. After the initial statement, bars 1–3, the theme is inverted, bars 4–6. The
D♭ and G♭ that open bar 7 complete the full chromatic, and the descending run that follows is a
transposed version of the ‘Vasilievich’ monogram. Variation 1 presents the monogram chordally
through double- and triple-stopping. Variation 2 continues these textures, but pizzicato, and
Variation 3 sets the monogram in counterpoint with its inversion.This passage, bars 18 and 19, is
changed from the first draft. Originally, it was an octave lower and pizzicato, and with a different
lower line: also in exact inversion, but beginning on the G♯ below the initial A, rather than the B♭
above. From Variation 4, the monogram-based music is increasingly disrupted by the long, high
notes denoting Schnittke’s initials and ‘Happy Birthday’, and from bar 31, the range also expands
downwards, with the G-string and then the C-string gradually tuned downwards. In the first
draft of the score, the G-string plays in rhythmic unison with the C-string in bars 33 and 35, but,
presumably for practical reasons, held notes on the upper string are substituted.
In his article ‘The Schnittke Code’ (Ivashkin 2017), Ivashkin attributes each variation to a
decade of his own life, an idea comparable to the structure of Lebenslauf (1982). By this logic, the
climax at bar 22 corresponds with Schnittke’s first stroke in 1985. Ivashkin writes that the Fourth
Variation and coda prophesy the date of the composer’s death, corresponding with Ivashkin’s
50th birthday in 1988, the G♯ at the bottom of the scordatura in bar 32 representing ‘Gestorben’
(dead – although this note is a G♮ in the first draft). Although spurious, this demonstrates an
interest in esoterica, shared by Ivashkin and Schnittke, also shown in their published conversations,
which include discussions about Theosophy and the cabbala (Schnittke 2002, 7, 32).
Epilogue from the ballet Peer Gynt, for Cello, Piano and Tape
The Epilogue, in its original orchestral version, was the first part of Schnittke’s score for the ballet
Peer Gynt to be heard in Russia, performed separately at a Moscow concert (Kholopova 2003,
213). Mstislav Rostropovich heard the performance and asked Schnittke to arrange the music for
cello. In the original version, a choir is heard throughout the epilogue, singing a simple D major
theme in five-part canon. A recording of the choir part was prepared for the ballet performances,
and this same recording accompanies the version for cello and piano.
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Example 6.6 (a) Peer Gynt, Epilogue, four bars before Fig. 16 (clarinets only); (b) Epilogue from the ballet
Peer Gynt, for Cello, Piano and Tape, four bars before Fig. 16 (cello only)
The cello and piano arrangement begins with the previous movement, Befreiung (‘Deliverance’),
an intense but brief orchestral culmination, rendered in the arrangement as a 35-bar piano solo,
all written on three staves.
The orchestral version of the Epilogue is mostly quiet, but the orchestral textures are com-
plex, often involving close imitation within orchestral sections. For the cello version, Schnittke
reduces the counterpoint, usually giving the main melodic line to the cello (register shifts in
the cello part usually indicate a change of solo instrument) and reserving the piano part for
accompanying textures. In the orchestral score, the strings often double the choral lines. In their
absence, the arrangement plays down the role of the choir, focusing more on the woodwind,
brass and percussion writing of the original.
The most radical departure from the original version is in the section bars 160–99. The
melody at bar 160 (4 before Fig. 16) is a three-part Schnittke stretto effect in the clarinets, which
Schnittke renders in the cello version as a single line, only tenuously linked to the original three
(see Example 6.6).
The following section continues the pattern, with the cello replicating the rhythms of the
original, but with varying pitches, not taken from any single line.Three new bars are then added,
bars 197–99, as a transition back to the stricter transcription. These three bars cause the rehearsal
figures to misalign for the remainder of the two scores (they are set arbitrarily every eight bars in
both) and also affect the synchronisation with the tape, although, unlike in the orchestral version,
it has become little more than background.
The relationship between the unchanging D major of the choral part and the more chromatic
and tonally divergent orchestral writing is handled differently in the two scores. In the orchestral
version, all of the orchestral parts are initially written with a D major key signature, but most soon
lose it. The cello version also begins notated in D major, but this is suspended bars 307–483. The
music here is more chromatically complex but is also underpinned by tonal centres of E♭ major
and B♭ major. In the passage bars 352–81, the ethereal sound of the cor anglais solo is represented
through continuous tremolo, and the imaginative rendering of the tutti passages that frame it are
reminiscent of the second movement of the Cello Sonata No. 1, especially the quadruple-stopped
pizzicato at bar 307, representing divisi strings in the original.
The coda is a ‘heavenly ascent’ tracing the harmonic series of D, although, as in the Symphony
No. 3, ending on a dissonant flattened supertonic, E♭. Schnittke changes the pace here, the ori-
ginal moving every two bars, the cello version every bar. But the effect is similar: where in the
original the ascending line becomes ever more resonant for each of its notes being continuously
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sustained, a similar effect is achieved with the two lowest Ds of the piano held, with sustain pedal,
allowing the corresponding piano string to resonate with each of the notes of the cello line.
Improvisation for Solo Cello

Improvisation for Solo Cello was commissioned by Mstislav Rostropovich for the Fifth International
Rostropovich Cello Competition, which took place in 1994. Rostropovich himself was involved
in the editing process (Maria Cook, Editorial notes to Collected Works, Series VI,Volume 2, Part 1):
the autograph (a copy is held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive) includes later pencil additions,
the changes suggested by the cellist and approved by the composer with a tick in the margin
after each. A second score, not in Schnittke’s hand is also included in the Archive, the version
provided to participants in the competition. It contains further corrections, as well as perform-
ance directions by Rostropovich. Rostropovich’s additions to the autograph include the D on the
second beat of bar 2, the triplet marking three bars after Fig. 9 and the bracketed As in the first and
second bars of Fig. 2 (the rhythm of the second bar of Fig. 2 is slightly different in the two scores).
The work is ‘a set of free variations, moving further and further from the original theme’
(Ivashkin, Preface to Collected Works). The structure can be understood as an interaction between
two musical ideas: the opening theme, and the downbow double-stopped augmented sevenths
and ninths first heard at Fig. 4. The opening theme is active and varied, while the second theme
is more static, like Morse code.
The melodic elements of the opening theme that are elaborated are the opening two-pitch
figure E♭-D♭-D♭-E♭ and the descending perfect fourth and semitone. These are retained as
melodic shapes rather than pitch sequences. For example, the opening figure is reduced from
a wholetone step to a semitone in the second bar of Fig. 1, and then to a quartertone at Fig. 3.
The fourth-semitone descent becomes the basis of scalar and arpeggio movement, especially after
Fig. 9, but again the intervals vary.
A stronger motivic element connects the different versions of the main theme: three adjacent
pitch classes, with one offset by an octave.This is first heard at the opening, with the upper grace
note C♯ leading to a D–E♭ minor ninth, and later underpins much of the melodic progression.
The Morse code idea becomes increasingly prominent, always as an introduction to the
following variation, although not every variation includes it. Although the music seems to move
away from the original theme, there is a moment of unification near the end. Bars 107–108 are
the final presentation of the Morse code theme, before the climax/recapitulation at Fig. 13. But
now the theme is triple- rather than double-stopped, and the notes are those of the motif under-
pinning the main theme, F♯, G with an A the octave above, the three adjacent pitch classes, one
displaced by an octave.
Works for string ensemble/strings and piano
Piano Quintet
The unexpected death of Schnittke’s mother, Maria Vogel, in 1972 was a turning point in the
composer’s life and his career. He would spend the rest of the decade writing funereal works, as a
prolonged response to the bereavement. The Piano Quintet was the first of these to be conceived,
and Schnittke had completed the first movement ‘in a basic version’ by the end of the year
(Shulgin 2004, 77). He only resumed work in 1975, following the death of his father (Kholopova
2003, 111). When the work was completed, in 1976, it marked the start of a new phase in
Schnittke’s music. Multiple styles are evoked, but the contrasts are not emphasised. Tonality also
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takes a prominent role, with movements connected through tonal relations, albeit far from trad-
itional tonal logic.
The Piano Quintet of Shostakovich (1940) is a clear model for the work. Like the Shostakovich,
Schnittke’s quintet is in five movements, and the opening motif recalls a very similar idea in
Shostakovich’s first movement (Fig. 8). Connections with Bach are common to the two works.
Schnittke’s second movement, the longest and most prominent movement, is in G minor, the
home key of Shostakovich’s quintet. In fact, Schnittke took care to play down the connection,
deliberately restricting the theme of the third movement to a range of a minor third to avoid
even accidental statements of the D–S–C–H monogram (Shulgin 2004, 78).
The first movement is a solemn but brief statement of grief, clearly intended as the introduc-
tion to a longer work. (Edits to the final score show that in 1975–1976 he made the movement
shorter still, removing repeated bars three bars before Fig. 6, four bars after Fig. 6 and two
bars 4 before Fig. 7.) The work opens with the piano intoning a motif, C♯–D–C♯–B♯–C♯ (see
Figure 6.4). Schnittke described this as a ‘sigh motif ’ (Juilliard sketch SCHN_COLL_555), and
Figure 6.4 Piano Quintet: (a) Sketch for plan of work (Juilliard Manuscript Collection SCHN_
COLL_555, reproduced by permission of Jane Gottlieb); (b) transcription
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the two descending semitones link it to the Baroque convention of lamento figures. The figure is
also a representation of the cross (see Chapter 1).
Schnittke’s first idea for continuing the quintet was a structure based on the Requiem
Mass, ‘which should include in instrumental form all the traditional parts of a Requiem’
(Shulgin 2004, 79). Eventually, this would result in an entirely separate Requiem setting (1975).
Some of the themes in the Requiem were originally intended for the Piano Quintet (Ivashkin
2003, 51),6 but no material was shared between the completed works. However, Levon Hakobian
writes that they are related in mood, with the ‘choir’ of strings in the quintet opposing the imper-
sonal objectivity of the piano (Hakobian 1998, 278).
Sketches for the quintet show that Schnittke explored the idea of an ‘instrumental Requiem’
in some detail. One sketch (SCHN_COLL_550) lists the sections of the Requiem Mass, with
the first, Introit, labelled ‘introduction’, presumably the already composed first movement, the
concluding Lux aeterna labelled ‘finale’ and the five middle sections bracketed together, as if to
form a single central movement (other four- and five-movement groupings are also considered).
In other sketches (SCHN_COLL_562, 563), Schnittke maps out the dates of his mother’s
life, noting the years of significant events – world wars, the birth dates of her children (a mono-
gram based on her name Maria Vogel Schnittke – A, A, G, E, E♭, C, B, E – is also devised but not
explored further).The dates in the timeline then become the basis of a tone row, which Schnittke
then uses in pre-compositional planning for a projected second movement, applying the series to
both pitches and durations (SCHN_COLL_558, 559).
Schnittke then took a more abstract approach, based on the already completed first movement.
‘Suddenly it became clear that all further development should be built on a purely intonational
basis, as it was in the first movement, on working with a small group of related chromatic
motifs …’ (Shulgin 2004, 77).The opening five notes, C♯–D–C♯–B♯–C♯, became the connecting
theme between the movements. Another sketch shows that the final five-movement design was
derived directly from the five-note motif (SCHN_COLL_555, see Figure 6.4). Schnittke uses
the duration of each note to determine the length of each movement, and the pitch to determine
the tempo, the higher the pitch the faster the tempo (in the sketch, Schnittke writes ‘fast’ for the
fourth movement, but in the final work, it is Lento).
The opening 6–4 C major chord also inspired the harmonic structure. Schnittke explained that
a tension between the tonal centres of C and C♯ persists throughout the first four movements
(Shulgin 2004, 77). But the instability of the C major second inversion eventually cedes to the
more stable C♯, and so the tension is resolved in the fifth movement with the C♯ (now written as
D♭) becoming the basis of a new tonality, and the piano plays in D♭ major throughout the finale.
The remainder of the composition was carried out on a consciously intuitive basis, far removed
from the integral serialism attempted in the sketches. ‘I tried to build something lean within a
formal plan, where everything would be carefully balanced and proportioned, I did not succeed.
Finally, I put all the options aside and started writing. It was as if I was learning to walk again
from one note to the next. I had to almost go by touch, disregarding technique, relying only on
the intonational movement …’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 113).
One consequence was a marked absence of contrast, both within and between movements.
Schnittke lists tonal themes, triadic progressions, chromatic passages, quartertone episodes and
non-serial 12-tone writing as techniques that he freely employs. ‘However, I did not want these
different layers of music to contrast in a consciously polystylistic way. The idea was to combine
these layers, to find their connections, not their contrasts’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 116).
The second movement opens with one such combination, a waltz theme based on the B–A–
C–H monogram, similar in both shape and connotation to the opening motif.Two waltz themes
appear in the movement: the first was written for a theatrical production of Evgenii Onegin,
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possibly the same score that Schnittke supplied for the film version in 1981. The second waltz, at
Fig. 4, is taken from Schnittke’s music for the film Agony (1974, 1981).
Schnittke recalled ‘The main difficulty was to find a meeting point between the ghostly waltz
(which always turns into a sad meditation) and the recurring invasion of genuine tragedy into
this serene meditation’ (Wagner 1999, 126). The balance is achieved by following each waltz
episode with a reflective, chordal recitative. Schnittke described the form as ‘resembling a sonata
form without development’ (Shulgin 2004, 78), the first subject the two waltzes, the second sub-
ject the recitative first heard at Fig. 6. The recapitulation begins and Fig. 12 with the recitative
now forming a coda at Fig. 18.
There is only one specific reference to the original idea of an ‘instrumental Requiem’, a series
of themes and harmonies based on the plainchant of the Dies irae in the second movement.
This appears in the piano left hand at Fig. 12 as F, E, F, D, and more clearly at Fig. 14 as C, B,
C, A, B♭, A, a chromatically altered version restricted to a minor third. Compositional sketches
(SCHN_COLL_553) show that Schnittke considered taking the idea further, using the Dies irae
in its original pitch pattern, and setting it in polytonal stretto canon.
The third movement, Andante, is, according to Schnittke, a slow ostinato based on the notes
D–E♭–D–C♯, C♯–D–C♯–C♯, a variant of the opening motif (Shulgin 2004, 78). Quartertone
variations are applied to the pitch pattern throughout the movement. Schnittke describes the
effect as a series of echoes of the first movement. The movement climaxes at Fig. 7 with a
fff chord of A♭ major in the piano, the chord name spelling Schnittke’s initials: A♭=AS. It is
followed by A minor, the common-mediant relation (see Example 1.4). The movement ends
with a chiming bell motif in the piano, echoing Figs. 4–7 in the first movement.
The fourth movement, Lento, opens with a chord derived from the names of the players
for whom the work was written, the Borodin Quartet with pianist Lyubov Edlina: Dubinsky,
Alexandrov, Schebalin, Berlinsky, Edlina = D, A, E♭, C, B, B♭, E (Shulgin 2004, 78). (The work
was actually premiered by the Gruzinsky String Quartet with pianist Nodar Gabunia.) The har-
mony is symmetrical, and much of the following music exploits this property, with the lower
strings reflecting the violins and the piano left hand reflecting the right. Schnittke described the
movement as ‘not precisely variations, and not precisely passacaglia’, with everything derived
from the Borodin Quartet chord, apart from a quotation of the opening motif, four bars after
Fig. 4.The movement is in three parts: the opening; the solo recitatives at Fig. 4; then the gradual
build to the climax at Fig. 8, where each voice converges around the pitch of C♯, the tonal centre
of the final movement.
Although the fourth and fifth movements are joined attacca, the mood changes considerably
at the start of the finale. The ‘battle for the tonic’ is resolved by the establishment of D♭ major in
the piano, initially as a D♭ pedal and then through the ‘lullaby’ main theme in the upper register
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 119–20). The theme is pentatonic and is repeated 14 times, the
only change a rising then falling of dynamic across the movement.
Schnittke describes the movement as a ‘mirrored passacaglia’ (Hansberger 1982, 244), in the
sense that the passacaglia line is at the top and also because many of the violin lines are reflected
in exact inversion in the viola and cello. Schnittke described the movement as an overcoming of
the grief in the earlier movements, leading to transcendence. He says of the mirroring, ‘the piece
is written in memoriam – and the mirror is what separates us from the other world’. He cites
Jean Cocteau’s film Orpheus, where the mirror is the doorway to the beyond.
Schnittke said, ‘Obviously, this finale should be understood as a well-developed general coda,
rather than as a fifth movement proper’, and in fact the lullaby theme is the only new material.
But the major key is new, and, although the main theme is not the first ostinato to be employed,
it is the first one to play a positive role, supporting rather than opposing the other themes.
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All of the string parts are derived from earlier movements. Schnittke describes these thematic
fragments as ‘but the shadowy remains of a vanishing tragedy’ (Wagner 1999, 126). That process
of vanishing continues into the coda, where the piano plays the lullaby theme ever more quietly
until finally just touching the keys without the hammers hitting the strings – an ending by ellipsis
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 120).
In 1978, Schnittke made an orchestral arrangement of the Piano Quintet at the request of
Gennady Rozhdestvensky, titled In Memoriam …. Schnittke said of the arrangement, ‘I found the
solution by maintaining the original functions of the strings and reworking the sounds of the
piano into sounds of wind instruments and percussion’ (Köchel 1994, 106). The string writing
remains largely unchanged, although the first movement is enriched with divisi octaves, and divisi
Schnittke stretto effects are employed in the third. In the second movement, the waltz theme is
first heard on clarinet, then passed around the woodwind and brass sections. Untuned percussion
is put to atmospheric effect, particularly the quiet alternation of high and low tam tams. The
piano part is distributed around several keyboard instruments – celesta, harpsichord, two pianos
and organ. This leads to more sustained obbligatos, the one at movement II, Fig. 12 given to the
celesta, then adding harpsichord and harp. The final statement of the fifth movement lullaby
theme is given to the organ, played on a tiny Waldflöte two-foot stop.
Stille Musik
Stille Musik, for violin and cello, was composed in 1979 and dedicated to the musicologist
Mikhail Druskin (1995–1991) to mark his 75th birthday. Schnittke and Druskin had recently
collaborated on a translation of lectures and letters by Anton Webern (Webern 1975) – the
volume was translated from German by Schnittke’s brother Viktor, and Schnittke and Druskin
wrote the introduction.
The work references Webern in both atmosphere and technique. Ivashkin points out (Preface
to Collected Works, Series VI,Volume 3) that its many silences accord with Schnittke’s perception of
Webern’s musical world:‘the illusory music of silence, which has its own changeable fabric, some-
times thick, sometimes transparent … A few disparate sounds from two or three instruments in
half a minute give us the experience of eternity and infinity’ (Kholopova & Kholopov 1984, 120).
The work is structured around two contrasting phrases, the pitch wedge at the start and the
cadential-sounding turn motif at bar 8. The structure can be heard as an alternation of the two
themes, or as a ternary structure with the recapitulation of bars 1–15 at Fig. 3, leading to a coda
at Fig. 4, both in artificial harmonics.
The pitch wedge is a Webernian device, as is the chromatic mirroring between the violin and
cello, both employed, for example, in Webern’s Cantata No. 2. Schnittke also employs a single 12-note
row, at bar 39, the mid-point of the work, a reference to Webern’s interest in symmetrical forms.
The homage is balanced with distinctive features of Schnittke’s own voice. The secondary
theme, at bar 8, employs the circulatio figure that underpins the Piano Quintet. Also, the almost
continuous double-stopped chords lead through a series of dissonant harmonies often heard in
Schnittke’s music: tonic major/minor chords on C at bars 6, 8 and 20, and on G at 43; and the
distinctive harmony of the set [0,1,6,7] at bars 24, 44 and 45.
String Trio and Piano Trio

The String Trio was written in 1985, to a commission from the Alban Berg Stiftung to commem-
orate the centenary of the composer’s birth. Stylistically, the trio retains a focus on Berg’s fin-de-
siècle Vienna, while also including allusions ranging from Orthodox chant to Shostakovich. The
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premiere of the String Trio, in Moscow in June 1985, was Schnittke’s last public appearance before
his first stroke, leading commentators to hear the work’s ‘strange and melancholic’ character as a
premonition of his coming illness (Ivashkin 1996, 188–89).
The influence of Berg is apparent in technical features of the trio: the rigorous treatment of
short motifs and the use of tonal harmonies in non-tonal contexts.The structure seems modelled
on Berg’s Violin Concerto – two movements with the second in binary form.
Two pages of preliminary sketches are held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive. The first,
dated 18 August 1984, begins with the suggestion (in German), ‘Berg quotation somewhere?’.
The page also includes a passage similar to the first movement second subject (Fig. 10) theme,
suggesting that this was conceived first. Schnittke was also interested in the symbolism of the
number three. The Holy Trinity is the starting point, from which a three-movement form is
derived – 1: Father, Grave; 2: Son, Agitato; 3: Holy Spirit, Lento – the tempo indications of the
outer movements suggesting the sombre tone had already been decided. From here, trinities of
every kind are considered: birth, life, death; Orthodox, Catholic, Evangelical; Jewish, German,
Russian; husband, wife, child. This last trinity develops into the names of Schnittke’s own family,
‘Ich – And[rei] – Ina[Irina]’. These three-letter abbreviations are then used to divine I Ching
trigrams and hexagrams. After considering rigorous applications of the hexagrams to rhythms,
chords and textures, he concludes: ‘Das beste wäre eine Anwendung der Hexagramme an ein sich
ständig veränderndes Material’ (‘The best way would be to apply the hexagrams to constantly
changing material’).
This intuitive application of the trigram/hexagram structure (in I Ching, a hexagram is made
up of two stacked trigrams) is apparent in several aspects of the final work. The 3/4 of the first
movement and 3/2 of the second movement coda recall the trigram-based textures suggested in
the sketch. The work also makes extensive use of common-mediant chord pairs (see Chapter 1),
which can be linked to the trigram-based chord progressions suggested in the sketch (see
Figure 6.5, Schnittke actually associates this trigram with the two chords: D♯, F, A♯–D♭, F, A♭;
tonal triads are not prioritised in this early sketch).
Figure 6.5 String Trio, textures and chords related to I Ching trigrams (based on compositional sketches)
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The first movement employs sonata form: Opening – first subject; Fig. 7 – transition; Fig. 10
– second subject; Fig. 20 – development; Fig. 29 – recapitulation; Fig. 30 – second subject. The
second subject theme soon after appeared in the Cello Concerto No. 1, and the chant-like passage
at Fig. 17 invokes the Orthodox Kyrie, Gospodi Pomilui. The sonata form is unusually strict, with
the coda a transposed, but not elaborated, version of the transition into the development.
The opening motif has been likened by many commentators to Happy Birthday to You.
Schnittke himself was more concerned that it sounded like the Internationale, a similarity he only
noticed in rehearsal (Druzhinin 2013, 88). Neither association was intended, and to other ears, it
more suitably invokes ‘a fragmentary remnant of a Viennese waltz’ (Wagner 1999, 15). The trio
is monothematic, with all the themes based on this opening motif. For Hans-Joachim Wagner,
‘The trio is monothematic and becomes a reflection on itself; as a subject, the work thinks about
its own essence and at the same time becomes a pivotal point for individual memory’ (Wagner
1999, 17). Despite their common origin, the themes remain autonomous and never interact.
Chigareva hears the themes as a unified group, separating in the development and only returning
to a state of unity in the recapitulation (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 244).The movement ends
ambiguously, with the viola repeating a chromatically altered version of the second subject (this
version now spelling out the chord roots of the common mediant–relative minor progression:
F♯–E♯–G♯–G). This ending resembles that of Berg’s Lyric Suite.
No new themes are introduced in the second movement, which instead acts as a medita-
tion on the ideas of the first. The movement is in a binary form, with the second part (Fig. 21)
reprising each of the passages in the first, each varied but appearing in the same order.The second
movement can be heard as a continuation of the recapitulation of the first, much like the third
and fourth movements of the Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5. In both cases, a sonata form
movement is followed by a more loosely structured epilogue, in which the thematic working
continues beyond the sonata structure.
Resolution is achieved through a gradual return to the simplicity and melodic coherence of
the work’s opening. The dramatic outburst music, heard in the first movement at Figs. 15 and
35, returns at Fig. 27, now louder and more dissonant. This ‘invasion’ theme (Chigareva 2012,
320) seemed to be imposed on the first movement from the outside and is even more jarring
here, an obstacle to resolution. But then the first movement themes reappear, the second sub-
ject at Fig. 31, the first subject at Fig. 33. The coda is another Bergian open-ended conclusion,
this time resembling his Violin Concerto. Schnittke extends Berg’s paradox of closure: where
Berg’s ending hints at a cadence, Schnittke writes an actual cadence – the most archetypal,
a perfect cadence in C major, bars 168–70 – before the violin follows Berg’s soloist into the
ethereal upper register.
In 1987,Yuri Bashmet orchestrated the String Trio, under the composer’s supervision (Ivashkin
2003, 271), the orchestral version misleadingly titled Trio-Sonata.Then, in 1992, Schnittke returned
to the score, recasting it as a piano trio. The reworking was for the composer’s pianist wife, Irina,
who had recently returned to performing, after a hiatus while she cared for him through his
illness. The score of the Piano Trio carries a dedication to Schnittke’s doctor, Alexander Popatov,
‘who has twice saved my life’ reflecting the care he received after each stroke.
The Piano Trio refines the message of the String Trio, in line with Schnittke’s late style. The
newly written piano part is relatively straightforward, and the primary change to the character of
the music is a lightening of textures and a reduction of the harmonic density (Morneweg 2007).
Only one cut is made, four bars at Fig. 23 in the first movement, but elsewhere many accom-
panying notes are omitted, leading to greater harmonic ambiguity. At the opening, Schnittke
removes the G pedal from the first 10 bars. In its absence, the G minor tonality is suggested rather
than firmly established.
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In the first movement, the three voices of the String Trio are often given over entirely to the
piano, producing a more intimate effect. In the second movement, the original interactions are
more closely followed, with the piano part predominantly a transcription of the viola, although
the viola line is occasionally transferred to the cello for greater emotive effect. Where in the
String Trio the instruments are largely autonomous and often in direct conflict, in the Piano Trio
they co-exist, interacting more amicably and in more clearly defined roles. The cello takes on a
subsidiary role in the second movement, where it symbolises the passing of time, either through a
feeling of nostalgia (Figs. 4) or by applying a clock-like pulse (Figs. 11 and 12).The piano writing
highlights the preoccupations of Schnittke’s late style – the changing perceptions of time, the
subtle reconciliation of conflicting ideas – and demonstrates how these were already latent in
the earlier work.
Canon ‘An das Frankfurter Opernhaus’

The Canon ‘An das Frankfurter Opernhaus’ was written by Alban Berg in 1930 to celebrate
the 30th anniversary of the Frankfurt opera house. Schnittke’s transcription dates from 1985,
the year of his String Trio, a work written in honour of Alban Berg and deeply indebted to
his style.
Berg’s canon is for four voices and sets a text by the composer, which includes a reference to
the title of Schoenberg’s Von heute auf morgen (Ayrey 1996, 26–29). The theme is three bars long
and not strictly serial. The upper voice sings the canon theme followed by its inversion, both of
which are then repeated. The lower voices enter alto, tenor, bass, at two quavers separation, each
entry a tritone lower than the last.
Schnittke said of Berg’s canon, ‘The theme is unique.You could increase the number of voices
almost to infinity. And it will have a wonderful sound’ (Schnittke 2003, 254). His transcription is
for nine strings (or string orchestra)7 and is 17 bars long to Berg’s 12. Where Berg maintains an
even texture, Schnittke begins quietly and builds to a climax. The first six bars quote the Berg
directly in the top four voices (non-divisi), with only the instrumentation and dynamic changed.
From Fig. 2, the double bass is introduced with the theme, first inverted then prime, in a new
transposition.The other voices now enter in upward succession, resembling Schnittke stretto, but
following Berg’s logic, with each entry a tritone above the last. At the climax, the four upper
string sections, now divisi, play the canon in prime and inverted form simultaneously. A bass line
in semibreves is added in the double bass.
A second version of the transcription was made soon after, with an obbligato solo violin added.
The solo violin performs the theme and its inversion in augmentation. Many of the notes are
transferred down an octave, and, in a small adjustment to prevent overt disharmony, what should
be an F♯ in bar 4 is changed to E. The last bar of the solo part was formulated on the spur of
the moment in 1987, during a telephone conversation with Mark Lubotsky (Schnittke 2002,
254–55).8
Piano Quartet – sketch for the second movement of a piano quartet by Mahler
The Piano Quartet was composed in 1988, the same year as the Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony
No. 5, and an orchestrated version of the quartet became the symphony’s second movement. The
quartet elaborates a short sketch for a piano quartet second movement composed by the 16-year-
old Mahler in 1876. (The completed first movement is in A minor, curiously distant from the
G minor of the fragment.) Despite its early date, Schnittke heard Mahler’s mature voice in the
music, ‘The Mahler of the Tenth Symphony seems to be shining through here’ (Köchel 1994,
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122). He was also fascinated by its open-ended conclusion, which trails off mid-way through a
modulating transition:
Much contained therein was and remains a problem for me. I would not be able to find
a single explanation, but rather two if I undertook a harmonic analysis – and it could
be interpreted this way or that. I believe I have never found this ever – the lacking of
finality. I remember that I thought for a long time how I could continue the compos-
ition of this work. I tried for years to find a continuation of these measures composed
by Mahler. And then I imagined it not as a continuation but rather music that would
approach Mahler’s music – as a reminder that the end will come, and that was the solu-
tion. At first the attempt to remember and then remembrance itself.
(Borchardt 2002, 29)
Schnittke only presents the fragment in its original form at the end, with the preceding music
an ‘attempt to remember’. His accompaniments are sometimes stylistically sympathetic, at other
times less so. The clearest stylistic confluence is at bar 75, where Schnittke’s accompaniment
could have written by Mahler himself. Conversely, from bar 136, the theme is heard in con-
tinuous fortissimo minor third chromatic clusters, with octaves added between each note, the
theme and its treatment now in stylistic opposition (see Example 6.7).
Schnittke also questions the fragment’s generic identity and compound metre. The propul-
sive rhythms suggest that Mahler had a scherzo character in mind, although he gives no tempo
Example 6.7 Piano Quartet: (a) bars 75–84 (violin and cello only); (b) bars 136–42 (piano only)
(reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd)
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Example 6.8 Piano Quartet, last three bars (reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music
Publishers Ltd)
indication. Schnittke, however, described his work (in its orchestral version) as a ‘scherzo-lullaby’
(Ivashkin 2003, 165). He also imposes duple time counterpoints and answering phrases, and also
a chorale, bar 91, recalling similar chorale episodes in Mahler’s symphonies.
The quartet has a three-part structure.The first part, up to bar 100, is dominated by the Mahler
theme. In the second section, the Mahler theme only appears once, the cluster version at bar 136
(see Example 6.7b), and the section is otherwise based on ideas that were previously presented
as counterpoints to the theme: the dialogue with Mahler continues, even in the absence of his
voice.
The second section builds to a huge climax, culminating in a fff cluster ascent of the piano
keyboard.This is held on the sustain pedal, as the strings introduce the Mahler fragment, its quiet
dynamic creating a sense of historical distance – ‘remembrance itself ’.The piano indication is one
of only two editorial interventions by Schnittke.The other is on the very last chord. Mahler ends
mid-way through writing out the harmony, giving only C♯ (although the accidental is omitted)
and A in the piano right hand.To this Schnittke adds a B–A–C–H cluster.The result is a sustained
sonority, balanced between A major and A minor, an unresolved tonal ambiguity highlighting the
opening-ended nature of the conclusion (see Example 6.8).
Other chamber works
Serenade for Clarinet, Violin, Double Bass, Percussion and Piano

Serenade for Clarinet,Violin, Double Bass, Percussion and Piano was written in 1968 at the request of
clarinettist Lev Mikhailov. The scoring represents the instrumentation of his Korneev Ensemble,
and the jazz-like instrumentation (with prominent clarinet part for Mikhailov) inspired a work
that touches on a range of popular styles. The work was an important transition, from the seri-
alism of Schnittke’s earlier concert music to his later polystylism, and, although the music is styl-
istically diverse, serialism remains the lingua franca.
Schnittke emphasised that the music is light-hearted, ‘dancelike entertainment’ with ‘no
claims toward being serious’ (Shulgin 2004, 51). The allusions to popular dance forms support
this idea, although the melodic content is limited: Schnittke described a melodic ‘porridge’
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(kasha) (Shulgin 2004, 52) contributing to the deliberate banality. But the work is also a
product of its times, a ‘social stylistics’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 73) offering a cross-
section of Soviet musical culture in the late 1960s. Schnittke conceded a deeper message,
‘In many such branches of art, where it is difficult to distinguish serious and light, or happy
and sad, there is an emotional paradox’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 71). Nevertheless, the
work is well-suited to its title, its three buoyant and brief movements continuing the spirit of
Mozart’s serenades.
The tension between aleatoric freedom and serial ordering is apparent from the structure
of the first movement. The work opens with all five instruments playing repeated figures, and
Schnittke indicates that ‘all the instrumentalists play independently of one another’. But order
is imposed by the percussionist, who acts as ‘secret conductor’ (Köchel 1994, 121). The percus-
sionist interjects between the phrases with a figure on the tubular bells, initially of three notes
but expanding at each appearance to finally state the work’s series, appearing in its entirety
(Fig. 10) as A, B♭, E, C, G, F♯, F, E♭, D, G♯, C♯, B (the B in the double bass). Each interjection
from the tubular bells presents the series at a different transposition, and the transpositions are
also determined by the series – a matrix manipulation with each entry representing a successive
row (Fenton-Miller 2016, 54).
Schnittke described the slow second movement as a ‘nocturne type’. The clarinet solo should
sound like improvisation, with the accompaniment mere ‘sound shadows’ (Köchel 1994, 121).The
relationship between serial order and improvisatory freedom is apparent in the first line of the
clarinet part (to Fig. 3), which presents the series, starting on C♯, but with regular interpolations.
The piano accompaniment follows the clarinet’s statements of the series, while interjections
from the violin and double bass employ fragments of other series transpositions. The movement
ends with the pianist standing to pluck and strum the piano strings, a dramatic/comic effect that
dominates the final movement.
The third movement opens with a quotation from Schnittke’s music to the cartoon film
The Glass Harmonica, ‘a serious variant of very unserious film music’ (Köchel 1994, 121). The
style is jazzy but with serial elements: the violin opens with a statement of the series while the
clarinet simultaneously plays the retrograde. Near the end of the movement, Schnittke includes
a group of short, fragmentary quotations: Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 at Fig. 17, then
at Fig. 19 Beethoven’s Pathétique and Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel (the Queen of
Shemakha theme), played together as a ‘vertical montage’ (Chigareva 2012, 152). The effect is
more of anarchic collage than of homage, but the passage is linked to the music’s closing gestures.
After each of the quotation passages, Figs. 18 and 20, are recollections of the third movement’s
main themes, and soon after, at Fig. 22, comes a return of the music that opened the work. The
anarchic interplay of serialism and quotation here speaks of a complex transition in Schnittke’s
style. In the coda, Fig. 24, Schnittke combines serial ordering with indeterminacy. Each note
group begins with a pitch from the series, but all the following notes are of indeterminate
pitch. The number of notes in each group is also determined by the series, derived from the
prime form in the clarinet, the inversion in the violin, and the retrograde inversion in the piano
(Fenton-Miller 2016, 59).
Polystylism begins here as radical confrontation, with absurdist humour highlighting the
tensions. This served as a model for the Symphony No. 1. Schnittke pointed out that the ‘pol-
yphony of tempos’ in the symphony’s second movement is anticipated here (Shulgin 2004, 51).
Both works weave a complex fabric of allusions and quotations (particularly of Beethoven) across
an increasingly arbitrary serial framework, a balancing of contradictory techniques where none is
dominant. Schnittke writes ‘It is a harmonic eclecticism … in which there is no style hierarchy,
but in which the styles reveal to each other their own conventionality …’ (Köchel 1994, 121).
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Chamber works
Example 6.9 Cantus perpetuus, full score (reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music
Publishers Ltd)
Cantus perpetuus
Cantus perpetuus exists primarily as a graphic score, created in 1975. The score leaves much
open to interpretation, but Schnittke initially considered the Moscow premiere, given by Mark
Pekarsky and his ensemble (which included pianist Alexei Lubimov) in 1975, to be defini-
tive. On the basis of that performance, Schnittke described the work’s performing forces as
keyboard instrument (piano, harpsichord, organ or celesta), solo percussionist and four further
percussionists, positioned at the corners of the stage (Sikorski 2019, 68). The exact details of this
performance are lost. In 1981, Schnittke created a second version of the piece, fully notated in
traditional notation, expanding the earlier ensemble to percussion, celesta, harpsichord, piano,
two harps and a large string section.
The score (see Example 6.9) consists of a theme (top right), which begins in G minor and
modulates to G♯ minor. Tonal harmonies are written beneath, suggesting hymn-like hom-
ophony, while in the main part of the score the theme is presented in counterpoint with its
own chromatic inversion. The theme is presented in all 12 transpositions, up one semitone at
each successive station. This corresponds with the modulation in each statement of the theme,
allowing the performers to move clockwise round the diagram – a cyclical form that eventually
returns to the start. On the outside of the diagram are five differently coloured concentric lines,
from outside to inside: brown, red, green, blue, yellow. At the centre are four superimposed fig-
ures, in the same colours. A key at the upper left-hand side of the page indicates that the colours,
with associated numbers, govern polyphony (red), melody (green), rhythm (blue) and harmony
(yellow). An incomplete set of performance directions held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive
indicates that the figures at the centre are to be used to construct accompanying harmonies.
The work grew out of Schnittke’s interest in Oriental philosophy and religion. In the
early 1970s, Schnittke began reading texts on Yoga as well as the works of Ramakrishna and
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Chamber works
Aurobindo, in Russian and German translation (Kholopova 2003, 115). The score references
Hindu and Buddhist iconography in its resemblance to a mandala. The five colours in the
score represent Buddhism and Judaism – yellow; Islam – green; Christianity – red; Hinduism –
brown; Yoga – blue. The symbols in the centre are also linked to these religions: the cross for
Christianity; the triangle and crossed triangles for Buddhism and Judaism; the crescent for Islam
and the swastika for Hinduism (prudently redesigned as superimposed parallelograms). Four
harmonies (diminished, augmented and major triads, plus stacked fourths) and four textures
(polyphonic, harmonic, melodic, rhythmic) are also linked to the four religions (Kholopova
2003, 126).
The score was originally intended as a guideline for improvisation, but the second version
constitutes a fully notated realisation. It plays out as a continuous series of variations on the
main theme, climbing one semitone at each presentation. Both the tonal harmonisation and the
inversion counterpoint are employed, as well as Schnittke stretto and Ligeti-like micropolyphony.
At the climax, Fig. 22, the triangle figure is represented in the score, as one line of Schnittke
stretto moves down the divisi violins, while another moves up the divisi cellos to meet in the
middle. The idea of instrumentation being determined through rotation around the figure is
apparent at the opening: The first instruments to be introduced are bass drum, timpani and
double basses. These are the second, first, and final lines of the instrument list that prefaces the
score, suggesting that Schnittke is moving upwards, then cycling round to the bottom of the list.
The accompanying harmonies, based on the figures at the centre of the diagram, are mostly
heard in the keyboard parts, where Schnittke – as he advises in the performance directions –
separates concurrent harmonies by repeating them at different speeds. Figure 6.6 shows how the
harmonies are derived. The two arms of the swastika each give the [0,1,6,7] collection, which
Schnittke separates between the two hands of the piano. The overall structure of the piece in the
second version is a gradual build-up towards a prolonged climax, from Fig. 22. This then grad-
ually subsides, from Fig. 25, eventually returning to the quiet opening, the textures too describing
a cyclical form.
Schnittke was unsatisfied with Cantus perpetuus, saying: ‘The work was less interesting than
the diagram’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 99). Even the second version was experimental,
and Schnittke never secured a performance (it was eventually premiered in 2011, conducted by
Alexander Ivashkin). Nevertheless, the work anticipates significant developments in Schnittke’s
later music. The idea of coding the cross into musical textures would soon become central to
the symbolism of the Piano Quintet and Symphony No. 2. Progression based on a continuous
series of variations on a simple tonal theme would become the basis of Passacaglia, which closely
resembles the second version of the score in its instrumental textures. Most significantly, Cantus
perpetuus anticipates the musical symbolism of the Symphony No. 4. Both works combine reli-
gious traditions, coded into their melodic and harmonic structure. The three keyboards playing
symbolically significant harmonies, simultaneously and repeatedly at different tempos, are a
prominent feature of both works. And the cyclical structure – here based on the mandala, in
the Symphony No. 4 on the Rosary chaplet – helps to overcome the paradox of spiritual stasis
explored through musical development.
Polyphonic Tango
Polyphonic Tango was composed in 1979 for the inaugural concert of the Bolshoi Soloists, a con-
temporary music chamber orchestra founded by Alexander Ivashkin. Schnittke’s work was the
fourth movement of a collective composition, Pas de quatre, the first three by Rozhdestvensky,
Edison Denisov and Arvo Pärt. All four movements were intended to satirise the conductor Algis
235
Chamber works
Figure 6.6 Cantus perpetuus (1981 version), derivation of harmonies from religious symbols at Fig. 3
(harpsichord, piano, harp) and five bars before Fig. 10 (piano)
236
Chamber works
Žiūraitis, who had recently written an article in Pravda attacking Schnittke and Rozhdestvensky’s
Queen of Spades production in Paris.
Schnittke’s movement begins with a tango theme in the strings.This is interrupted by a descending
three-note motif in the woodwinds, stylistically unrelated and closer to Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism.
The motif is based on the letters of Žiūraitis’ first name, Algis=A–G–E♭. A military song is added by
the brass, and the tango becomes polyphonic in the sense that the competing themes are increas-
ingly overlaid, despite their different keys. Meanwhile, the dance character is maintained by the
percussion, who continue the steady tango rhythm right up to the slapstick ending.
Moz-Art/Moz-Art à la Haydn/Moz-Art à la Mozart

The Moz-Art series of works grew out of Mozart’s Music for a Pantomime, K 446/K 416d, of 1783,
which Schnittke arranged for a New Year’s Day concert in 1976. This incidental music was scored
for two violins, viola and bass, but only the first violin part survives. Even this is incomplete and is
missing the introduction and finale. The work is made up of 15 scenes (scenes and movements are
numbered separately), accompanied by stage directions for a plot concerning the commedia dell’arte
characters Pantalon, Colombine, Pierò, the Dottore and Harlequin. Mozart himself is known to have
acted in a performance with this music, taking the role of Harlequin (Schroeder 1999, 173).
Schnittke produced seven scores with names including the Moz-Art pun (one of several such
wordplays he considered, see Ivashkin, Preface to Collected Works, Series VI,Volume 3):
1975 Moz-Art (MS titled Pantomime): arrangement of movements from Mozart K 416d (scenes
1, 2, 3, No.VIII, scene 8, Nos. XI, XII, XIII) for flute, clarinet in A, three violins, viola, cello,
double bass, organ and percussion. The score ends with a Finale movement, which appears to
be by Schnittke. The earlier movements are arranged in a style sympathetic to the original,
although with occasional clusters and polytonal counterpoints.
1975–probably 1976 Moz-Art: arrangement for two violins of the Minuet from Suite in the Old
Style. Unrelated to K 416d.
1976 Moz-Art (autograph version): version for two violins, first violin doubling piccolo violin,
second violin doubling viola d’amore. Apart from instrumentation, only different to published
version at Figs. 16–17, 20, 31. This version was first published as part of the Collected Works
Edition in 2012 (Series VI,Volume 3).
1976 Moz-Art (published version): for two violins. Based mostly on scenes 1–6 of K416d.
1977 Moz-Art à la Haydn: for two violins, two small string orchestras and double bass. Broadly
based on Moz-Art for two violins but with numbers rearranged and with some further music
from K416d added.
1980 Moz-Art: version for oboe, harp, harpsichord, violin, cello and double bass. Closely follows
two-violin version apart from the end, where the last five bars have been replaced with a new
10-bar coda.
1980 Moz-Art à la Mozart: for eight flutes and harp. A close transcription of Moz-Art à la Haydn.
Despite the common source, Schnittke considered each of these works to be distinct, ‘In fact, all
the versions came into existence independently of each other and have different basic ideas. I
regard them as an attempt to approach the heart of the matter by circling it many times’ (Köchel
1994, 117). Schnittke focused on the humour in Mozart’s score. He said of the version for two
violins, ‘this is, above all, a musical joke, a humorous collage on the music of Mozart. I wanted
then to “highlight” the playful mood, which is so evident in the music of this composer, in other
words, to make here a sort of “reflection” of this side of his material’ (Shulgin 2004, 81).
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Chamber works
As with each version, apart from the 1975 Pantomime arrangement, Moz-Art for two violins
is in a single, continuous movement, made up of contrasting sections based on the individual
movements of Mozart’s score. The structure can also be heard as a six-movement form (opening,
Figs. 4, 7, 12, 21, 23), although these divisions do not correspond with Mozart’s movements.
Schnittke quotes Mozart’s themes faithfully, accompanying them with a second part made up
of imitation, accompanying figures or unrelated counterpoint. The two violins begin in exact
imitation. At Fig. 4, the music becomes bitonal, the violins in D minor and D major respect-
ively. That tension is increased at Fig. 13 where Schnittke superimposes two Mozart themes in
different keys, violin I playing from scene 13, violin II from scene 8 (Fig. 28 also superimposes
themes from separate movements).
A scordatura is employed from Fig. 16, where violin II gradually detunes the G-string down
to D. At Fig. 31, violin II quotes the theme of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 – a late addition that
was not included in the first (unpublished) version of the score. The ending is Schnittke’s own,
although it is based on the theme at Fig. 3 now inverted. The ambiguous but raucous polytonal
conclusion also invokes the coda to Mozart’s Musical Joke, K 522, depicting a disorganised group
of village musicians (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 103).
In the 1980 version of Moz-Art, for six instruments, the textures are filled out, with the harp-
sichord and harp performing 18th-century keyboard figurations. The instruments are coupled
in the scoring: oboe–harpsichord; violin–harp; cello–double bass. Schnittke describes how
each relationship is like a marriage and that each goes through three stages: an idyllic begin-
ning, a scandalous divorce, and a peaceful reconciliation (Köchel 1994, 116). The state of these
relationships at any given point is determined by the musical themes, either shared between the
two instruments or contrasting between them.The quote from Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 is here
given to the double bass, but played high in its register, written at the original pitch, although
sounding an octave lower.
Moz-Art à la Haydn and Moz-Art à la Mozart take the ideas of Moz-Art in a different direction.
Schnittke exploits the fact that the opening of Mozart’s work is missing, and begins with a nebu-
lous introduction, unsynchronised fragments from Mozart’s movements I, II,VI,VIII, IX, XII and
XIII. At Fig. 3, the music returns to Mozart’s movement I, and up until Fig. 10, the works follow
the same sequence of themes as Moz-Art, i.e. presenting the movements from Mozart’s panto-
mime in chronological order. The rest of the work is structured more erratically, but includes
several passages from Mozart’s score not used in Moz-Art.
Moz-Art à la Haydn is scored for two solo violins and chamber orchestra, the ensemble divided
into two complementary groups, suggesting a concerto grosso. The work also employs absurdist
stage action to invoke the carnival atmosphere. It opens in complete darkness, and the lights come
on before Fig. 3. At Fig. 18, the orchestra rearranges so that the tutti violins are lined up, allowing
the Schnittke stretto effects to pass across the stage. At Fig. 27, they return to their original
positions, and both the seating arrangement and the return to earlier themes suggest a ternary
form recapitulation. Then, from Fig. 46, the players all gradually leave the stage, the ‘à la Haydn’
element a reference to the Farewell Symphony, similarly evoked in Schnittke’s Symphony No. 1.
Septet
Schnittke’s Septet, for harpsichord (doubling ad libitum organ), flute, two clarinets, violin, viola
and cello, was written for Lumina, a contemporary music ensemble led by the York-based com-
poser David Blake. Blake visited Moscow in 1978, and the work was a result of this visit (there
was no commission or fee).9 Schnittke’s first thought was to model the work on Stravinsky’s
Septet (1953), as its combination of Neoclassical and Russian elements had proved popular in
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Chamber works
England. Schnittke’s Septet resembles Stravinsky’s in duration and in the character of the two main
movements: Schnittke’s movement I has a sprightly rhythmic interplay between the instruments,
resembling the first movement of Stravinsky’s Septet, while his movement II is a stately chorale,
evoking Stravinsky’s second movement passacaglia.
But Schnittke’s structural approach is different. The two numbered movements are preceded
by a brief preface: Introduktion – I Perpetuum mobile – II Choral. The Introduktion simply
states the melodic material, 11 themes, based on monograms, like the opening of Berg’s Chamber
Concerto. The first six themes are apparently based on composers’ names. Comparison with the
contemporaneous Symphony No. 3 shows that the opening F, A, G, A, D, E is a slightly elided
version of the Mozart monogram used in the symphony’s second movement, and the monogram
in the fifth bar (clarinet I), C, A, E, B♭, is that of Carl Maria von Weber in the same movement.The
last five monograms are based on the names of the players in the Illumina ensemble (Kholopova
& Chigareva 1990, 157), and are allotted to their respective instruments: Alan Hacker (clarinet II,
bar 8: A, A, B, A, E, C, E), Chris Rowland (violin bar 9: C, B, E♭, A, D), Alan George (viola bar 11:
A, A, G, E, G, E), Moray Welsh (cello bar 11: A, E, D♯(E♭), B) and David Blake (harpsichord bars
12-13: D, A, D, B, A, E).10 The 11 motifs are treated independently, as the thematic basis for the
work, presented here horizontally and then combined vertically in movement I and diagonally
in movement II.
The two numbered movements form a balanced and contrasting pair. Movement I has almost
exactly twice as many bars as movement II, and a similar ratio between their respective tempo
indications – Allegretto and Moderato – would create equal durations. The relationship suggests
evil versus good. The Movement I climax (Fig. 12) combines dance forms, including waltz and
tango, both associated with banality and evil in Schnittke’s music. This contrasts the liturgical
connotations of the Choral, the contrast made explicit by the keyboard player moving from
harpsichord to organ (when available). The relationship resembles, but reverses, that of the inner
movements of Schnittke’s contemporaneous Symphony No. 3, where the scherzo third movement
is a distorted reflection of the second.
The Perpetuum mobile of movement I resembles American Minimalism, a style otherwise
alien to Schnittke’s music. Textures are built through gradual layering of the instruments, each
repeating separate monogram-based themes but with different periodicity, creating a phasing
effect. But the connection is superficial, and this is not process music. The music in each of the
lines develops and changes, but not through orderly patterns. Instead, the instruments move
through different permutations of the motifs, the textures diversifying through the increasing
use of extended techniques, higher dynamics and octave displacements within the themes. The
climax is anticipated by the flute playing each of the 11 motifs in turn, slowly and in high register
(from Fig. 8).The climax itself (Fig. 12) overlays dance patterns in three metres, a 4/4 accompani-
ment in the harpsichord, a 3/4 waltz in the cello and an irregular 9/8 tango in the violin. This
subsides to a unison A, although still retaining the rhythmic complexity, another idea shared with
the third movement of the Symphony No. 3 (Fig. 40).
The Choral movement that follows resembles the Finale of the Symphony No. 3 in its presen-
tation of multiple monograms, all harmonised with tonal chords.The organ begins by presenting
all 11 motifs in this way, while the other instruments play quiet heterophonic textures also based
on the motifs.The instruments are initially paired, but later divided emphatically between strings
and winds. From Fig. 2, the strings play the chorale in non-arpeggiated pizzicato, and the winds
imitate in canon by inversion.
The closing gestures of the Choral also resemble those of the Symphony No. 3, cycling back
to the start of the work through allusions in reverse order. At Fig. 5, the A unison passage from
movement I returns, and at Fig. 6, the chorale textures are interpolated by isolated statements
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of the monogram motifs, recalling the Introduktion. The work closes with a G minor chord in
the organ. The G root suggests a deeper structural level for the opening Mozart monogram. The
monogram – F, A, G, A, D, E – lends its first note, F, to the pedal in the work’s first four bars, its
second, A, to the unison passage following the climax of the Perpetuum mobile, and its third, G,
to the final chord of the work.
Lebenslauf
In 1982, Schnittke turned 48. The number proved interesting, in light of Schnittke’s recent
investigations into the cabbala, the I Ching and other mystical philosophies (Ivashkin 1996, 156).
Schnittke considered the number 48 auspicious because of its many factors, being divisible by
2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 and 24 (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 155). This gave rise to Lebenslauf, for
four metronomes, three percussionists and piano. The work superimposes two approaches to
time, an objective, clock-based time, represented by the metronomes and a subjective impres-
sion of time, represented by the percussionists and piano. The four players give the composer’s
‘Lebenslauf ’ (course of life/résumé) by charting out his lifespan, with monograms and quotations
corresponding to key life events.
Around 50 pages of sketches for Lebenslauf are held at the Juilliard School. These show that
Schnittke initially attempted to link each of the percussion instruments with a specific facet
of his personality (SCHN_COLL_392), a semantic system that soon became unwieldy to the
point of farce, i.e. ‘Erotik dargestellt durch Wassergongs’ (‘erotic represented with water gongs’)
(SCHN_COLL_425). So the autobiographical dimension became a looser and more intuitive
polystylistic fabric. The passage of time, as represented by the metronomes, remained systematic,
however, and the sketches detail the interaction between the four metronomes, which are set at
different speeds (60, 80, 90, 120 bpm), to locate the points at which they correspond – an issue
of particular significance given the work’s numerological inspiration.
Another inspiration was the Rhythmicon, an electronic drum machine developed by Lev
Theremin and Henry Cowell in the 1930s, which was able to perform simultaneous subdivisions
of the beat into 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 155). The work’s dedication
provides another clue: the main dedication is to the German musicologist Wilfried Brennecke,
but Schnittke adds in parentheses ‘and partly also for John Cage’ (SCHN_COLL_426).
Schnittke maps his lifecycle onto the music with a rehearsal figure for each year. The work
begins explicitly in ‘clock’ time, with a 60-bpm metronome. The 48 years are divided into four
12-year cycles and at the start of each cycle another metronome is added. Schnittke gradually
accelerates the passage of time: initially there are 12 bars for each year, but this is reduced with
each cycle to 9, 8 and finally 6. To signify the passing year, the piano plays a chord immediately
before each rehearsal figure.
The quotations and monograms are mostly quiet, or played on soft-sounding instruments,
suggesting distant memories. This reflects Schnittke’s desire to balance the subjective and the
objective, to make his life events a background to the more universal message. He wrote, ‘My
personal life has so far, thank God, been very lacking in important events; but this results in a
sequence of contrasting accents at different intervals, allowing for an interplay between subjective
time perception and objective time measurement … I do not want to say a word about the
events, because Lebenslauf is not program music’ (Köchel 1994, 117–18).
But the idea of a life cycle is easy of perceive. Near the start, we hear children’s toys: a whistle
(perhaps the sound of a crying child) and a siren (Fig. 8); and Russian children’s songs: In the
Forest Grows a Pine Tree (by Leonid Bekman, five after Fig. 5) and Along the Street Walked a Large
Crocodile (6 after Fig. 13). We also hear Schnittke learning to count (two bars after Fig. 2) and
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playing his first musical instrument, the accordion (six bars after Fig. 10). The subjectivity of this
symbolism is confirmed through prominent monograms. The Shostakovich D–S–C–H appears
repeatedly from Fig. 3, and at Fig. 7 Schnittke employs an unusually comprehensive monogram
based on his own name: A–F–E–D–E♭–C–B, accompanied by a chord of A and E♭, representing
his initials.
Life events are detailed through unambiguous motifs: and both of Schnittke’s weddings are
denoted with the Mendelssohn Wedding March, at Figs. 22 and 27. The references to other
composers’ music are more difficult to link with life events.The Rondo à la Turk at Fig. 11 may be
Schnittke learning the piano, as may the Chopin Funeral March that follows. Later quotes include
The Ride of the Valkyries (Fig. 14), Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 (6 after Fig. 16), and Haydn’s D
major Piano Sonata, HOB.XVI:37 (six bars after Fig. 16).
A short burst of La Marseillaise, leading into Fig. 44, denotes Schnittke’s first visit to France in
1977 (Ivashkin 1996, 146). Similarly, the many quotations from Schnittke’s own music all corres-
pond in date with their premieres:
Fig. 24: Opening of Nagasaki

Five bars after Fig. 31: Symphony No. 1, movement II
Fig. 34: B–A–C–H, here associated with The Glass Harmonica and Violin Sonata No. 2. Also G
minor chords from the sonata at three bars after Fig. 34
Four bars after Fig. 35: Fugue from Suite in the Old Style
Fig. 43: Concerto Grosso No. 1, movement V
Fig. 47: Symphony No. 3
Schnittke faced an unusual problem in deciding how to end the work. In the sketches he writes
‘Up to when? Perhaps leave it as a “work in progress”? Unfinished?’ (SCHN_COLL_419). The
score includes a note on the final page (reproduced Köchel 1994, 117–18) explaining the work’s
autobiographical dimension. It says: ‘After 1982 comes the hypothetical time span of the future,
about which I cannot know anything, except that time remains measurable. That is why there is
here an aleatory section over a ticking rhythm, functioning as a coda ending (which for me, as
for everybody, is unavoidable).’
The unpredictability of the future is illustrated with indeterminate rhythms: the previously
synchronised percussion parts all diverge, from each other and from the metronomes. The auto-
biographical dimension is retained, with Schnittke’s A–E♭ initials intoned in the piano beneath
the increasing disorder. But the indeterminacy ceases eventually, and Schnittke’s two inevitable
conclusions – life ends and time continues – are played out in the final gesture, the percussion
falls silent, and we are left with the ticking of ‘clock’ time, with the 60-bpm metronome con-
tinuing alone.
Schall und Hall

The title Schall und Hall means ‘Sound and Resound’, but also alludes to the German expression
‘Wie der Hall, so der Schall’ (‘As the echo, so the sound’). The work is for trombone and organ,
but the acoustic space in which it is performed is as much a part of the music as the instruments.
Schnittke explained:
It is a slow, meditative piece with long, lingering notes and has a particular effect when
performed in reverberant spaces. The trombone player should stand as far away from
the organ as possible and redirect his sound regularly in three different directions. In
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the aleatoric [second] cadenza the trombone can exploit the resonance, leading to a
tumultuous layering of sounds.
(Köchel 1994, 116)
The musical material is simple, with the organ playing overlapping chords, and the trombone
playing notes related to the harmonies, its notes mostly isolated through octave leaps. The struc-
ture is a ternary form, in which the middle section (Fig. 6) is a transposed version of the first,
and with the reprise (Fig. 8) interrupted by two climactic cadenzas for trombone. In a separate
process, the organ harmonies are gradually ‘compressed’, starting as overlapping tonal triads but
gradually moving towards denser sonorities. Of the trombone cadenzas, the first is written out,
and the second aleatoric and supported initially by a widely spaced 12-tone harmony in the
organ, and then by a similarly aleatoric descent.The coda is quiet, with the trombone muted and
the trombonist singing into the instrument as well as playing, the quiet music interacting with
the reverberance of the preceding climax.
Most of the musical gestures can be linked to representations of the cross (see Chapter 1,
Representations of the Cross). From Fig. 2, the two hands of the organ play common-mediant
chord pairs. Schnittke chooses G minor and G♭ major to allow the trombone to emphasise the
shared B♭, the fundamental tone of the instrument. The trombone intones the B♭ across four
octaves, B♭1, B♭2, B♭5,B♭4, a gesture of genuflection (both this and the common-mediant chords
are symbols of the cross). When the harmonies become denser, they often grow outwards sym-
metrically, for example at Fig. 9, another cross representation used in the Symphony No. 2.
3x7
In 1989, Wilfried Brennecke retired as head of the Wittener Tagen für neue Kammermusik, a
contemporary chamber music festival in the Ruhr region of western Germany. To mark the
occasion, Brennecke commissioned composers associated with the festival to write 30 short ‘fare-
well pieces’, which were presented over the course of three programmes at that year’s festival.
Schnittke’s contribution was 3x7, a three-minute work for clarinet, horn, trombone, harpsichord,
violin, viola and cello.
The numbers of the title have multiple connotations. The 21 of the sum refers to the 21 years
that Brennecke ran the festival (from 1969), while the 3 and 7 refer to the structure of the work
itself. The piece is three minutes long, employs three instrumental groupings – winds, harpsi-
chord, strings, is in 3/4 and has a three-part rondo structure (opening, two bars before Fig. 7,
Fig. 11), articulated through interactions between the instrument families. The opening refrain
recurs, in varied forms, seven times (opening, two bars before Fig. 2, two bars before Fig. 3,
Fig. 4, two bars after Fig. 5, two bars before Fig. 7, Fig. 11) and the ensemble is made up of seven
instruments. The title may also refer to the structure of Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire (‘Three times
seven poems …’), and Schnittke’s opening motif – C, E, E♭ – follows the same pitch profile as
the first three notes of the vocal part in Schoenberg’s cycle.
Herrn Alfred Schlee zum 90 Geburtstag

On 18 November 1991, a concert took place in Vienna to honour the 90th birthday of Alfred
Schlee, who had been head of Universal Edition for over 40 years.The works were commissioned
by Universal Edition from 37 composers and performed by the Arditti Quartet. Schnittke’s con-
tribution, Herrn Alfred Schlee zum 90 Geburtstag, is for unaccompanied viola, and was performed
by Garth Knox.
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It opens with a monogram based on Schlee’s name, AlFrED SCHleE – A, F, E,D, E♭, C, B,
E, the same monogram that Schnittke derived from his own name, for example in the Violin
Concerto No. 4. (The letters of the monogram are faintly written above the first line of the music
in the autograph, as published in facsimile by Universal.) The last letter of the monogram is
separated with the interpolation of a G and F♯, forming a descending line.
The monogram is not heard again in its original form, but the rest of the music is derived
from this first line. An answering phrase appears at bar 10, an inversion of the descending
line interpolated into the monogram at bar 4. The four-part structure approaches a sonata
form model: A – opening; B – bar 13; development – bar 20; modified reprise of A – 37.
The B theme expands the answering motif at bar 10. The development combines the A and
B themes through double-stopping. The reprise is transposed up a semitone and modified
to emphasise the rising chromatic movement of the answering motif. The ending is made
ambiguous through continuous trills. The music is again divided into two lines, with the upper
line intoning Schlee’s initials – A, E♭ – bars 45–48, 49–50, and the lower line concluding on a
‘Geburtstag’ (birthday) G.
Quartet for Four Percussionists

The Percussion Quartet, for tubular bells, vibraphone, glockenspiel and marimba, is one of sev-
eral fragments from an unfinished cantata from the mid-1990s, along with the Five Fragments
to Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch and Fragment for Orchestra. The sketches for the cantata project
(photocopies are held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive) show Schnittke fashioning the Bosch
Fragments from the abandoned cantata, and in a section where he is deciding on the scale and
order of the movements in the later work, reference is made to a Quartett für vier Schlagzeuger
(‘Quartet for Four Percussionists’), immediately after what became the final movement of the
Bosch work.
The quartet may originally have derived from the second movement of the cantata, which
is written for countertenor (singing a text by Sebastian Brant) and four percussionists (playing
three cymbals, four bongos, two tam tams and marimba). In one of the sketches, Schnittke gives
the movement’s tempo as ‘(Andante)? Moderato’, similar to the quartet’s ‘Andante (Moderato)’.
The pitch patterns of the quartet mirror those notated for this movement, although the nota-
tion for untuned percussion has been translated to the treble clef. But this is not done arbitrarily,
and, as in the fifth movement of the Bosch Fragments, each of the instruments of the quartet plays
in a different key, the polytonal tension only resolved at the coda – to the opening B minor.
The third-span clusters at the end of each phrase also relate to the first movement of the Bosch
Fragments, while duplet/triplet quaver movement from Fig. 3 and the parallel tritone harmonies
that follow both link to Fragment for Orchestra, which is made up of the completed orchestral
movements of the cantata.
The Percussion Quartet follows a simple structure. It is based on a rising scale figure in B minor,
first heard in the glockenspiel – the bare modality, devoid of tonal function, a hint that this may
originally have been written for untuned percussion. But after Fig. 1, the theme expands to
include an F♯4 in the octave below, giving a more concrete tonal association. When this theme
is then heard in inversion in the vibraphone, it is in B♭ major, the common-mediant key to B
minor. From Fig. 3, a quaver-pulse elaboration of the theme is given in the glockenspiel, and
again inverted in the vibraphone, again in B♭ major. This texture is then expanded through par-
allel tritones and then parallel [0,1,6,7] chords, a late appearance of this signature harmony in
Schnittke’s music.
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Chamber works
Notes
1 A full list of the locations of each of these chants in the quartet can be found in Ismael-Simental 2007,
48–49.
2 On p. 11, movement IV follows straight on from movement II and is labelled ‘III’. On p. 16, movement
V is labelled ‘IV’.
3 The works appeared in appendices to two volumes: Issue 97 Edison Denisov, Boris Blacher, Peter
Maxwell Davies, Hugh Wood, Lennox Berkeley, Nicholas Maw, Michael Tippett, Harrison Birtwistle,
Luciano Berio, Alfred Schnittke; Issue 98 Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, Alexander Goehr,
Elizabeth Lutyens, Darius Milhaud, Roger Sessions.
4 Héarún also suggests Volkonsky’s String Quartet, op. 6, as a model.
5 In the manuscript for this version, Schnittke made annotations for performance by violin and cello, but
not all of the issues were resolved (Vulfson, Editorial Notes to Collected Works Edition).
6 Conversely, Alexander Ivashkin claims that the quintet includes material which was composed for but
not used in the Requiem (Ivashkin 1996, 131).
7 Title page of manuscript (first version).
8 Lubotsky was in Dartington, not Darlington as printed there.
9 Telephone conversation with David Blake (27 April 2019).
10 David Blake.
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7
KEYBOARD WORKS
Introduction
Schnittke studied the piano at the October Revolution Music College from 1949 to 1953,
reaching an advanced standard, and performing the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 and
Grieg’s Piano Concerto while still in his teens (Ivashkin 1996, 40). But his later relationship with
the keyboard was more distant. He occasionally played the piano or harpsichord as accompanist
or in ensembles, most significantly touring to the West as keyboard player of the Lithuanian
Chamber Orchestra in 1977. But Schnittke did not compose at the piano (Ivashkin 1996, 142),
and his music was always conceived in instrumental terms: his sketches hardly ever show a
progression from piano reduction to full score.
Schnittke’s approach to writing for the piano therefore combined the insights of his early key-
board proficiency with a more objective attitude to the instrument’s potential. Commenting on
the Piano Sonata No. 2 in the early 1990s, Schnittke emphasised his concern for expression over
performing technique:
[I] am not a pianist myself – I have played through the years only occasionally or as a
piano accompanist. Because of this inability, I have no relation to the piano. Gradually,
however, I stopped thinking about keys, passages and pedals, and instead focused on the
content of what I wrote. It then seemed completely uninteresting, whether it was new
or old, unbelievably difficult or whether it had already been done a thousand times
before. The only important thing was that it felt important to me.
(Köchel 1994, 114)
The course of Schnittke’s piano writing can be understood as a progression away from the
teenaged composer/pianist and towards this more distinct position described in his last years. His
student piano works demonstrate a closer relationship with the piano, its history and technique.
He wrote a collection of Preludes in 1953–1954, his first year at the Moscow Conservatory
(see also Chapter 1). The Preludes show the influence of Schnittke’s recent studies of the piano
literature, with one Prelude almost quoting Chopin’s E minor Prelude and another suggesting
Liszt’s Funerailles. But Schnittke was already employing the keyboard for textures outside of the
piano’s conventional sound: LPs had just started to become available in the Soviet Union, and
245 DOI: 10.4324/9780429274046-7

Keyboard works
we also hear explorations of the orchestral sonorities of Wagner and Scriabin. These Preludes
were strictly compositional exercises, and the inclusion of two D minor Preludes suggests they
were not intended as a cycle. A set of Variations for Piano survives from Schnittke’s second year
at the Conservatory, 1954–1955. These too sound like the work of a talented pianist/composer,
and have a more Russian late-Romantic flavour, a folk-like theme elaborated through expansive
textures from Rachmaninov combined with adventurous harmonies of Scriabin.
Schnittke’s mature piano works fall into two distinct periods, a group of three serial works –
Prelude and Fugue, Improvisation and Fugue, Variations on a Chord – from 1963–1965, and the
three piano sonatas, plus the Five Aphorisms, from 1987–1992. The three early works were
written at a time of transition for Schnittke, when he was becoming increasingly uneasy with
serial techniques, and he later distanced himself from all three as unrepresentative of his style
(Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 24). Nevertheless, Schnittke’s wife, Irina, began playing these
early piano works in the 1980s (Variations on a Chord had been written for her graduation exam
in 1966), and this provided an impetus for Schnittke to return to piano composition – the
Second of his piano sonatas is also dedicated to her.
The focus on the piano sonata in this late phase reflects a greater interest in Classical, as
opposed to Baroque, forms in the 1980s, although, as with many such forms, Schnittke also
experimented in his student years, writing a B minor Piano Sonata in 1955.1
The late sonatas, and the Five Aphorisms, employ more associative language than the earlier
serial pieces, with chorales and quasi-liturgical repeated-note recitations. Schnittke also employs
stretto canons in several of these late works, a device particularly unsuited to piano technique.
The stretto textures represent an endpoint in the path from pianist/composer to non-pianist
composer of piano music, but there are also features of Schnittke’s mature piano works that dem-
onstrate a keen ear for the instrument’s sonic capabilities. The piano’s ability to play fast repeated
notes is exploited in both early and late works. In Prelude and Fugue, the repeated notes imitate
Morse code, while in Aphorism No. 1, they invoke psalmody. More significantly, Schnittke often
uses the piano to imitate the sound of bells, a recurring feature throughout the history of Russian
music, but here demonstrating an understanding of the piano as essentially a percussion instru-
ment: see Chapter 1, Bells.
Piano Sonatas
Piano Sonata No. 1

The Piano Sonata No. 1 was composed in 1987, as a gift for the pianist Vladimir Feltsman, who
was leaving the Soviet Union to live in New York. Feltsman’s name appears as a recurring mono-
gram in the sonata, but the work also includes religious associations – chorales and bell chimes –
suggesting narratives of morality and mortality.
The brief first movement is marked Lento, although, as Feltsman points out (Preface to
Collected Works, Series VII,Volume 1, Part 1), the indistinct rhythms, with no bar lines, mean that
it has no specific speed. All of the thematic material for the work is presented here. The opening
is a long, unaccompanied recitative, eventually leading to the monogram based on Feltsman’s
name – Vladimir Oskarovitsch Feltsman: A, D, E♭, C, B, F, E. The opening notes are A and D,
taken from the start of the Feltsman monogram, which become the pitch centres of the work.
The opening phrase mimics, but does not state, the Feltsman monogram, and ends with a quasi-
cadential lower mordant on E♭ and D. This falling minor second becomes the motivic basis of
the movement. The recitative then rises to the top of the piano keyboard, evolving into a loud
repeated-note climax.
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Keyboard works
This can be heard as a mechanistic device and, in the context of the following religious
imagery, as a manifestation of the impersonal, or of evil. Similarly impersonal processes end
the second movement, a stretto canon from bar 195, and the fourth, the climax of which (106)
Schnittke describes as mechanistic (motorisch) (Köchel 1994, 113). The first movement ends
with an extended chorale, its melody based on the minor second relation established in the
opening phrase and its harmonies on diatonic triads, mostly in tonally ambiguous tonic-mediant
relationships and common-mediant parings.
Textures in the following three movements are denser but are all derived from the recitative
and the chorale. The second movement begins with a change of mood, the tempo-less aura
giving way to a clear 3/4. Feltsman writes: ‘It starts in a pastoral mood, like a glimpse back to
childhood and innocence.’ Technically, the music here is closely related to the themes of the first.
The quaver movement at the end of the first bar is similar to the mordant figure at the start of
the first movement, and the tonal harmonies are based on the D pitch centre. As in the first-
movement chorale, the tonality of the diatonic triads is compromised by common-mediant pro-
gression and through the interpolation of [0,1,6,7] sonorities. The movement is in rondo form,
with the refrain returning bars 61, 162 and forming the basis of the climax from 210. The first
episode, bar 32, is a mechanistic interjection – Feltsman says it ‘should be played hard and dry’ –
and the following music becomes increasingly disorderly and intense. The disorder is briefly
countered by a quiet interlude of bell chimes, bar 128, but soon resumes, gradually building to
the continuously dissonant stretto inversion canon from bar 195.
Feltsman describes the third movement as ‘meditative with an expressive character reminis-
cent of Schoenberg or Berg’. The movement closely follows the first. Both are Lento and in a
binary form, the first section based on the recitative, the second, here from bar 59, on the chorale.
But both sections are more sophisticated than in the first movement, with the recitative soon
divided into two- then three-part counterpoint and the chorale voiced more broadly. The reli-
gious associations of the chorale are continued at bar 90 with bell tones in the piano’s lowest
register. Then these connotations dissolve, as the bells grow louder and higher, transforming into
an ‘explosion’ (Feltsman) of ascending clusters, repeating as another mechanistic effect at the top
of the keyboard.
The fourth movement juxtaposes the first-movement themes in increasingly dramatic ways.
After two bars of introductory bell effects, it opens with a quote from the opening of the first
movement, but already in three-voice stretto. The main body of the movement freely rhapsodises
on the theme: the stepwise three-note cells, the mechanistic accelerating repeated notes and the
mordant. At the climax, bar 106, these textures continue, but with the chorale superimposed,
in right-hand clusters and left-hand triads. Here (148), the opening of the first movement is
superimposed onto the Feltsman monogram, but quietly and consonantly, over a D pedal, which
the harmonies of the preceding climax have prepared. Feltsman writes:‘All of the previously heard
musical material is present here, but there is no reconciliation, no “happy ending”.The sonata ends
as it begins. The opening monogram returns, but this time a reflection of itself, as if in a mirror.’
Piano Sonata No. 2

The Piano Sonata No. 2 was composed in 1990 as a birthday present for Schnittke’s pianist
wife, Irina. The work reflects Irina’s taste for Romantic-era piano repertoire, but the lyrical
mood that opens both of the first two movements is quickly challenged. Schnittke conceded
that: ‘As always, trying to revive the sonata structure was a problem for me’ (Köchel 1994,
114), but this was clearly his intent, the work in a traditional fast–slow–fast three-movement
structure. The result is a terse dialogue with tradition in which the brief melodies are subject
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Keyboard works
to continual entropy and decay, although all within the orderly proportions of Classically
structured movements.
Alexander Ivashkin hears the work as a ‘confrontation between personal awareness and an
impersonal fate, the creation and destruction of the living and the dead’. The lyrical opening is
merely a ‘romantic illusion’, while the chorale in the second movement and the clusters that make
up much of the work represent the spiritual and the material respectively. But the tensions that
result are more important than the symbols themselves, which are rendered brief and ambiguous.
‘The imagery of one kind and another contained in the three movements represents different
incarnations of one and the same idea that exhausts itself and then returns to a state of entropy
and chaos’ (Ivashkin, liner note to Chandos CHAN 9704).
Such tensions are evident from the opening bar, a melody in D minor but with the harmony
soon straying from the key, the nebulous Romanticism recalling Berg’s Piano Sonata, op. 1. In the
first, Sikorski edition, the editors added a 4/4 time signature in the first movement, and a 3/4 in
the second, but these were removed at Irina’s behest in the Collected Works Edition. Their absence
changes the relationship between the themes and the subsequent music; the barlines, although
regularly placed, have less relevance to the divergent metric structure. Little sense of formal archi-
tecture is evident in the first movement, although the upward-leaping major ninth in bar 7 acts
as a contrasting motif and the basis for the virtuosic textures between the increasingly complex
presentations of the opening theme.
The Lento second movement opens with a similarly lyrical theme. Its unaccompanied presen-
tation and its triple time with stress on the second beat suggest a sarabande. However, it is later
harmonised as a chorale, which becomes the main theme of the second movement and also
reappears at the end of the finale. Peter J. Schmelz writes that the appearances of the chorale in
the second and third movements illustrate ‘the sonata’s profound unsettledness’ (Schmelz 2021,
262) through their ambiguous and shifting harmonies. The tonal implications of the diatonic
harmonies are balanced by regular appearances of the [0,1,6,7] chord and by common-mediant
progressions. The movement has a four-part structure, based on the returns of the chorale,
harmonised tonally (bars 11, 22), bitonally (49) then atonally (65). These are interspersed with
recitative-like passages based on the opening motifs. At bar 38, the countersubject transforms into
a fate motif, on a repeated note, as in the Scherzo of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.That invocation
of fate is made more personal through the final sonority, a bass cluster between notes spelling out
Schnittke’s initials, A and E♭. The Sonata No. 3 ends with a similar gesture.
The finale opens with a recollection of the movement I motifs, but made ambiguous and dis-
sonant through stretto canon.The movement is in rondo form, the refrains bars 19, 36, 60 and 69,
but the processes of entropy and increasing complexity are just as important, as is demonstrated
by the increasingly dense counterpoint of the refrains. The final pages suggest an intervention
against the forces of disorder and chaos. At bar 39, the second movement chorale reappears, an
extended passage of calm before the disorderly climax. Schnittke originally wrote fully notated
music for the build-up at bars 68–69 but decided when preparing the first edition that impro-
visation would be more appropriate (Editorial Comments to Collected Works, Series VII,Volume 1,
Part 2).The original (see Example 7.1) is an unusual stretto passage based on the first-movement
opening motif. The four voices enter from the bass up, their transpositions in [0,1,6,7] relation
(beginning A♯, E, A, E♭).The internal intervals are expanded from one voice to the next, the bass
in semitones, the tenor in wholetones, the alto in minor thirds and the soprano in major thirds,
creating a rapid upward expansion.
The climax is followed by a repeated-note bell effect. Schnittke originally allowed the pianist
to choose either seven or 12 chimes, but later stipulated 12 (Collected Works Edition comments).
The bells lead into a final presentation of the chorale. Schmelz writes that, ‘The last section of
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Example 7.1 Piano Sonata No. 2, movement III, first draft for climax bars 67–68, later replaced with
improvisation
the third movement reveals the utter tenuousness of the chorale’s promise …’ (Schmelz 2021,
266): the tessitura is lower than in previous statements, the harmonies are inconclusive, and ‘the
melody has been buried in the lower voices while the top voices have flatlined on E♭–A♭ …’.
That ambiguity is maintained until the final chord, a [0,1,6,7] harmony, ppp with the hands at
the far ends of the keyboard: B♭0, F1, B6, E7 (Example 1.6(d)).
Piano Sonata No. 3

The Piano Sonata No. 3 was written for the pianist Justus Franz, whom Schnittke first met in
1990 (Köchel 1994, 114).The project was delayed by Schnittke’s second stroke in 1991, and Boris
Berman eventually gave the premiere, in Tel Aviv in 1996.The effects of this second stroke haunt
the sonata, the first example of the extremely austere style of Schnittke’s final creative period.
The sonata has the appearance of a ghostly reminiscence of a long-forgotten work. The two
slow movements, Nos. I and III of its four-movement structure, are almost entirely in two-part
texture and rarely rise above mp. The faster movements are similarly sparse, the themes brief and
the development drawn out. Ivashkin writes that the first movement monologue ‘unfolds with
enormous effort’ (Preface to Collected Works, Series VII,Volume 1, Part 3) and that even without
knowing the circumstances of the composition, the listener can sense the struggle from one note
to the next.
This skeletal quality is enhanced by its similarities with the Sonata No. 1. Both works open with
an extended monologue, intermittently accompanied by isolated bass pedals. And both then play
out as slow–fast–slow–fast four-movement structures. Both second movements are fidgety scherzos
based on brief, interrupted themes, and both finales recall motifs from the earlier movements. But
the imagery of the Sonata No. 1 is almost absent: there are no bell chimes or chorales.The work is
also considerably shorter. The form remains, but content is conspicuously absent.
The first movement monologue introduces several aspects of the work’s musical language,
though few actual motifs or harmonies. The stepwise rising and falling of the opening phrase is
a rhetorical figure of suffering (Vashchenko 2016, 117), but the chromatic movement avoids any
specific thematic identity.
The second movement is an animated but frustrated scherzo, its impatient but brief opening
figure never developing beyond a few bars. The upward octave leap of the opening theme soon
degenerates into sevenths and ninths, but the returns of the now-distorted theme describe a
rondo form: A bar 1; B 32; A1 44; C 54; A2 91. Schnittke expands the textures in the second half
through harmonically neutral devices: almost exact parallel inversion between the hands at bar
67 and parallel stacked fifths at bar 77.
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The third movement opens with a monologue that recalls the first movement, the first four
notes – E, D♯, C♯, D – a retrograde of movement I, bar 8. The main theme that follows (first
heard at bar 3) is reminiscent of the sarabande second movement of the Sonata No. 2, although
without its chorale connotations. Perfect fifth relations are used to prolong the music without
overt thematic or harmonic development. The second bar is a fifth transposition of the first, and
bars 3–10 are then repeated almost exactly, and again transposed down a fifth, from bar 11. The
[0,1,6,7] collection is also used, negating tonal implications, but it appears so often as to become
a defining sonority, in consecutive dyads (bar 18, RH), harmonies (19) and counterpoint (37).
The fourth movement, another scherzo, begins with an explicit allusion, to Shostakovich,
the second subject of the first movement of his Symphony No. 10 (the theme is also anticipated
in movement III, bar 35) (Vashchenko 2016, 118). The D–S–C–H monogram appears, as the
bass notes of bars 1, 3 and 4, and the first right-hand note of bar 2. Recollections of previous
movements are later heard, the rising sevenths followed by repeated notes from the second
movement at bar 9 and the opening chromatic motif of the first movement at bar 33.
The work ends with an ambiguous allusion to the third movement, the passage from bar 96
evoking movement III, bar 30, in elided form.The movement seems to cut off mid-way through.
It follows a rondo pattern, yet there is only one reprise, at bar 44, inviting interpretations of loss
and suffering, to which Schnittke adds a personal dimension by concluding, as in the earlier Five
Aphorisms, on a cluster between the notes E♭ and A, his own initials.
Other piano works
Children’s Pieces 1960 and 1971

Schnittke composed two sets of piano pieces for children, the first in 1960,2 the second in 1971.The
two sets show a significant shift in Schnittke’s style over the course of the 1960s; both are broadly
tonal, but the tonality of the second set is much freer, and only the first set has key signatures.
The first set, Six Children’s Pieces, has not been published. The set was arranged in 1962 for
small orchestra, as Children’s Suite, which was recorded for children’s radio. Ivashkin gives titles for
each of the pieces, presumably given when the pieces were orchestrated (see Works List).
Several distinctive features of Schnittke’s later piano writing are already evident here. In the
first piece, the left hand regularly mirrors the right in chromatic inversion, although without
disturbing the D minor tonality. An early Schnittke stretto effect is employed in the third
movement, imitation at the quaver, with the right hand playing on the white notes, and the left
hand on the black. Schnittke comments, ‘The effect is quite simple, and is achieved not in vir-
tuosic terms but in melodic terms.’ (Shulgin 2004, 36) The fifth movement contains a passage of
polymetre (bar 5), the right hand melody following the notated 4/4, while the left-hand accom-
paniment cuts across the bar lines with a 9/8 at the same quaver speed.
The second set originally consisted of six pieces and was probably modelled on the first. It was
composed in 1971 for Schnittke’s son, Andrei, to whom it is dedicated. He gave the premiere
of the first four movements that year, aged just six. Two further pieces were subsequently added
(see Works List).
In 1973, the first three pieces were published by Sovetskii Compositor, in an anthology entitled
For the Very Young. In 1992, the first four pieces were published by Sikorski, as Four Pieces for Piano.
The full set was published by Sikorski in 1999, as Little Piano Pieces.
The melodic style of this later set is broadly tonal, but the harmonies are more piquant, often
setting triads or open fifths in dissonant juxtaposition. The effect recalls Bartók’s Mikrokosmos,
especially in the folk-inflected ‘In the Mountains’. Stretto imitation is employed in ‘Melody’,
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and the chromatic mirroring in the chord voicing that follows anticipates Schnittke’s keyboard
writing in later orchestral works, particularly the Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4.
Prelude and Fugue for Piano

Prelude and Fugue for Piano is a serial work written in 1963. It was premiered in 1965 by Leonid
Brumberg at the Gnessin Institute, where he was professor of piano.The piece is based on themes
from two earlier, abandoned works: a string quartet from 1959 (later arranged as Concerto for
Electric Instruments, 1960) and the opera The Eleventh Commandment (1962), only completed in
piano score. The work exploits the contrast between the two sources. The series from the String
Quartet is stated at the opening of the Fugue as C, B, F♯, G♯, D♯, A, E, B♭, F, D, G, C♯.The theme
from the opera is stated in the Fugue from bar 56 (the 3/2) in the bass, as D♯, E♯, F♯, E, A, A♭, G, B,
A♯, B♯, C♯, D. The String Quartet series is made up predominantly of fourths/fifths and tritones,
while the opera series consists of smaller intervals, mostly minor and major seconds.
The Prelude is in ABA form, with the A section based on the String Quartet series and the B
section of the opera series. The Prelude is brief and made up of fragments from each series. The
only full presentation is of the opera series in the top line from bar 6 of the Moderato B section.
The A and B sections of the Prelude, and the Prelude and Fugue, are linked by a repeated-note
pattern.This is taken from the opera, which is about the bombing of Hiroshima, and the repeated
notes represent Morse code communication (Shulgin 2004, 38). The second A section is a retro-
grade inversion of the first, the textures inverted and reversed along with the series.
The Fugue is in three voices and is freely structured. The main theme and fugal exposition
are taken from the String Quartet. Schnittke increases the rhythmic sophistication of the theme,
adding rests to create a phrase structure independent of the statements of the series. The develop-
ment alternates this with the opera series. The series are combined at the climax (the second 3/2
section) but remain distinct, with the String Quartet series as the top notes of the chordal texture
and the opera series as the accompanying filigree.
The chords at the climax, and throughout the work, are not serially derived and are mostly
based on stacked fourths. After the climax, the music returns to the Morse code, but now
presented as repeated [0,1,6,7] chords. This leads to a coda where the series again fragments,
and the music concludes with a chord sequence (last 3 bars), beginning with a broadly spaced
[0,1,6,7] and concluding with a C major triad, over which the Morse code continues, high and
pianissimo, but on a dissonant F♯.
Improvisation and Fugue

Improvisation and Fugue was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture for the 1965 Tchaikovsky
Competition, although none of the participants chose the work and it was only premiered in
1973, by Vladimir Krainev. Schnittke responded with a virtuoso score, its structure and quasi-
Baroque title reminiscent of his Prelude and Fugue from two years earlier. But Improvisation and
Fugue demonstrates new developments. Like Prelude and Fugue, the work has a serial basis, but
the serialism is loosely applied, as if just a framework for music with a different focus. Similarly,
the Fugue bears only a superficial relation to fugal form. Schnittke concedes, ‘The fugue is fairly
free in structure, I do not even know for sure how many voices it has. This is a more a motoric
composition with fugue contours, rather than an actual fugue.’ (Shulgin 2004, 43) Stylistic
references, to the rumba and to jazz, appear in the Fugue and can be heard as early experiments
in polystylism, not so much for the contrasts between the styles as for that between the Baroque
form and the popular styles invoked.
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The Improvisation opens with a series of chords, outlining the series. The chords grow from
one to the next with a new pitch class introduced each time, until the 12th chord is the full chro-
matic aggregate. Schnittke describes this as a canon, although the octave displacements and chord
voicings create little sense of voice leading.The chords spell a prime form for the work’s series: F♯,
D, F, A, D♯, G♯, B, C♯, C, E, G, B♭. Schnittke points out that this is an all-interval series (Shulgin
2004, 43), although there is little symmetry in its internal structure. The serial manipulation that
follows is rudimentary, and the main structural significance of the series is its regular reappear-
ance in untransposed prime form, as if a ‘tonic’ statement within a tonal structure (Kholopova &
Chigareva 1990, 25). The concept of ‘improvisation’ sits uneasily with serial rigour, and Schnittke
appears to be improvising on the sound of the series more than its structure, such as in the ad libitum
descent at bar 15, which begins with a statement of the series in prime form, then continues with
a pitch pattern that imitates the intervallic diversity of the series, to which it is otherwise unrelated.
The Fugue is based on two themes, stylistically diverse but both derived from the series. The
opening theme sets the series in a rumba rhythm. It opens, again, with a prime form statement of
the series, which is followed by a statement of the retrograde, but then expanded through regu-
larly repeated two-note cells, enhancing the off-beat rumba rhythm. The second subject, bar 34,
resembles the low repeated-note textures of Prokofiev’s Sarcasms, particularly No. 3 but also No.
5 (the arpeggio interjections in No. 2 may also have inspired similar figures in the Improvisation).
The loose structure of the Fugue is most apparent in the development, from bar 47. Some fugal
techniques are employed, such as the four-voice stretto from bar 68, but otherwise the section is
more like a jazz improvisation over a pizzicato walking bass line.
The Maestoso finale, which resembles that of the earlier Prelude and Fugue, is a chordal statement
interspersed with fragments from earlier motifs – the Fugue’s second subject and the filigree
textures of the Improvisation. The chords themselves reprise the opening of the Improvisation,
spelling out the prime-form series, but this time without the accumulating pitches, which are
now replaced by clusters. Ivashkin writes, ‘they no longer contain the twelve-note row, the
“element of structure” has been destroyed …’ (Liner note to Chandos CHAN 9704). The work
ends with three lines, each based on the series, but texturally distinct, all gradually fading away,
and with the closing textures dominated by intermittent returns of the prime form of the series
at the top of the keyboard. Schnittke describes this as the ‘sound of chaotic bells’, and says, ‘The
effect of “limping” and aperiodicity, which arises here, is associated with the intentional fragmen-
tation of the material into unequal groups, and it is not necessary to mask it’ (Shulgin 2004, 44).
The bells invoke closure, but with little sense of resolution.
Variations on a Chord
Variations on a Chord was composed for the graduation exam of Schnittke’s wife, Irina, at the
Gnessin Institute in 1966. The ‘chord’ of the work’s title is a configuration of the 12 pitch classes
where each is assigned to a specific register, a principle taken from Webern’s Variations for Piano,
op. 27. Despite this limitation, the variations explore a range of styles. Schnittke explained that
he was attracted to the ‘idea of limitation’ in the pitch/register assignment, saying that, once it
is established, one must ‘“walk around” on these sounds in search of possible contrasts’ (Shulgin
2004, 46).
Unlike Webern, Schnittke does not apply any serial ordering. His register assignment of the
pitches – C1, G♯1, A1, D2, B2, D♭3, F3, E♭4, B♭4, E5, G5, F♯6 – is more broadly distributed than
Webern’s.Where Webern sets the pitches mostly on the bass and treble clefs, and mostly separated
by thirds, Schnittke reaches down another two octaves and separates the pitches mostly by fourths,
with the exception of a semitone step between G♯1 and A1 and a wholetone (diminished third)
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between B2 and D♭3. The open fourths give an impression of bell resonance, and allusions to bell
sounds appear throughout the work, especially in the Lento fourth variation, which is marked
quasi campane (see Example 1.5(b)). The uniformity imposed by the pitch system creates a sense
of stability, even stasis. When the Union of Composers discussed the work in 1967, Schnittke
characterised the approach as a ‘non-moving serialism’, and Sofia Gubaidulina commented that
the work met a need to ‘somehow stabilise, to oppose the instability of the psychological state of
modern man’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 30).
The opening descent concludes with a low C1, and this pitch takes on a cadential role. The
following Lento acts as a de facto theme, and the subsequent variations draw on its repeated-note
device from bar 2, the demisemiquaver outburst in bar 6 and the open fifths/sixths sonorities
in bar 7. The Andante second and sixth variations evoke Stravinsky, their brief melodic cells and
grace-note inflections recalling Les noces. The Agitato third variation is a Prokofiev-like toccata.
The Maestoso fifth variation, the climax of the work, is another bell invocation, this time in
approximate stretto canon. The final Lento variation acknowledges the work’s debt to Webern. It
is a brief Pointillistic coda, flitting across the registers over silently depressed keys for added res-
onance, before concluding in the cadential low C.
Dedication to Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich for Piano Six Hands

On 22 April 1979, Gennady Rozhdestvensky gave a concert at the Moscow House of Scientists,
of music for one piano played by six or eight hands. His companions were Viktoria Postnikova,
Aleksander Bakhchiev and Elena Sorokin. The programme included works by Czerny, Grainger,
Smetana and Moscheles, as well as the Dedication, written by Schnittke for the event (for six
hands, Sorokin did not play) (Rozhdestvensky 1989, 106).3
The title, ‘Posviashchenie’, literally means ‘dedication’, although it implies a memorial, and the
first Sikorski edition gave the title in French as ‘Hommage à Igor Stravinsky …’. But the work has
a light-hearted character, suggesting the title was meant ironically. Quotations are employed, from
the three composers’ most humorous and whimsical works: the Polka from Shostakovich’s ballet
The Golden Age, the Chinese Dance from Stravinsky’s opera The Nightingale and the Humorous
Scherzo for four bassoons by Prokofiev (also published in a piano version as op. 12, no. 9).
The three pianists are each assigned a composer: player I Shostakovich, player II Stravinsky,
player III Prokofiev, although these distinctions later blur. The three themes are each treated dif-
ferently but appear together at the climax, Fig. 36. The Shostakovich there is only an incidental
figure from the Polka; the main theme is heard at Fig. 23, while a motif derived from the sec-
ondary theme occurs several times, initially at Fig. 12. The Stravinsky theme appears intermit-
tently throughout, while the Prokofiev is only heard twice, at Figs. 25 and 36.
The structure can be heard as a ‘concentric rondo’ (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 103). The
refrain passages are the sections where player II performs the Stravinsky Chinese Dance while
player III plays moto perpetuo textures beneath: Figs. 10–13; 19–22; 36. The concentric model
relates to the Shostakovich Polka, which appears at Fig. 23 as a central axis of reflection, an idea
also supported by the similarities between the senza metro introduction and coda.
Schnittke’s use of monograms based on the three composers’ names is more structurally sig-
nificant (Segall 2013b, 277–86).4 Three monograms, each based on the composers’ full names
with patronymics, are stated in the first section: Shostakovich: D–D–E–E♭–C–B–E♭–C–B–A–
E♭–C–B (player I, Fig. 3); Stravinsky: G–F–E–D–E♭–C–B–E♭–A–E♭ (player II, after Fig. 4);
Prokofiev: E♭–E–G–E–E♭–E–G–E–E♭–C–B–F–E (player III, opening). At the opening, player
III plays the Prokofiev monogram in the left hand, and the complement (the remaining notes
of the total chromatic – F♯, G, A, B♭, C♯, D) as silently depressed keys in the right. From Fig. 6,
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the monograms begin to be treated as unordered sets, and the complement of each set takes
on almost equal importance. Most often, each player performs a line based on their assigned
composer’s monogram set in one hand while playing a line based on the complement set in
the other, for example at Fig. 8. Dense chords appear, vertical statements of the monogram or
complement sets, rather than clusters. In a brief acknowledgement of the predominantly tonal
languages of the three named composers, the passage at Fig. 17 is made up wholly of tonal triads,
but even here players I and III spell out their respective monogram sets followed by the comple-
ment sets in the roots of the triads. Schnittke also employs a sleight of hand to link the Stravinsky
quote with this monogram-based system: the complement of the Stravinsky set – F♯, G♯, C♯,
A♯ – becomes the pentatonic collection simply with the addition of D♯. This allows Schnittke
to use the pentatonic theme of Stravinsky’s Chinese Dance as the main theme of the work, and
without disrupting his novel harmonic approach.
Five Aphorisms for Piano and Reciter

Five Aphorisms was written in 1990 in response to a request from the Ukraine-born pianist, then
living in the United States, Alexander Slobodyanik.The work is dedicated to him and to the poet
Joseph Brodsky, who gave the premiere together. Schnittke specified that Brodsky’s poems should
intersperse the movements, although he left the choice of texts to the performer.
The title of Five Aphorisms suggests inspiration from Shostakovich’s 10 Aphorisms, op. 13. The
sets are connected through shared textures. The respective first movements have similar phrase
structures, two-part counterpoint and repeated-note figures. Contrary motion between the
hands in Schnittke’s second movement resembles that in Shostakovich’s second movement. Also,
Schnittke’s Aphorism No. 4 is unmetered, as is Shostakovich’s third movement (Faynberg 2016, 57).
But Joseph Brodsky is clearly a more significant presence. Schnittke met Brodsky in 1988,
spending a day at Brodsky’s house during his first visit to the United States (Kholopova 2003,
203).The themes of Brodsky’s poetry clearly resonated with Schnittke’s artistic ethos – emptiness,
death, unrootedness, conveyed through tangential references to Judaism and Christianity. The
poems read by Brodsky at the work’s premiere have not been recorded, but for a second perform-
ance, on 20 May 1993 in Washington, Brodsky selected (Petrushanskaya 2006, 268):
After Aphorism 1: ‘Eclogue IV: Winter’, verses 12–14 (1977)

After Aphorism 2: ‘Centaurs’ Nos. 1 and 4 (1988)
After Aphorism 3: To ne muzy vody nabiraet v rot (‘That is not the muse of water in your mouth’)
(1980)
After Aphorism 4: ‘In Memoriam’ (1985)
These choices demonstrate how closely the two artists conceived the collaborative project.
‘Eclogue IV’ uses images of winter as a metaphor for solitude and contains several musical
allusions: ‘I sing a snow pile’s blue contours/at dusk, rustling foil, clicking B-flat somewhere,/as
though “Chopsticks’” were tried by the Lord’s own finger.’ ‘In Memoriam’ expresses grief at the
loss of the poet’s mother, a subject with which Schnittke would have sympathised.The Aphorisms
also connect with the poems in their pace and scale, written in short phrases, separated by tick
marks, as if to indicate the breaths of a reciter.
The work is structured as a suite, with the three short central movements framed by longer
outer movements, the first presenting thematic and expressive ideas which are brought to a cul-
mination in the last. As in the Monologue for Viola and Strings, written the previous year, a sense of
insularity and loneliness is expressed through converging lines of counterpoint, movement I, bars
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8–9, and by frustrating the initial melodic movement by presenting the opening theme in inver-
sion, bars 13–18. Subtle liturgical allusions also contribute to the meditative mood. The repeated
note figure at bar 7 resembles Orthodox psalmody for the chant ‘Lord, have mercy’, and a more
explicit chorale is introduced at the Lento, bar 37. The Inqueito section at bar 21 already begins to
break down the thematic ideas presented at the opening. Chromatic clusters appear and become
increasingly oppressive, and the dramaturgy of the cycle can be interpreted as a conflict between
clusters and chorales (Vashchenko 2016, 120–21).
Aphorism 2 is the only fast movement. It is in a rondo form, the opening refrain returning
at bars 26 and 61, the last a coda in augmentation. Like the first movement, it includes a
chorale, at bar 14, with harmonic motion via the common-mediant pair F minor/E major.
The sense of introversion created by converging contrary motion is intensified, especially
at the opening, but also in the passages of strict chromatic inversion that follow the chorale.
Aphorism 3 is slow, but in a rhythmic 3/4, a funereal saraband. Aphorism 4, by contrast, is
marked senza tempo, a moment of timeless meditation, evoking Schumann’s ‘Sphinxes’ or
Mussorgsky’s ‘Catacombes’.
Aphorism 5 opens with the rhythmic formula that opened Aphorism 1, now rendered as a quasi-
tonal chorale. But this positive opening only highlights the desolate conclusion that follows. Ideas
from the previous movements return – triads, accelerating figures, contrary motion – but all
collapse into dense ff clusters. The only recurring idea not to reappear is the ‘Lord, have Mercy’
repeated-note figure.Without it, the ending is not just tragic, but hopeless (Chigareva 2012, 341).
The final cluster is between A and E♭, spelling out both the composer’s initials and those of the
pianist.
Sonatina for Piano Four Hands

The Sonatina for Piano Four Hands dates from around 1995 and is dedicated ‘To grandmother
Irina and granddaughter Irina’, Schnittke’s wife and granddaughter. The score is neater and less
ambiguous than those of the Symphony No. 9 and Viola Concerto No. 2, suggesting that the com-
poser may have been assisted: An earlier date is unlikely, as Schnittke’s granddaughter only turned
7 in 1995 (Kholopova 2003, 59).
The work is in a Neoclassical Biedermeier style, suggesting music for domestic performance.
The single movement is in C major and a strict sonata form, although the second subject is in E
minor. Allegro moderato is given in the manuscript, but in brackets and with a question mark. An
mp indication is also given in brackets at the start, though this does not appear in the Sikorski first
edition. The fermata before the coda in the Sikorski edition does not appear in the autograph. A
numeral ‘I’ is written at the head of the manuscript, suggesting further movements were planned.
The eight-bar coda appears on a separate sheet, and the previous page ends with a seemingly
conclusive double bar, so the coda may have been added when the composer decided to leave
the work as a single movement.
Organ and harpsichord works
Two Short Pieces for Organ

The Two Short Pieces for Organ were written in Vienna in 1980 for the Austrian organist Thomas
Daniel Schlee, who provided the registrations. The two movements are slow and meditative, and
both are based on the opening motif C–D♭–C–D♭–C–D♭–C–B. Schnittke said of the two works
‘Despite their brevity, I see them as fragments of an eternity’ (Fetzen einer Ewigkeit). He added that
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they were written ‘very spontaneously’ and that they appear like ‘quasi-unfinished organ fanta-
sies’, but with a closed form due to their internal repetition (Köchel 1994, 115).
The work exhibits many musical representations of the cross, an idea that appeared regularly
in Schnittke’s music of the late 1970s (see Chapter 1).The opening motif is a circulatio figure.The
phrases of the first piece expand and then contract around a continuing pedal. The use of two
keyboards allows the hands to cross. Pitch symmetries are employed throughout Piece 2, with
symmetrical additions to chords (opening) and the hands in chromatic imitation (bar 9).
The Two Short Pieces for Organ have also been arranged for solo bayan, by Friedrich Lips
in 1997.
Three Fragments for Harpsichord

In 1990, the Free Academy of Arts, Hamburg celebrated its 40th anniversary, and Günter Jena,
head of the music section, suggested that composers who were members of the Academy be
invited to contribute short works for a ceremony at the City Hall. The request was for short
works, limited to just a few minutes, and for small performing forces. Schnittke, who was an hon-
orary member of the Academy, contributed the Three Fragments, to be performed by Jena himself.5
The three movements – Andante, Vivo, Lento – are monothematic, all based on the rising and
falling arch figure at the opening. But the intervallic content of the theme is fluid. Those shifts
avoid any tonal stability in the melodic lines, and the harmonies also avoid triads, tending instead
towards symmetrical chords, especially [0,1,6,7], which often appears as a cadential sonority at
the ends of phrases, i.e., movement I, bars 14 and 35. The repeated-note figures in the second
movement resemble the main theme of the Piano Sonata No. 3. At the end, a full chromatic cluster
is divided between the hands so that the two divisions are bounded by a [0,1,6,7] collection.
This is then released to reveal a C major chord, an effect similar to the ending of Dedication to
Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich.
Notes
1 A facsimile of the manuscript is published in Dolinskaya 2011.
2 The dates for the earlier set are unclear. Shulgin dates the orchestral version of the set to 1960, 2nd
edition 1964, possibly meaning that the piano works date from 1960 and the orchestral version from
1964 (Shulgin 2004, 35). Ivashkin dates the piano version to 1962–1963 and the orchestral version to
1962 (Ivashkin 2003, 289, 295–96). Ivashkin also gives a first performance date for the orchestral suite
as 1962.
3 Ivashkin 2003, 290, gives the date of the premiere as 28 December 1979, at the Central House of Artists
in Moscow, but with the same performers.
4 Segall gives a comprehensive analysis of the monogram use in Dedication, of which the following account
is a précis.
5 Email correspondence with Günter Jena (19 July 2019).
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FILM MUSIC
Introduction
The Moscow film industry provided Schnittke with a living from the late 1960s to the early
1980s, and during the 1970s he wrote scores for three to five films a year. His earliest soundtrack
score was for the 1950s radio play Mayakovsky’s Debut. This was followed by scores for television
transmissions of stage plays, One Ear is Not Yet Bread by Ignat Nazarov and The Rose and the Cross
(1962) after Alexander Blok, all written while he was still a postgraduate student. These projects
launched parallel careers in film and theatre music, film work beginning with Igor Talankin’s
Introduction in 1962 and becoming full-time around 1968.
The first years of Schnittke’s film career coincided with a rapid change in his concert music,
towards serialism and post-war avant-garde techniques. The result was an increasing tension
between film and concert work. But he soon realised benefits to working in the studio system,
particularly the constant contact with orchestras, ‘it occurred to me that I could write, and then
hear the next day what I had written; not in a year, or even in 20 years, as happens with works you
write for yourself, but immediately. Therefore, much of what I later developed in more detailed
and thorough form in my compositions was tried out first in the cinema’ (Ivashkin 2003, 214).
Schnittke resolved the tension between the two sides of his artistic output by bringing aspects
of his film music into his concert works and this proved an important catalyst for his polystylism
in the early 1970s. The process was gradual but began as soon as Schnittke started composing
film scores on a full-time basis: In 1968, Schnittke worked simultaneously on the cartoon The
Glass Harmonica (director Andrei Khrzhanovsky) and his Violin Sonata No. 2. Some of the neo-
Baroque pastiche in the soundtrack found its way into the sonata. Soon after, his work on the
documentary film I vsyo-taki ya veryu… (‘And I Still Believe …’, director Mikhail Romm) gave
rise to the Symphony No. 1. In both cases, the parallel film project allowed Schnittke to move
away from Modernist abstraction towards a more engaged aesthetic, connecting with an allegor-
ical narrative in The Glass Harmonica and with the realities of the modern world in the Romm
documentary. The idea of incorporating ideas from film music into his concert work soon took
on a moral dimension:
I realized that there was something radically abnormal in the split that exists in modern
musical language, in the vast gap between the laboratory ‘top’ and the commercial
257 DOI: 10.4324/9780429274046-8

Film music
‘bottom’. This gap had to be bridged, not only by me in my own personal situation,
but also as a general principle. The language of music has to be unified, as it always has
been; it has to be universal. It may lean one way or the other, but there cannot be two
musical languages. And yet the growth of an avant-garde in music has led to a conscious
split and the discovery of a new elitist musical language. So I began to look to a uni-
versal musical language. From the musical point of view, this was what my evolution
appeared to be.
This path towards a ‘universal musical language’ became equally evident in Schnittke’s film
work of the 1970s, with avant-garde techniques increasingly employed in his soundtrack scores.
These were particularly evident in his collaborations with radical directors, including Andrei
Khrzhanovsky, Larisa Shepitko and Elem Klimov. Although film music was largely immune to
state censorship, the subject matter of many of these films led to their being banned up until
perestroika. So when Schnittke reused his music from The Glass Harmonica and Agony (director
Elem Klimov, 1974, released 1981) in his Concerto Grosso No. 1, for example, this was the first
opportunity Soviet audiences would have had to hear it.
Schnittke developed an approach to film scoring that would both align closely with the
narrative and allow an internal developmental logic for the music itself. His scores are usually
based on a characteristic main theme played over the (usually substantial) opening credits. The
music that follows is often monothematic, the continual recourse to the main melody ensuring
thematic unity, even as the music explores a wide range of styles, textures and moods.
A tension is often felt in Schnittke’s film music between tonality and Sonoristic/Modernist
techniques. Unlike in Schnittke’s concert works of the period, film music required a tonal
lingua franca. His film scores favour the keys of A minor (plus Phrygian and Dorian variants),
G minor and C minor (Miroshkina 2016, 157). The tonalities are often extended, for example
with sequences rising through chromatic steps. Schnittke stretto is often applied to a film’s main
theme, blurring its tonal structure into transient clusters. Elsewhere, for example in Day Stars
(Talankin 1968), tonality and Sonorism are set in opposition, with tonal fragments alternating
with cluster sonorities and aleatoric textures. Such textures also often appear independently,
and another distinctive effect, used at dramatic climaxes, involves a dense, cluster-based sonority
growing gradually from silence but increasing to almost unbearable intensity. This device is put
to effective use in Shepitko’s Ascent (1977) and Klimov’s Agony.
Schnittke lamented the inevitably generic nature of film work, ‘[I] can’t remember how
many marches for brass band and banal waltz tunes, how much chase music, gunfight music,
landscape music I wrote’ (Schnittke 2002, 51). But he developed a distinctive musical vocabu-
lary for each of these tasks. Expanded percussion sections became a common feature of his film
scores, as did the harpsichord, another percussive sound, providing a gentle underpinning to
fast-moving action, in present-day settings as often as historical. The flexatone became another
favourite, a slightly more abrasive sound to highlight suspense, sometimes unaccompanied, as
in Sport, Sport, Sport (Klimov 1971), or in ensemble with untuned percussion – A Tale of Travels
(Alexander Mitta 1983).
The waltzes and stylised dance forms brought Schnittke’s film music into closer alignment
with his polystylistic concert works.The start of Schnittke’s film career, at the end of the 1960s,
coincided with a boom in historical dramas. Film adaptions of 19th-century Russian litera-
ture became popular, and Schnittke scored film versions of Chekhov’s Sick at Heart (Alexander
Blank 1969), The Seagull (Yuli Karasik 1971) and Uncle Vanya (1971), and also television
adaptions of Pushkin: A Cottage in Kolomna (Ivan Elegin 1971), The Captain’s Daughter (Pavel
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Reznikov 1974) and Little Tragedies (Mikhail Shveitser 1980). Much of Schnittke’s work for
these films involved setting a historical context for the narrative. His initial approach was to
attempt to recreate the ‘sound atmosphere’ of the era, as in the early Khrzhanovsky cartoon
films Glass Harmonica and In Fableworld (1973), but he came to feel that direct pastiche was
inappropriate: ‘[s]tylising work is dangerous because, while it is attractive, you take on a kind of
sin, of internal dishonesty. You don’t borrow directly, you compose yourself, but it is as if you
are working within somebody else’s interests.’ The problem was compounded by the regular
appearance of quotations from classical works, at the behest of directors and studios, with
Tchaikovsky a particular favourite for costume dramas. Schnittke engaged with these styles but
at an interpretive distance, ‘Now I try not just to stylize, but to offer my own, figurative hearing
of the music of the past’ (Petrushanskaia 2006, 70).
That idea of ‘figurative’ representation is evident in the score for The Seagull.The main themes
are a group of related waltz melodies, modelled on Tchaikovsky. The period setting is evoked
by the waltzes but also by the lush string orchestra setting in which they are heard. But for
most of the film, the themes are more suggested than explicitly stated. The string section con-
tinues to dominate but is subtly varied and enhanced with quiet interjections from bass clarinet,
harp and celeste. The harmonies are extended too, but only slightly beyond Tchaikovsky’s sound
world. The effect expands an idea in Chekov’s play: As Treplev awaits the arrival of Arkadina and
Trigorin, he plays a waltz on the piano from offstage (act IV). In the film, this scene has no music;
instead, the entire score becomes the offstage piano waltz (Miroshkina 2016, 137).
Although Schnittke worked with many directors and at several Moscow studios, the majority
of his scores were for Mosfil’m productions and his most significant film work was with a small
number of long-time collaborators. Schnittke explained, ‘even Shostakovich had to submit to
the dictates of the film director. There is nothing you can do about that – it is not so much
the dictates of the director as the specifics of the medium in which one must work. Being
aware of this it is possible – and this is what I have tried to do in recent years – to work with
those directors in whose films interesting musical tasks arise of their own accord’ (Schnittke
2002, 51). This chapter looks at Schnittke’s collaborations with five directors – Igor Talankin,
Andrei Khrzhanovsky, Aleksander Mitta, Larisa Shepitko and Elem Klimov – and explores how
Schnittke’s music contributed to the distinctive cinematic vision of each.
Igor Talankin
Schnittke and Igor Talankin were both recent graduates when they collaborated on Introduction
in 1962. The film was Schnittke’s first and only Talankin’s second. Schnittke would go on to
score five of Talankin’s eight films. When Schnittke and Talankin first discussed Introduction, the
director planned to only include a minimal music score, citing French New Wave films of the
time where only a harpsichord was employed (Barankin 1999, 56). But the director’s enthu-
siasm for substantial soundtracks grew, to the extent that he is best remembered today for his
biographical film of Tchaikovsky (1970), not a collaboration with Schnittke, but with a score
based on Tchaikovsky’s music by Dmitri Tiomkin.
Introduction was a learning experience for both men. Schnittke recalled how they discussed
scoring a scene with a chaotic mob of soldiers boarding a train (Barankin 1999, 56). Schnittke’s
first sketches were of banal, stereotypical film music. Talankin rejected these, and so Schnittke
instead proposed more dissonant and motoric music, reminiscent of The Rite of Spring. Talankin
rejected this too, saying he needed something more ‘modern, brash and ragged’. So Schnittke
wrote a sketch using serial technique, which was again refused. Schnittke eventually realised
that the music should grow out of the rhythm of the action: ‘I began to better understand my
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task only later, after looking at the footage. After watching, I heard not so much a theme as a
certain rhythm, which became the impetus for integrating into the film. And then a theme
was added to it, which became melodically clearer’ (Petrushanskaia 2006, 68). The result was a
percussion-heavy score, dry and rhythmically driven. Schnittke recalled that Talankin was par-
ticularly impressed with the Overture, which is dominated by tom-toms and the bass end of the
piano, with the strings hand-damped (Barankin 1999, 56). Schnittke realised that Talankin pre-
ferred ‘succinct, so to speak, dotted music statements in cinema’ (Petrushanskaia 2006, 68).
Of the five films Schnittke and Talankin made together, four – Introduction, Day Stars, Take Aim
(1976) and Starfall (1982) – were on war subjects. Talankin’s war stories are morality tales, and
Schnittke developed a musical vocabulary to emphasise the contrasts between the wartime envir-
onment and the inner life of the characters – military marches set in opposition to lyrical themes.
In Introduction, marches are only included in the soundtrack to accompany actual marching
soldiers. Otherwise, the martial context is evoked subtly, through dry drum sounds, while the
characters’ emotions are highlighted through more resonant, but equally modest, sonorities, such
as solo harp in the opening scene.
Talankin’s war stories often include flashbacks and peace-time scenes, requiring distinct sound
worlds from the music. His next film, Day Stars, is about the poet Olga Bergholz and her experi-
ence of the Siege of Leningrad. But it also includes flashbacks to Bergholz’s childhood and a
scene where she imagines herself in the 16th century, observing the funeral of Tsarevich Dmitri.
Talankin intercuts between the scenes, and so the dramatic structure required clear musical
representation of each. Schnittke recalled: ‘it was the film Day Stars that helped me understand
the dramatic significance of cinema music. I saw how music can influence the design of the film,
and ultimately its reception. Music can serve as an invisible support for the dramatic framework:
to mark the climax, and each of the sections of the film’ (Petrushanskaia 2006, 71).
For the scene depicting the Tsarevich’s funeral, Schnittke’s attempted to recreate the sound of
Orthodox chant in the 16th century, his first engagement with liturgical music. Schnittke later
conceded that he did not fully understand the style: ‘I was using this sound world barbarously,
and was only interested in the result – its beauty and its extraordinary phonic combinations’
(Petrushanskaia 2006, 70). From the mid-1970s, with Schnittke’s adoption of Christianity, his
attitude to Orthodox chant changed. In 1978, Talankin again called on Schnittke to provide
music for Orthodox liturgy, for Father Sergius, an adaption of a Tolstoy short story about a man
who takes refuge in a monastery. This time, Schnittke provided genuine liturgical music, Blessed
is the Man by Grigory Lubimov and the Trisagion Hymn of the All-Night Vigil. The following
year, Schnittke reused the choral music from Day Stars in his Third Hymn for Cello and Ensemble
(1979), but again drew on genuine chant sources for the other three movements of the cycle (see
Ismael-Simental, 2017).
Another important element of Schnittke’s film music vocabulary introduced in Day Stars is
the sound of bells. Whereas most of the musical devices in the score serve to distinguish each of
the eras, the bells link them together. Church bells are heard in the funeral scene and in another
scene, where the poet remembers hearing the distinctive sound of Valdai bells in her childhood.
But in the rest of the score, bells are evoked more subtly, through metallic tuned percussion,
including celesta and vibraphone. Similarly abstract bell effects appear in many of Schnittke’s
later scores, evoking the inner spiritual world of the protagonists, often, as here, in contrast to the
dances and marches used to evoke their historical context.
From the 1970s,Talankin favoured more substantial scores, possibly as a result of his Tchaikovsky
biography in 1969. But the techniques that Schnittke and Talankin had developed continued, if
on a larger scale. Take Aim tells the parallel stories of the development of the atomic bomb in
America and the Soviet Union, along with a plot strand in Nazi Germany. The musical styles
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are particularly diverse, and Schnittke’s theme for Robert Oppenheimer was one of his few
ventures into jazz. The film’s main character, the Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov, is represented
by a theme that is developed and transformed through the film, with stretto canon and increas-
ingly dense harmonisation. Unusually, there is no music at the start of the film and the themes
are only introduced with the characters. The film ends with a bomb test, for which Schnittke
provided a single, intensely dissonant, sustained texture, generated on an EMS Synthi A synthe-
siser (Miroshkina 2016, 74).
Their final film together was Starfall (1982).The film is based on the stories of Viktor Astafyev
(1924–2001), a Soviet writer known for his pastoral depictions of rural life. It is the story of
a couple falling in love on the front line during the Second World War, and the action cuts
between wartime and an earlier rural peacetime setting. Schnittke composed a substantial score
for the film, with a main theme, symbolising the war, based on an inversion of the Dies irae
chant – G, A♭, G, B (Miroshkina 2016, 59). The score clearly distinguishes the war and peace
settings, the music predominantly minor and major respectively. But Talankin, reverting to his
earlier taste for minimal scoring, rejected almost the entire score. Only one number is used,
No. 14, ‘By the River’. This cue presents the love theme, one of the main motifs of Schnittke’s
score, but otherwise the final soundtrack is made up mostly of folk dances and army songs,
and for the love music, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. The surviving scores for Schnittke’s film
music (many of the manuscripts are in the library of the State Symphony Cinema Orchestra)
show that Schnittke often wrote more music than was included in a final film. Talankin took
greater liberties than most directors with Schnittke’s music. For Father Sergius, he even took
two passages that Schnittke had written for the score and had them played simultaneously. But
Schnittke consented, on the grounds, so Talankin thought, that the composer himself was simi-
larly inclined to radical experiments in his work (Petrushanskaia 2006, 70).
Andrei Khrzhanovsky
Schnittke wrote music for nine cartoon films between 1968 and 1982, of which seven were
directed by Andrei Khrzhanovsky (b. 1939). For Schnittke writing for cartoons proved easier
than for live actions films, because the music was recorded before the cartoon was made, allowing
him to make last-minute changes, even during recording sessions. His enthusiasm for the car-
toon work was also the spurred by the close artistic affinity he felt for Khrzhanovsky. ‘He has a
property that I rarely met in directors. Generally, directors prefer to work within familiar means.
But Andrei prefers instead to find a new approach each time, so in this sense, past experience
does not make anything easier’ (Schnittke 2002, 62). The two men established a close working
relationship, with Khrzhanovsky explaining each scene to Schnittke, who sat at the piano and
improvised ideas. Even Khrzhanovsky himself occasionally tried out ideas on the piano, ‘to the
best of my weak abilities’ (Schnittke 2002, 62).
Their first cartoon film together, The Glass Harmonica (1968), was closely linked to Schnittke’s
earliest polystylistic concert music, and the composition of the score led directly to the Violin
Sonata No. 2. The idea of stylistic collage came from Khrzhanovsky, whose visual conception for
the film involved cutting out figures from Renaissance paintings and animating them together.
Schnittke recalled, ‘When I worked with Andrei, his attempts to combine the incompatible
and to resolve them visually, which was closely related to my own efforts to create polystylistic
combinations of different themes and techniques, was very interesting.’ Schnittke described The
Glass Harmonica as the resolution to a personal crisis. The visual images had initially seemed too
eclectic, suggesting the need for a unifying and undifferentiated musical accompaniment. ‘Then
suddenly I realised, I felt it, that the music needed to be just as varied and contrasting in style. I
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realized that a universality of culture, not just spiritual or artistic … but of the essence of man,
could be conveyed through the variety of artistic styles …’ (Barankin 1999, 58).
Music is at the heart of the story of The Glass Harmonica, a parable about how music can over-
come oppressive materialism. Schnittke’s music runs continuously through the 20-minute film,
and there is no dialogue. The harmonica itself is voiced by the ethereal tones of celesta, harp and
prepared piano. Meanwhile, the drab, materialist world that it opposes is evoked through elec-
tronic sounds created by theremin and ekvodin. At one point in the story, time is stopped, and to
create this atmosphere, Schnittke took a recording of music that had already been composed and
ran it backwards to create a ‘viscid, shapeless sound mass’ (Khrzhanovsky 2001).
The cartoon coincided with the Soviet suppression of the Prague Spring uprising, and the
film’s political message was deemed too sensitive. It became the only cartoon ever to be banned
in the Soviet Union. Khrzhanovsky was summoned to the army, where he served for three years.
In the meantime, Schnittke wrote the music for the cartoon Ballerina on the Boat (1969), the first
of two collaborations with Lev Atamanov (1905–1981). Both this and Cheer Up,The Worst is Yet to
Come (1972) are more conventional children’s cartoons, but Schnittke’s music runs continuously
through both, and is closely linked to the visual comedy.
Schnittke’s second project with Khrzhanovsky was The Wardrobe (1971), a surreal story about
a man who buys a huge wardrobe for his small flat, and the wardrobe becomes his home. In the
opening credits, Bach and Vivaldi are credited along with Schnittke. Khrzhanovsky suggested
to Schnittke that he model his music on the discreet accompaniments of Japanese Noh theatre
(Khrzhanovsky 2001). The result is a modest sound palette, matching the scale of the small flat
in which the story is set. All of the musical numbers are brief, particularly the Bach and Vivaldi
quotations. Schnittke’s music becomes an extension of the sound effects. So when the man taps
on the wardrobe, the hollow, woody effect is achieved by tapping on the soundboard of the piano.
In another scene, the man has a picture on the wall of a skyscape but takes it down to reveal a
window beneath and the real sky. Here, the bustle of the outside world is evoked by running
several harpsichord recordings simultaneously, but only for an instant (Petrushanskaia 2006, 76).
The following Khrzhanovsky cartoon, Butterfly (1972), has a similar score, full of neo-Baroque
stylisation, although no actual quotes. The main theme, a floating Baroque cantilena, was reused
in the Concerto Grosso No. 1; in the cartoon it represents the flight of the butterflies. Unlike in
The Wardrobe, the score for Butterfly is substantial and almost continuous, creating a sense, as in
The Glass Harmonica that the animation is choreographed to the music.
Schnittke’s later collaborations with Khrzhanovsky were all literary adaptations that included
narration. In Fableworld (1973) sets a series of stories by Ivan Krylov (1769–1844).The imagery is
taken from paintings by Grigory Chernetsov (1802–1865), as well as pencil sketches by Pushkin.
The music was written by Schnittke and performed by Madrigal, the Renaissance ensemble
formed by Andrei Volkonsky in 1965.Volkonsky had left Russia the previous year, and the sound-
track was conducted by Lev Markiz. The score is a series of Baroque and Classical pastiches,
incorporating quotations from the Alexander Griboyedov’s Waltz in E minor and the Michał
Ogiński Polonaise, both suggested by Khrzhanovsky. The Polonaise appears in an episode setting
the ‘The Cuckoo and the Rooster’. The story is a fable about the perils of flattery, with the two
birds praising each other’s singing, despite the fact that neither has a fine voice. Khrzhanovsky
conceived this section as a ‘mini opera’. Schnittke set the scene to comical accompaniment, with
harpsichord continuo interrupted by sliding violin and trombone, while the two singing voices
jump across huge intervals for comic effect.
Between 1977 and 1982, Schnittke worked with Khrzhanovsky on a trilogy of cartoon
adaptations of stories by Pushkin, My Memories Take Me to You (1977), I Am With You Again (1981)
and Autumn (1982).The three films were later combined as My Favourite Time (1987).The music is
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based around pastiche of music from Pushkin’s era, which Khrzhanovsky encouraged Schnittke
to consider in the broadest sense, stretching from Mozart to Brahms (Kholopova 2003, 134).
The soundtracks feature the Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble, a vocal group specialising in Russian
folk music. They sing in heterophonic folk style, usually unaccompanied, the music setting
Pushkin’s texts and all by Schnittke himself. Another prominent feature of the scores is a solo
piano, played by Schnittke.These recordings were made on a studio piano and were only intended
as a guideline for the animators. But for Khrzhanovsky, their imperfections were their main charm,
the age of the piano and its poor tuning evoking home music making in Pushkin’s era.
This was the last of Schnittke’s collaborations with Khrzhanovsky, but the two remained life-
long friends. Schnittke gave Khrzhanovsky permission to use any of his concert works in later
films, and his music appears in School of Fine Arts: Juniper Landscape (1987) and A Cat and a Half
(2002). In 2014, Khrzhanovsky edited a book on the composer, with contributions from many
of his colleagues and collaborators, Alfred Schnittke: Articles, Interviews, Memories of the Composer
(Khrzhanovsky 2014).
Alexander Mitta
Alexander Mitta and Schnittke were both well established in the film industry when they first
worked together, in 1976. Mitta was a director of mainstream films that attracted large audiences.
He worked in a wide variety of genres, and Schnittke proved equally versatile. Their four films
together are a comedy, Clowns and Kids (1976); a historical drama, The Tale of the Moor of Peter
the Great (1976); a disaster film, Air Crew (1980); and a fantasy film, A Tale of Travels (1983). As a
result of the collaboration, music became a more integral part of Mitta’s cinematic conception,
especially in A Tale of Travels, where Schnittke’s music is heard in 72 of the film’s 103 minutes.
The collaboration began with the short film Clowns and Kids. The film is shot in a docu-
mentary style and shows a group of clowns coming to entertain a young boy. Mitta suggested
to Schnittke that he write a theme tune, but Schnittke instead composed a score for the entire
film. Mitta concluded,‘Schnittke’s approach is extremely fertile and exacting, not only immersing
himself in the director’s idea, but also developing it further …’ (Petrushanskaia 2006, 68). The
music has an upbeat circus character, with prominent untuned percussion, low brass, harpsichord
and accordion.
Mitta’s growing confidence in Schnittke’s music is clear from their second collaboration, The
Tale of the Moor of Peter the Great. The film is based on an unfinished novel by Pushkin about his
own great-grandfather, Abram Petrovich Gannibal, a black African who was raised in the court
of Peter the Great. The visual format and the music both mix different styles and genres. Mitta
described the film as an ‘alloy of tragedies and melodramas, adventure and psychological films’
(Schmelz 2019, 44). At the first meeting with Schnittke, Mitta asked for music that would be
heroic, but also mocking and ironic, and at the same time lyrical, as in Fellini’s films. Schnittke
sat at the piano and improvised a theme, which Mitta thought perfect. Schnittke then claimed
to have forgotten it, but then came up with something just as good – hence the flowing and
unlaboured style of the resulting score (Mitta 2001, 187–88).
The film presents a gaudy, colour-saturated image of 18th-century St Petersburg, to which
Schnittke provides suitably lurid accompaniment, his richly orchestrated pastiche dances heard
almost continuously throughout the film. The accompaniment also includes some modern
touches, including bass electric guitar and kit drums, although the harpsichord is a more con-
tinuous presence.
The role of Gannibal was taken by Vladimir Vysotsky, at the time one of the most famous pop
singers in Russia (here appearing in blackface). Schnittke and Vysotsky had previously worked
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on Yuri Lyubimov’s production of Brecht’s Turandot in 1973, and although they did not work
directly together – they both wrote songs for the production – their meetings for the project left
a deep impression on the Schnittke. He later said: ‘Vysotsky possessed far more culture than the
characters of his songs … Vysotsky [had played] Hamlet, and he had understood and felt it all’
(Ivashkin 2003, 168).
The film opens with a cartoon sequence, recounting how Gannibal was taken from Africa.
The sequence is accompanied by a song, written by Schnittke and sung by Vysotsky. The song
combines Vysotsky’s ballad style with the lurid 18th-century stylisations that make up the rest
of Schnittke’s score for the film. The vocal line is more wide-ranging than Vysotsky’s usual
repertoire and seems to deliberately stretch his voice: He audibly struggles with the leaps to
high notes (Schmelz 2019, 44). The ballad style is supported by the electric guitar bass line, and
the Baroque pastiche by the driving harpsichord accompaniment. Excerpts from the song later
appeared in the Toccata and Rondo movements of the Concerto Grosso No. 1.
Air Crew was a Soviet take-off of the Airport franchise, a disaster movie about an airliner. Here,
the stricken plane is evacuating residents from an island where a volcano is erupting. Schnittke’s
music is based around a march theme, growing in intensity as the peril rises. This is particu-
larly prominent at the climax of the film, where the co-pilot climbs out of the air intake of the
tail-mounted jet engine to repair a hole in the roof. Mitta had originally planned to use more
sound effects and less music in this scene, but Schnittke was able to suggest the aviation sounds
in the music, bringing the score and the visuals into closer alignment (Petrushanskaia 2006, 74).
After the plane has landed, Mitta includes a brief comic moment, in which one of the injured
passengers jumps from a stretcher and runs around beneath the plane shouting ‘I’m alive! I’m
alive!’ as the medical orderlies chase him. Mitta explained that he had dedicated this scene to
Schnittke, in the same way that Schnittke ‘makes impromptu gifts to performers, encrypting
their names and initials into the notes’ (Mitta 2009, 12). Schnittke scores the brief episode with
a frenzied harpsichord.
Schnittke’s final collaboration with Mitta, A Tale of Travels, returned to the stylised Baroque
sound world of Tsar Peter. The film is in the spirit of children’s fantasy stories, but the mood is
darker. The story is about two orphans, May and Martha. May has a power to sense the presence
of gold and is kidnapped by thieves hoping to exploit it. Martha teams up with a wandering wise
man, Orlando, to find her brother.The story’s happy ending is overshadowed by the encroaching
plague, with death personified as a witch.
Mitta felt that Schnittke’s music sat too comfortably with the drama and seemed to ‘dissolve
into the image’ (Petrushanskaia 2006, 71). His solution was to suppress the speech and the other
sounds to the bring the music to the fore. Much of the music is based on a quasi-Baroque theme
(now popular as a competition number among Russian figure skaters), but this is regularly varied
into pop and folk styles. The dramatic climaxes have extensive orchestral accompaniment, with
prominent percussion, particularly tubular bells – a soundscape evoking early Romantic opera,
especially Der Freischütz.
The success of these films led Mitta to feel an increasing artistic dependency on Schnittke. He
recalled, ‘When Schnittke stopped working in the cinema, I found myself in a completely tragic
situation, because I did not see any replacement for him. That was how painfully I experienced
it …’ (Mitta 2001, 189) (Leonid Desyatnikov was among Mitta’s later collaborators, on Lost
in Siberia (1991)). But Mitta and Schnittke remained close friends. In 1984, a celebration was
organised to mark Schnittke’s 50th birthday, and Mitta acted as compere (Ivashkin 1996, 187).
And to mark Schnittke’s 60th birthday, in 1994, Mitta made a documentary, Alfred Schnittke:
Portrait with Friends.
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Larisa Shepitko
Schnittke’s most innovative film music was written for wife and husband directors Larisa
Shepitko and Elem Klimov.When Schnittke first worked with Shepitko, on You and I in 1972, he
had already scored two films for Klimov. Schnittke only scored two films for Shepitko, the second
Ascent (1977). Shepitko died in 1979 in a car crash, along with several members of her crew, who
were scouting for locations for her next film, Leave-Taking. Klimov completed the film after her
death (1983), and Schnittke contributed to the music.
Shepitko’s cinematic style is expressive but understated, often presenting mundane situ-
ations but invested with intense emotional significance. For Schnittke, this was a key part of her
personality:
Larisa Shepitko was always very interesting when she spoke. But her speech was simple
and did not indicate any terminological sophistication. What was important was not
the words she used, but what she was saying. She seemed to rise above herself. It is
interesting when a person rises above themselves: They basically become at one with
everything. In some situations, they seem to become even more than everything. And
this was intrinsic to Larisa Shepitko, to a very large extent.
(Ivashkin 1996, 168–69)
Their close working relationship was aided by Shepitko’s clear conception of how her films
should look and sound. Schnittke recalled how their collaboration on You and I began with
Shepitko telling him exactly what she needed. ‘For one section, I played a sketch for her, and she
literally showed me in gestures how long the segment should be. She requested just two or three
accents, defining each individually, and these were fixed to the second in the score’ (Barankin
1999, 61).
You and I is a story about a surgeon, Pyotr, his wife, Kayta, and his colleague, Sasha. Pyotr gives
up his practice for a more lucrative position in Sweden but regrets his choice.The allegory about
materialism is lightly played, and Shepitko instead focuses on the psychological states of the three
characters. Schnittke’s incidental music is subdued, but the style is unusually dissonant. Quiet
clusters are a recurring sonority, from the strings or the vibraphone, contributing to the film’s
interior, psychological focus.
Ascent was a more ambitious project, and Shepitko’s focused conception inspired an even more
radical score from Schnittke, an ‘exception’ in his film output, as he came to see it (Baumgartner
2010, 196).The film is set during the Second World War and tells of two Soviet partisans, Sotnikov
and Rybak, who arrive in a village in German-controlled Belarus in search of food. They are
captured and Sotnikov is tortured, and, although Sotnikov does not reveal anything, Rybak
tells the police information he thinks they already know. The following day, Sotnikov and the
villagers who have sheltered the men are hanged, while Rybak is given a position in the police.
But Rybak repents, and the end of the film focuses on his remorse, a clear analogy to Judas in
the Easter story.
To create a realistic, newsreel-like atmosphere the film was shot in black and white, the
camerawork mainly close-ups of the individual characters. A similarly realistic soundscape was
developed, with the winter setting emphasised through wind sounds, footsteps through heavy
snow and crow calls. Even before filming had begun, Shepitko, Schnittke and sound engineer
Yan Pototsky had established a sound profile, in which the film would begin with just the
recorded sounds, and the music would gradually grow out of the noise (Baumgartner 2010, 197).
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The music develops in two phases. Initially, the music is only quiet mid- and low-range
clusters, blending into the wind sounds. A thematic idea grows from this, based on a rising
second motif. This is first heard mid-way through the film, at the point where the protagonists
are captured. From here, the music takes on a specific function. Schnittke explained: ‘[t]o show
how the attitude of the protagonist towards the world around is changing. Spiritual growth
helps him endure torture, physical and mental torment. Sotnikov begins to understand that the
world is not limited to objective reality, he realizes the higher meaning and the purpose of his
existence. And the other character [Rybak], who has all the signs of a strong personality, does
not see this higher goal in life, does not hear this music and perishes morally’ (Petrushanskaia
2006, 73).
The initially static clusters become mobile through the use of a simple motif, a rising
second with the upper note repeated. It is used in rising sequences to create a texture of
gradually expanding clusters. This creates a paradox of movement and stasis, similar to Ligeti’s
micropolyphony, which Schnittke wrote an article about around the same time (Schnittke
2002, 225–28). The dichotomy is emphasised further through subtle electronic manipulation
of the orchestral sound, creating a cyclical effect in the overtones.
The rising second motif also evokes liturgical chant, an association as definite, yet as abstract,
as the narrative’s link to the Passion story. This becomes crucial at the film’s climax, the exe-
cution scene. Shepitko draws clear parallels with the crucifixion (a line of telegraph posts
resembling crosses is a recurring image through the film), so it is significant that the Crucifixus
movement of Schnittke’s Symphony No. 2, composed two years later, uses a similar motif.
Schnittke identified the execution scene as the point at which the gradual separation of music
and noise is completed (Makeeva 2001, 144). The music reaches its maximum intensity, and the
everyday noises that had previously dominated the soundtrack fall silent. The visual montage is
sophisticated, gradually moving from a survey of the scene to a focus on Sotnikov, and ultim-
ately ending with a first-person view, as he watches a crying boy in the crowd. Schnittke wrote
the music before this was edited, and the scene was paced to match the growing intensity of the
textures (Baumgartner 2010, 202).
After Shepitko’s death in 1979, Elem Klimov made a documentary, Larisa (1980), about her
life and work. Schnittke provided the music, the main theme a brighter reworking of the rising
second motif from Ascent. Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 2, written the same year, was dedicated
to Shepitko. Its music is based on Orthodox chant, a fitting memorial to the spiritual depth of
her life’s work.
Elem Klimov
Elem Klimov (1933–2003) was an important director in the history of Soviet cinema. His films,
Adventures of a Dentist (1965) and Agony (completed 1975, released 1981), a comedy and historical
drama respectively, were politically subversive and both were suppressed by the authorities. But in
the perestroika era, Klimov briefly became First Secretary of the Filmmakers’ Union, 1986–1988,
where he oversaw the release of many previously banned films. Klimov only made six feature
films, including Leave-Taking, 1983, which he took over from Larisa Shepitko). Of these, he
collaborated with Schnittke on four. Schnittke held the music that he wrote for Klimov’s films in
particularly high regard (Klimov 2003, 253), and themes from Adventures of a Dentist, Sport, Sport,
Sport and Agony all later appeared in concert works.
Adventures of a Dentist was only Schnittke’s second feature film score but was an important
early experiment in polystylism. The film is a dark comedy, about a dentist who has the ability
to pull teeth without causing pain, but who is hounded from the profession by his jealous
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colleagues. Despite the contemporary setting, the score is made up predominantly of neo-
Baroque pastiche. The work introduced the harpsichord into Schnittke’s cinematic palette. The
instrument was provided for the sessions by Joel Spiegelman, who happened to be touring Russia
at the time (Shulgin 2004, 63). The solo harpsichord numbers are more imposing and melodic
than the continuo-type background accompaniments in later scores. The Baroque stylisations
clash with a number of modern styles. In one scene, the characters go to a dance hall, for which
Schnittke writes a Charleston, and another scene is set at a military parade, complete with bom-
bastic march.The dentist’s wife also sings several songs, accompanying herself on the guitar.These
frame the story and define the contemporary setting, against which the Baroque stylisations
compete, emphasising the gothic nature of the black comedy.
The script for Adventures of a Dentist was written for Mikhail Romm, with whom Schnittke
would later work on And Still I Believe … (The World Today). Romm did not know how to
shoot the script and passed it on to Klimov (his former pupil), who also struggled to find an
appropriate format. Klimov remembered: ‘I was tormented. Alfred helped me a lot. He sud-
denly realized that music must not be contemporary to the present, but instead use motifs
from earlier, ancient music – paraphrases of Boccherini and Vivaldi appeared in the film, and
suddenly everything worked on a different scale. This was how our friendship of many years
began’ (Klimov 2003, 253).
Each of the scenes presents a different stage in the dentist’s life, and Schnittke assigned a
Baroque movement to each, bringing the structure of the film together as an ‘old-fashioned
sonata’. Only the instrumentation was varied, ‘not a sonata in the traditional sense of the word,
but a work for ensemble that changes from movement to movement’ (Petrushanskaia 2006,
69). The score for Adventures of a Dentist later became the basis for Suite in the Old Style. Little
arrangement was required, as the music was already in suite form.
The remainder of Suite in the Old Style, the Minuet and Fugue movements, was taken from
Schnittke’s next collaboration with Klimov, Sport, Sport, Sport. But this score is more diverse, with
jazz, aleatoric techniques, quotations from Rimsky-Korsakov operas, the theme from Goldfinger
and even footage of a performance by the Beatles.
The film is about the world of athletics – part documentary, part scripted comedy. The music
is held together by the Minuet and Fugue themes, which, as Schnittke pointed out, are basically
the same (Shulgin 2004, 63).The film’s active pace and eclectic tone are set by the title sequence,
the camera following a line of stadium tracks, imitating a runner’s point of view, the music a
light version of the Fugue theme, but with incessant percussion, a jazz take on Ravel’s Bolero.
The following music all maintains this active pace. Schnittke described how the Fugue theme
appears in two different versions, a ‘cold’ version on tuned percussion, and a ‘hot’ version on
winds (Shulgin 2004, 63).
The quotations from Rimsky-Korsakov operas – The Tsar’s Bride, The Maid of Pskov and
The Tale of Tsar Saltan, as well as Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 – are woven together in a folk-
like style, with prominent accordion, to accompany a scene set in the time Ivan the Terrible.
The film comes to a surreal climax with a vision of the future, a gaudy panorama of a utopian
vision where sport and art are combined. Schnittke underlines the absurdity of the scene with
a crudely updated version of one of the earlier Baroque themes, the Minuet now overlaid with
electric guitar and theremin. The music over the closing credits is another take on the Fugue
theme, this time a mock-solemn rendition on pipe organ, performed by Schnittke himself
(Miroshkina 2016, 85).
Following Sport, Sport, Sport, Klimov immediately began work on his next film, Agony. The
film was only completed nine years later, in 1974, and was then suppressed by the authorities, and
only released in 1985. Schnittke again contributed a substantial score, which included the first
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appearance of the tango that later appeared in the Concerto Grosso No. 1 and Life with an Idiot, and
the passacaglia that became the finale theme of the Cello Concerto No. 2.
The film is set in the final months of 1916 and tells of Rasputin’s influence on the Romanov
family. It is an opulent costume drama but also includes black and white newsreel footage
from the era. Schnittke’s score, with over 40 numbers, was intended to create ‘sounding states’
(Schnittke 1994, 106), a sonic environment made up of an organic mix of music and sound
effects. For example, an eerie waltz is heard in the tsar’s palace, but is eventually reduced to just a
barely perceptible rhythm. Schnittke called this a ‘life clock’, giving meaning to each successive
moment with its relentless ticking (Ströbel, no date).
As in Adventures of a Dentist, Klimov relied on the musical logic of Schnittke’s score to struc-
ture the film. Schnittke recalled, ‘Everything was built on the music (in the film there are almost
no episodes without it), and the music was a kind of continuous thread, spanning the film from
beginning to end’ (Schnittke 1994, 106). The script was based on a play, The Empress’s Conspiracy
by Alexei Tolstoy. The play calls for much background music: gypsy and folk dances, including
a Kamarinskaya that Rasputin dances, Orthodox chant, and the melody Yankee Doodle, heard at
one point on a gramophone. Schnittke includes all of these in the score. As in many of Schnittke’s
costume drama scores of the 1970s, the 19th-century styles are given an increasingly demented
character through the addition of sliding electric guitar sounds.
The tango is associated with Rasputin and adds to his demonic persona. It first appears in a
ball scene in the royal palace, where Rasputin gets into a fight, the music becoming more ardent
as the violence escalates. The theme returns at the end the film, in the scene where Rasputin is
poisoned, to represent his waning power. The theme is played on organ, but is deprived of its
propulsive power through the lack of accompanying rhythm. It gradually fades into the sound of
Yankee Doodle playing on a gramophone in another room.
The culmination is dominated by the passacaglia theme. The effect is similar to in Ascent, with
the theme gradually expanding through the second part of the film to dominate the climax,
where Rasputin, close to death, rages across the frozen Neva. But Schnittke described a signifi-
cant difference between the two films: In Ascent, the music ‘from the composer’ (as opposed to
the period stylisations) grows out of silence, whereas in Agony, it grows from an environment of
everyday music (Petrushanskaia 2006, 72). As in Ascent, this culminating music is also associated
with liturgy, the melodic line resembling Orthodox chant. Schnittke makes this connection
explicit in a scene showing an Orthodox Mass taking place on a First World War battlefield, the
sung chants heard simultaneously with the passacaglia theme.
In the years between the completion of Agony and its eventual release, Klimov completed films
begun by two other directors, both with music by Schnittke. Mikhail Romm’s And Still I Believe ...
(The World Today) was released in 1976 with final editing by Klimov, although Schnittke’s score
had already been worked out with Romm before his death. In 1983, Klimov completed Leave-
Taking, begun by Larisa Shepitko before her death in 1979. The story is about a village on a river
island in Siberia under threat from a hydroelectric dam that will flood their valley. Shepitko had
already agreed with Schnittke that he would write the music (Klimov 2003, 255). When Klimov
took over, Schnittke suggested that he collaborate with the improvising folk music ensemble
Astrea, made up of the composers Vyacheslav Artyomov, Sofia Gubaidulina and Viktor Suslin
(Gubaidulina and Suslin were uncredited at their own request). They provided all of the folk
dances of the villagers while the choir led by Dmitri Pokrovsky provided the songs. Schnittke
wrote music for the opening and the climax, his dissonant orchestral textures dominating the
end of the film.
Klimov is best remembered today for his final film, Come and See (1985), a drama inspired
by his own wartime experiences as a child. Klimov approached Schnittke to write the music
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(Miroshkina 2016, 76), but he was unable to, and the job fell to Oleg Yanchenko. But Schnittke’s
musical philosophy influenced the score, particularly his association of the banal with evil, and
folk tunes, as well as light dance music on a gramophone, underline the brutality of the film’s
violent conclusion.
Late film scores

Schnittke was intensely prolific as a film composer through the 1970s, but by the end of the
decade he was beginning to feel dissatisfied with the work. He was frustrated at having to write
short cues with acute contrasts rather than music that could develop over a long span according
to a more flexible and organic logic. ‘Now the time has come,’ he said, ‘when I want to free
myself from such cinematic influence’ (Miroshkina 2016, 30). Schnittke’s film work slowed
considerably in the early 1980s, and his film career came to an end with his first stroke in 1985.
But Schnittke continued to work in narrative forms, focusing more on stage music – ballet and
opera. Schnittke returned to film music three more times, each time for a unique project that
would have been an unlikely task in his days as a full-time cinema composer.
The Commissar (1967) was initially banned but was released in 1987 as a result of the pere-
stroika reforms. The film, directed by Alexander Askoldov, is set in a Ukrainian village during
the 1918–1922 civil war. A female commissar in the Red Army falls pregnant and is taken in by
a Jewish family, who also have a young child. The film was re-edited for the 1987 release, and
Schnittke was brought in to write the music (Kovalenko 1998).The score forms a reflective coda
to Schnittke’s war film work. As in his earlier war film scores, a contrast is established between
martial music to represent the wartime environment and more lyrical music for the human
stories. Rather than marches, the military environment is evoked through light but incessant per-
cussion motifs (often linked with the sounds of the soldiers’ horses on the village cobbles), with
occasional drum tattoos and trumpet fanfares.
Schnittke was particularly interested in the meeting of cultures, between the Russian
commissar and the Jewish family. The idea looked back to his Symphony No. 4, where Christian
and Jewish liturgical music is brought together, and Schnittke quoted the symphony in his
score. At the finale, the commissar has a vision of the future sufferings of the Jewish people, as
a village procession transforms into a concentration camp march. The music (newly composed)
superimposes the dissonant climax of the symphony with the choral coda that follows it. The
idea of cultural interface is also explored in the film’s main themes. The commissar sings a lul-
laby to her child, the film’s main motif, played over the opening credits. Much of the film is
concerned with the tensions between the commissar and the Jewish family, but in a late scene,
the film’s ‘quiet climax’ (Kholopova 2003, 98), the situation is resolved, when the two mothers
each sing a lullaby to their child, one Russian the other Jewish, the two harmonising despite
their distinct styles.
Schnittke’s next screen project was music for live accompaniment to a silent film, The Last
Days of St Petersburg (1927).The film, directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin, is about a peasant boy who
arrives in St Petersburg and experiences the labour exploitation that leads to revolution. The
film was important propaganda in the early years of the Soviet Union but was also significant for
Pudovkin’s ground-breaking montage techniques.
Schnittke’s score is for chamber orchestra, mezzo-soprano, male chorus and electronics,
the electronics created by Schnittke’s son, Andrei. Frank Strobel, who conducted the 1992
premiere, writes, ‘When we received the score for the Petersburg film, we were confronted
with sketchy, fragmentary music with no obvious relationship to the film – i.e. that would
trace the plot – but that would instead act as an area for unconscious associative feelings
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and experiences’ (Strobel, no date). Strobel noted that, apart from in the hymns and mar-
ches, the score ‘largely dispenses with clear metres or rhythms’, the broad scale of the music,
unfolding through slow and gradual changes, in contrast to the fast editing of Pudovkin’s mon-
tage. The conductor suggested that this was a deliberate distancing from the Revolutionary
message of the film. ‘It is written with the knowledge of the development of the Soviet Union
until its collapse and the “end of Leningrad”.’
Schnittke’s final film score was for an adaptation of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita.The film,
which was directed by Yuri Kara, was completed in 1994, but only released in 2011, following
a protracted rights dispute. Schnittke again collaborated with his son Andrei, who contributed
electronics. Schnittke goes against the trend towards sparsity in his music of the 1990s to
create a large-scale orchestral score. The expansive orchestral palette and smooth transitions
between styles and tempos recall Peer Gynt. The score includes reminiscences of famous works,
including the opening of Also sprach Zarathustra for the entrance of Woland. There is also a sub-
stantial quotation from Ravel’s Bolero in the ball scene. Woland represents the Devil, and so, in
keeping with Schnittke’s association of the demonic with the banal, his flight over Moscow is
accompanied by foxtrot, tango and funeral march.
Concert suites
Film work was always a mixed blessing for Schnittke. His ability to evoke a mood or scene
immediately with his music proved ideal for studio work, but his natural tendency was towards
more continuous music, and his cues were often substantial, but cut to just a few seconds in
editing. Arranging his film music into concert suites allowed this continuity to be restored.
The first to appear was a suite based on his music for Uncle Vanya, his collaboration with Andrei
Konchalovsky in 1971. The suite is in three substantial movements and was probably compiled
by Schnittke himself (Sikorski works catalogue 2019, 113). In 1979, a compilation of music for
children’s orchestra was published that included two numbers arranged by Schnittke from his
score for The Tale of the Moor of Peter the Great.
In the 1990s, other arrangers began working on Schnittke’s film scores. The composer
Yuri Kasparov made arrangements for chamber orchestra of music from the television
series Little Tragedies and Sport, Sport, Sport for the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Rozhdestvensky compiled three substantial concert suites in the 1990s, another suite based on
Sport, Sport, Sport (1992), a 30-minute suite from Little Tragedies (1994) and a suite on The Tale
of the Moor of Peter the Great (1999), this time for large orchestra, baritone soloist and chorus.
In 1993, Schnittke approached Frank Strobel, a German conductor who specialises in con-
cert performances of film music, and asked him to create concert suites based on his film music
(Strobel, no date). This was the same year as Schnittke’s score for The Last Days of St Petersburg,
which Strobel played a central role in organising. By 1993, Schnittke was in poor health but was
keen to participate in the arrangements. Ultimately, the job rested mainly with Strobel himself,
and Schnittke gave him permission to arrange any of his film music. The first suite arranged by
Strobel was Agony, which he conducted in Hamburg in 1997.
Strobel has now created at least 14 suites based on Schnittke’s film scores, working in close
collaboration with the Sikorski publishing house. Strobel returned to Sport, Sport, Sport, creating
the third and most substantial suite (2005). He has made suites from several of Schnittke’s
early films, including The Waltz (2003) and My Past and Thoughts (2003), and also of his final
three film scores, The Commissar (2002), The Last Days of St Petersburg (2003) and Master and
Margarita (1997).
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Schnittke’s manuscripts form the basis of Strobel’s suites. Most of the originals are now held
at the archive of the State Symphony Cinema Orchestra in Moscow (Miroshkina 2016, 14).
Strobel also takes into account the fact that Schnittke regularly made last-minute adjustments
at recording sessions, and so his suites often include changes that are only apparent from the
recorded soundtracks, Schnittke’s late edits retrospectively added to his manuscripts, even when
he neglected to write them down himself.
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WORKS LIST
This works list is based on those compiled by Alexander Ivashkin (Ivashkin 1996, 218–25) (Ivashkin
2003, 260–300), and on the Sikorski catalogue of Schnittke’s works (second edition, Sikorski 20191).
The 1996 list was drawn up with the participation of the composer, whose contribution was mainly
to the ‘Early, unfinished and occasional works’ section (the section is based on a list sent by fax
from Schnittke to Ivashkin, dated 3 April 1993). This distinction has been made in the present
listing, as Schnittke stressed the importance of separating his student works from his first mature
compositions, even though there is a significant overlap in dates 1960–1964. Schnittke also deliber-
ately omitted several student works from the early works list he drew up for Ivashkin, but these are
all included in the present ‘Early, unfinished and occasional works’ section, marked with asterisks.
Both of Ivashkin’s lists give the works in the same order, which is the basis for the ordering here.
For more detail about individual works, readers are directed to the Ivashkin 2003 and
Sikorski 2019 lists. Ivashkin’s list gives additional information (in Russian): details of orches-
tration, performers and venues of first performances, duration and all published editions to that
date. Ivashkin’s list of film and theatre scores is the more comprehensive. The Sikorski 2019 list
only mentions Western editions, but gives dedications, more detailed performer lists for first
performances and dramatis personae for stage works. The Sikorski list proves the more reliable
for dates, and any dates given here that are not mentioned in the Sikorski catalogue, or that
disagree with dates given there, have sources referenced (apart from the ‘Early, unfinished and
occasional works’ and ‘Incidental music’ sections, which draw primarily from Ivashkin 2003).
Where no first performance date is given, the work is unperformed at the time of writing.
All work titles are given here in conventional English versions, usually the titles under which
they were published in the West. Where these differ significantly from the Russian or German
originals, or where the German originals are well-known in the English-speaking world, those
are given in brackets. The titles of films and plays vary significantly between languages, so all are
given in both English and Russian.
An opus number listing has recently been associated with the works of Alfred Schnittke.These
numbers first appeared on a works list published online by Onno van Rijen. (The page has since
been taken down, but an archive version is available at http://archive.is/3Jhd.) The numbers
are based on an approximate chronology, and mix together every aspect of Schnittke’s work,
including student compositions, lost scores and film music. Schnittke himself only ever gave one
work an opus number, describing his First Violin Concerto as his opus one (Köchel 1994, 94).
272
Works list
But this was precisely to distinguish his mature works from his student compositions, a dis-
tinction van Rijen’s numbering ignores. Given Schnittke’s keen sense of numerology, assigning
arbitrary numbers seems particularly inappropriate. Accordingly, these opus numbers do not
appear in the following list.
Page number references for individual works are given in the Index, under Schnittke, Alfred:
Works. In that listing, the works are organised alphabetically within each section. The bold
numbers indicate the section of the book devoted to the work.
Stage works
Labyrinths (1971), ballet in five episodes for chamber orchestra, libretto by Vladimir Vasilyev, fp
(Episode 1) Moscow 1972, fp (complete) Leningrad 7 June 1978
i. Moderato – Allegretto scherzando – Meno mosso – Adagio

ii. Moderato
iii. Allegretto
iv. Agitato
v. Cadenza – Andante – Maestoso
Der gelbe Klang [The Yellow Sound] (1973–1974, rev. 19832), scenic composition for mime and
instrumental ensembles, solo soprano and mixed choir, libretto by Wassily Kandinsky (translated
to Russian by Schnittke), fp Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, France summer 1975
Sketches (1985), ballet in one act, libretto by Andrei Petrov after Nikolai Gogol, most numbers
orchestrated by Gennady Rozhdestvensky. Nos. i and xiv are collaborative works by Schnittke,
Rozhdestvensky, Sofia Gubaidulina and Edison Denisov, fp Moscow 16 January 1985
i. March ‘The Swan, the Crab and the Pike’

ii. Overture
iii. Chichikov’s Childhood
iv. The Portrait
v. Major Kovalyov
vi. The Nose (The Morning, The Loss of the Nose, Searching the Nose, Despair, The Nose
is Found)
vii. The Overcoat
viii. Ferdinand VIII
ix. The Civil Servants
x. The Unknown Woman (Barrel-organ, The Unknown Woman, Pas de deux, The Debauch,
Sabbath, Barrel-organ)
xi. Spanish Royal March
xii. The Ball
xiii. The Testament (Ukrainian Folksong)
xiv. March ‘The Swan, the Crab and the Pike’
Peer Gynt (1986), ballet in three acts with Epilogue, scenario by John Neumeier after Henrik
Ibsen, dedicated to John Neumeier, fp Hamburg 22 January 1989
Life with an Idiot (1990–1991), opera in two acts (four scenes), Russian libretto by Viktor
Yerofeyev, based on his own short story, fp Amsterdam 13 April 1992
273
Works list
Gesualdo (1993), opera in seven scenes, prologue and epilogue, German libretto by Richard
Bletschacher, fp Vienna 26 May 1995
Historia von D. Johann Fausten [The History of D. Johann Faustus] (1994), opera in three acts, with
prologue and epilogue, German libretto by Jörg Morgener (Jürgen Köchel) and Schnittke after Johann
Spies, electronic music by Andrei Schnittke, fp Hamburg 22 June 1995
Choral works
Voices of Nature for 10 Female Voices and Vibraphone (1972), fp Moscow 19733
Chorus from the film Autumn [‘Osen’] (1974), originally to Russian text by Lermontov,
‘Vykhozhu odin ia na dorogu’ [I set off alone on the road], later recast as vocalise4
Requiem for Soloists, Mixed Chorus and Instrumental Ensemble (1975), fp Budapest
autumn 1977
i. Requiem
ii. Kyrie
iii. Dies irae
iv. Tuba mirum
v. Rex tremendae majestatis
vi. Recordare
vii. Lacrimosa
viii. Domine Jesu
ix. Hostias
x. Sanctus
xi. Benedictus
xii. Agnus Dei
xiii. Credo
xiv. Requiem
Der Sonnengesang des Franz von Assisi [Canticle of the Sun by Francis of Assisi] for Two Mixed
Choruses and Six Instrumentalists (1976), text (translated into German) by St Francis of
Assisi, fp London 10 June 1988
Minnesang for 52 Voices (1980–1981), texts (in medieval German) by the Monk of Salzburg,
Friedrich von Sonnenburg, Meister Alexander, Heinrich von Meissen, Neidhart von Reuenthal,
Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach, fp Graz 21 October 1981
Seid nüchtern und wachet… [Be sober and vigilant…] (Faust Cantata) for Alto, Countertenor,
Tenor, Bass, Mixed Chorus and Orchestra (1983), German text by the composer, after
Johann Spies, fp Vienna 19 June 1983
Three Choruses for Mixed Choir (Three Sacred Hymns) (1984), texts (in Church Slavonic)
from the Orthodox Church prayer book, fp Stockholm 30 October 1984
i. Bogoroditse devo, raduisia, Blagodatnaia Maria [Hail Mary, Full of Grace]

ii. Gospodi, Gospodi Iisuse [Lord Jesus]
iii. Otche nash [Our Father]
274
Works list
Concerto for Mixed Chorus (1984–1985), text by Gregory of Narek (Russian translation
Naum Grebnev), dedicated ‘To the USSR State Chamber Choir and its director Valery
Kuzmich Polyansky’, fp (third movement) Istanbul 14 July 1984, fp (complete) Moscow 9
June 19865
i. O Povelitel’ sushchego vsego (Andante) [O Master of all living]

ii. Sobran’e pesen sikh, gde kazhdyi stikh napolnen skorb’iu chernoiu do kraia (Andante) [This
collection of songs, where every verse is full to the brim with black sorrow]
iii. Vsem tem, kto vniknet v sushchost’ skorbnykh slov (Andante mosso) [To Everyone who will go
deep into my sorrowful words]
iv. Sei trud, chto nachinal ia s upovan’em (Lento molto) [This work which I began in hope]
Psalms of Repentance [Stikhi pokaiannye aka Penitential Verses] for Mixed Chorus (1988),
Russian texts by a 16th-century anonymous monk, fp Moscow 26 December 1988
i. Plakasia Adamo, pred” raemo s”dia [Adam Sat before Paradise, Weeping]
ii. Priimi mia, pustyni, IAko mati chado svoe [The Desert Receives Me the Way a Mother
Receives Her Child]
iii. Sego radi nishch’ esm’ [That Is Why I Live in Poverty]
iv. Dushe moia [My Soul]
v. Okaianne ubogyi chelov”che! [Oh Man – Doomed and Wretched!]
vi. Zria korable naprasno pristavaema [When They Saw the Ship That Suddenly Arrived]
vii. Dushe moia, kako ne ustrashaeshisia [Oh My Soul, Why Are You not Afraid?]
viii. Ashche khoshcheshi pobediti Bezvremiannuiu pechal’ [IfYou Want to Overcome the Timelessness
and Sorrow]
ix. Vospomianukh zhitie svoe kliroskoe [I Have Thought over My Life as a Clergyman]
x. Prid”te, khristonosenii liudie [Come,You Christian People]
xi. Nago izydokho na plach’ sei [I Have Come into This Miserable Life]
xii. [without text]
Opening Verse for the First Festival Sunday [Eröffnungsvers zum Ersten Festspielsonntag] for
Mixed Chorus and Organ (1989), German text Psalm 47, verse 2, fp Lockenhaus 2 July 1989
Festive Chant [Torzhestvennyi kant] for Violin, Piano, Mixed Chorus and Large Symphony
Orchestra (1991), Russian text by the composer, dedicated ‘to Gennady Rozhdestvensky on the
occasion of his 60th birthday’, fp Moscow 4 May 1991
Agnus Dei for Two Sopranos, Female Chorus and Orchestra (1991), movement of collab-
orative work Mass for Peace, fp Oslo 11 December 1995
Lux aeterna (‘Communio II’) for Mixed Chorus and Orchestra (1994), movement of collab-
orative work Requiem für Versöhnung [Requiem for Reconciliation], completed and orchestrated
by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, fp Stuttgart 16 August 1995
Solo vocal works

Three Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva for Mezzo-soprano or Alto and Piano (1965), also version
for soprano, fp Moscow January 1966
275
Works list
i. Prosta moia osanka [My Bearing is Simple]

ii. Chernaia, kak zrachok [Black, Like a Pupil]
iii. Vskryla zhily [I Have Pierced the Veins]
Three Verses Written in the Sleeplessness of Night for (Low) Voice and Piano (1971), written
for a television production, Russian text by Alexander Pushkin
10 Songs from Turandot for Male Voice6 and Piano (1973), from incidental music to the play
by Bertolt Brecht, Russian texts by Boris Slutsky and Andrei Voznesensky (No. VII)7, fp (Nos.
I–III)8 Moscow 19 November 1994
i. Zong ob otrublennykh golovakh [Song of the Severed Heads]

ii. Zong o zonte [Umbrella Song]
iii. Zong o vinovatykh bez viny [Songs of the Guiltless Guilty]
iv. Igloterapiia [Acupuncture]
v. Reshka [Tails]
vi. Zong o peske [Song of the Sand]
vii. Priblizhaetsia vek moi k zakatu [My Century is Approaching Sunset]
viii. Zong ob istoricheskoi situatsii [Song of the Historical Context]
ix. Zong ob imperatorskoi shineli [Song of the Imperial Overcoat]
x. Sluchai [Happening]
Eight Songs from Don Carlos for Baritone and Piano or Guitar (1975), texts by Friedrich
Schiller (in Russian translation), fp Bad Urach 22/09/1990
i. Proshenie [Petition]
ii. Druz’iam [To my Friends]
iii. Pesnia maroderov [Song of the Marauders]
iv. O.teatre [About Theatre]
v. Pesn’ liubvi [Love Song]
vi. Gornaia doroga [A Path in the Mountains]
vii. Durnye monarkhi [Evil Monarchs]
viii. Nadezhda [Hope]
Magdalina’s Song9 for Soprano and Piano (1977), Russian text by Boris Pasternak, fp Moscow
7 November 200910
Three Madrigals for Soprano, Violin, Viola, Double Bass, Vibraphone and Harpsichord
(1980), also version by the composer for soprano and piano (1982), texts in French, German and
English by Francisco Tanzer, dedicated ‘to Sofia Gubaidulina on the occasion of her 50th birthday
and to Francisco Tanzer on the occasion of his 60th birthday’, fp Moscow 10 November 1980
i. Sur une étoile [On a Star]

ii. Entfernung [Distance]
iii. Reflection
Three Scenes for Soprano and Percussion Ensemble (1980), without text, dedicated to Mark
Pekarsky and his ensemble, fp Moscow 6 June 198111
276
Works list
i. Poco pesante
ii. Moderato
iii. Andante
Drei Gedichte von Viktor Schnittke [Three Poems of Viktor Schnittke] for Tenor and Piano
(1988), German texts by Viktor Schnittke, fp Gorky 6 March 198912
i. Wer Gedichte macht … [He who Creates Poetry…]

ii. Der Geiger [The Violinist]
iii. Dein Schweigen [Your Silence]
Mutter [Mother] for Mezzo-soprano and Piano (1993), German text by Else Lasker-
Schüler, dedicated ‘to Ulrich Eckhardt on the occasion of his 60th birthday’, fp Berlin 28
May 1994
Fünf Fragmente zu Bildern von Hieronymus Bosch [Five Fragments to Paintings by Hieronymus
Bosch] for Tenor, Violin, Trombone, Harpsichord, Timpani and String Orchestra
(1994), German texts by Aeschylus (translation J. G. Droysen) and Nicolaus Reusner, dedicated
to Vladimir Spivakov, fp London 11 November 1994
i. Lento
ii. Moderato
iii. Andantino
iv. Agitato
v. Senza tempo
Works for orchestra

Concerto No. 1 for Violin and Orchestra (1957, rev. 1962), fp Moscow 29 November 196313
i. Allegro ma non troppo.Tempo iniziale

ii. Presto
iii. Andante
iv. Allegro scherzando
(Movement II may be omitted)
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1960), fp Moscow 1960
i. Allegro
ii. Andante (attacca)
iii. Allegro
Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1964), fp Warsaw 28 September 196514
i. Variazioni
ii. Cantus firmus
iii. Cadenza (attacca)
iv. Basso ostinato
277
Works list
Variations on the Theme from the 16th Symphony by Myaskovsky for Symphony Orchestra
(1966), collective work by Schnittke, Shchedrin, Kabalevsky, Eshpay, Sidelnikov, Fere, Balasanian,
Golubev, Anatoly Alexandrov, Tchulaki, fp Moscow 15 October 196615
Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Chamber Orchestra (1966), dedicated to Mark Lubotsky, fp
Jyväskylä, Finland 12 July 1966
pianissimo… (1968), fp Donaueschingen 19 October 1969
Sonata for Violin and Chamber Orchestra (1968), chamber orchestra version of Violin Sonata
No. 1, fp Moscow 5 February 1986
Concerto for Oboe, Harp and String Orchestra (197016), dedicated to Heinz Holliger, Ursula
Holliger and the Zagreb Soloists, fp Zagreb 9 May 197117
Symphony No. 1 (1969–1972), dedicated to Gennady Rozhdestvensky, fp Gorky 9 February 1974
i. Senza tempo – Moderato – Allegro – Andante

ii. Allegretto
iii. Lento (attacca)
iv. Lento
Concerto Grosso No. 1 for Two Violins, Harpsichord, Prepared Piano and Strings (1977),
dedicated to Gidon Kremer, Tatiana Grindenko and Saulius Sondeckis, fp Leningrad 21 March
1977
i. Preludio (Andante)
ii. Toccata (Allegro)
iii. Recitativo (Lento – Poco più mosso – Lento – Poco più mosso)
iv. Cadenza
v. Rondo (Agitato – Meno mosso – Tempo I)
vi. Postludio (Andante – Allegro – Andante)
Moz-Art à la Haydn for Two Violins, Two Small String Orchestras, Double Bass and
Conductor (1977), after sketches by Mozart, K416d, dedicated to Tatiana Grindenko and Gidon
Kremer, fp Tblisi 30 December 1983
Concerto No. 3 for Violin and Chamber Orchestra (1978), dedicated to Oleg Kagan, fp Moscow
27 January 1979
i. Moderato
ii. Agitato (attacca)
iii. Moderato
In Memoriam (1977–1978), orchestral version of Piano Quintet, fp Moscow 20 December 1979
Symphony No. 2, ‘St Florian’, for Soloists, Chamber Chorus and Symphony Orchestra
(1979), dedicated ‘to Alfred Schlee on the occasion of his 80th birthday’, fp London 23 April 1980
278
Works list
i. Kyrie (Recitativo)
ii. Gloria (Maestoso)
iii. Credo (Moderato)
iv. Crucifixus (Pesante) — Et resurrexit (Agitato)
v. Sanctus. Benedictus (Andante)
vi. Agnus Dei (Andante)
Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra (1979), dedicated to Vladimir Krainev, fp Leningrad 10
December 1979
Moderato – Andante – Maestoso – Allegro – Tempo di Valse – Moderato – Maestoso
– Moderato – Tempo primo
Passacaglia for Large Orchestra (1979–1980, corrected score 199118), fp Baden-Baden 8

November 1981
Gogol Suite (1980), incidental music to the play The Census List (Revizskaia skazka), orchestrated
and compiled by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, fp London 5 December 1980
i. Overture (Allegro) (attacca)

ii. Chichikov’s Childhood (Andantino)
iii. The Portrait (Valse lento – Meno mosso)
iv. The Overcoat (Andante accelerando – Meno mosso)
v. Ferdinand VIII –– (attacca)
vi. The Officials (Allegro) (attacca)
vii. The Ball (Tempo di valse – Tempo di mazurka – Meno mosso – Allegro)
viii. The Testament (Pesante)
Symphony No. 3 (1981), fp Leipzig 5 November 1981
i. Moderato
ii. Allegro
iii. Allegro pesante (attacca)
iv. Adagio
Concerto Grosso No. 2 for Violin, Cello and Symphony Orchestra (1981–1982), fp Berlin
11 September 1982
i. Andantino
ii. Pesante
iii. Allegro (attacca)
iv. Andantino
Concerto No. 4 for Violin and Orchestra (1984), dedicated to Gidon Kremer, fp Berlin 11
September 1984
i. Andante
ii. Vivo
iii. Adagio (attacca)
iv. Lento
279
Works list
Symphony No. 4 (1984)

Version for alto (or countertenor), tenor, mixed choir and orchestra, fp Moscow 12 April 1984
Version for soprano, alto, tenor, bass and chamber orchestra, fp Moscow 16 March 1986
Andante poco pesante – Moderato – Molto pesante – Moderato – Vivo – Moderato
– Andante, poco pesante
Ritual for Large Symphony Orchestra (198419), ‘in memory of the victims of the Second
World War (on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade)’, fp Novosibirsk
15 March 1985
Concerto Grosso No. 3 for Two Violins, Harpsichord and 14 Strings (1984–198520),
dedicated to the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Saulius Sondeckis, Oleh Krysa and Tatiana
Grindenko21, fp Leningrad 27 March 198522, fp of final version Berlin 9 December 1985
i. Allegro
ii. Risoluto
iii. Pesante (attacca)
iv. Adagio
v. Moderato
(K)ein Sommernachtstraum [(Not) a Midsummer Night’s Dream] (not after Shakespeare) for
Large Orchestra (1985), fp Salzburg 12 August 198523
Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (1985), dedicated to Yuri Bashmet, fp Amsterdam 9 January 1986
i. Largo (attacca)
ii. Allegro molto
iii. Largo
Concerto No. 1 for Cello and Orchestra (1985–1986), dedicated to Natalia Gutman, fp Munich
7 May 1986
i. Pesante – Moderato
ii. Largo
iii. Allegro vivace (attacca)
iv. Largo
Epilogue from the Ballet Peer Gynt for Mixed Choir (Tape) and Orchestra (1987), fp
Hamburg 27 April 1987
Quasi una sonata for Violin and Chamber Orchestra (1987), orchestral version of Sonata
No. 2 for Violin and Piano, edition realised by Yevgeny Shchekoldin, based on instrumentation
indications by the composer, fp Milan 10 June 1987
Trio-Sonata for Chamber Orchestra (1987), chamber orchestra version of the String Trio,
edition by Yuri Bashmet under the supervision of the composer, fp Moscow 13 May 198724
i. Moderato
ii. Adagio
280
Works list
Four Aphorisms for Chamber Orchestra (1988), fp Berlin 18 September 1988
i. Lento
ii. Moderato
iii. Allegretto
iv. Lento
Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5 for Violin, Oboe and Symphony Orchestra (1988),
fp Amsterdam 10 November 1988
i. Allegro
ii. Allegretto
iii. Lento – Allegro
iv. Lento
Concerto for Piano Four Hands and Chamber Orchestra (1988), dedicated to Viktoria Postnikova
and Irina Schnittke, fp Moscow 18 April 1990
Monologue for Viola and String Orchestra (1989), dedicated to Yuri Bashmet, fp Bonn 4
June 1989
Concerto No. 2 for Cello and Orchestra (1990), dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich, fp Évian 27
May 1990
i. Moderato
ii. Allegro
iii. Lento
iv. Allegretto vivo
v. Grave
Concerto Grosso No. 5 for Violin and Orchestra (1990–199125), fp 2 May 1991
i. Allegretto
ii. Allegro
iii. Allegro vivace
iv. Lento
Sutartinės for String Orchestra, Organ and Percussion Instruments (1991), fp Vilnius 5
February 1991
Symphony No. 6 (1992), dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich and the Washington National
Symphony Orchestra, fp Moscow 25 September 1993
i. Allegro
ii. Presto
iii. Adagio
iv. Allegro vivace
Hommage a Grieg (199326), fp Bergen 15 June 1993
281
Works list
Concerto Grosso No. 6 for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra (1993), dedicated to Viktoria
Postnikova,Alexander Rozhdestvensky and Gennady Rozhdestvensky, fp Moscow 11 January 1994
i. Andante – Allegro
ii. Adagio
iii. Allegro vivace
Symphony No. 7 (1993), dedicated to Kurt Masur, fp New York 10 February 1994
i. Andante
ii. Largo
iii. Allegro
Concerto for Three [Konzert zu Dritt] for Violin, Viola, Cello, String Orchestra and Piano
(1994), dedicated to Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Mstislav Rostropovich, fp Moscow 19
October 1994
i. Moderato
ii. —
iii. Largo
iv. —
Symphonic Prelude (199327), dedicated to Gerd Albrecht, fp Hamburg 6 November 1994
Symphony No. 8 (1993–199428), dedicated to Gennady Rozhdestvensky and the Royal Stockholm
Philharmonic Orchestra, fp Stockholm 10 November 1994
i. Moderato
ii. Allegro moderato
iii. Lento
iv. Allegro moderato – Allegro vivace (attacca)
v. Lento
For Liverpool (1994), fp Liverpool 23 September 1995
Symphony No. 9 (1995–199729)

Version ed. Gennady Rozhdestvensky fp Moscow 19 June 199830
Version ed. Alexander Raskatov fp Dresden 16 June 2007
i. [Andante]
ii. Moderato
iii. Presto
[Concerto No. 2] for Viola and Orchestra (1998)
Chamber works
Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano (1963) fp Moscow 28 April 1964
282
Works list
i. Andante
ii. Allegretto
iii. Largo
iv. Allegretto scherzando – Allegro – Largo – Allegretto
Dialogue for Cello and Seven Instrumentalists (1965–1967), fp Warsaw 23 September 196731
String Quartet No. 1 (1966), dedicated to the Borodin Quartet, fp Leningrad 7 May 1967
i. Sonata (attacca)
ii. Canon (attacca)
iii. Cadenza
Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano (‘Quasi una Sonata’) (1968), dedicated to Lyubov Eedlina and
Mark Lubotsky, fp Kazan 24 February 1969
Serenade for Violin, Clarinet, Double Bass, Piano and Percussion (1968), fp Lithuania 196932
i. —
ii. Lento
iii. Allegretto
Canon in Memoriam Igor Stravinsky for String Quartet (1971), fp London 1971
Suite in the Old Style for Violin and Piano (1972), fp 27 March 1974
i. Pastorale (Moderato) (attacca)

ii. Ballet (Allegro – Poco meno mosso – Tempo I – Poco meno mosso – Tempo I)
iii. Minuet (Tempo di minuetto – poco più mosso – Tempo I) (attacca)
iv. Fugue (Allegro – Poco meno mosso) (attacca)
v. Pantomime (Andantino)
Greeting Rondo for Violin and Piano (197333), dedicated ‘to Rostislav Dubinsky on the
occasion of his 50th birthday’, fp Moscow 27 March 1974
Cantus perpetuus for Keyboards and Percussion Instruments (1975), fp 14 December 1975;
fully realised score (1981), fp Saratov 13 November 201134
Prelude in Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich for Two Violins (or One Violin and Tape)
(1975), fp Moscow 5 December 1975
Piano Quintet (1972–1976), ‘in memory of my mother Maria Vogel’, fp Tbilisi September 1976
i. Moderato (attacca)
ii. Tempo di Valse
iii. Andante
iv. Lento (attacca)
v. Moderato pastorale
283
Works list
Moz-Art for Two Violins35 (1975/1976?), arrangement of Minuet from Suite in the Old Style
Pantomime [aka Moz-art] for Flute, Clarinet, Three Violins, Viola, Cello, Double Bass,
Organ and Percussion (1975), after sketches by Mozart, K416d, fp Moscow 31 December 1975
i. Pantalone and Colombine [Allegro moderato]

ii. The Dottore (Maestoso)
iii. Pierrot (Allegro)
iv. The Dottore and Colombine (Poco adagio)
v. A Table is Brought in (Andante molto)
vi. The Afflicted Colombine (Adagio)
vii. Harlequin [Allegro]
viii. The Turk (Maestoso)
ix. Colombine’s Flirtation (Larghetto)
x. Pierrot Chases Harlequin (Allegro)
xi. Harlequin’s Defeat (Maestoso)
xii. Pierrot is Frightened (Adagio)
xiii. Finale [Allegro moderato]
Moz-Art for Two Violins (1976), after sketches by Mozart, K416d, two versions: autograph
version includes singing and doubling on violino piccolo and viola d’amore, fp of published
version Vienna February 1976
Hymns I–IV for Cello and Ensemble (1974–1977), fp Moscow 26 May 1979
i. for cello, harp and timpani, Quasi Andante, dedicated to Heinrich Schiff (1974)
ii. for cello and double bass, Adagio, dedicated to Valentin Berlinsky (1974)
iii. for cello, bassoon, harpsichord and bells (or timpani), Lento, dedicated to Alexander Ivashkin
(1975)
iv. for cello, double bass, bassoon, harpsichord, harp, timpani and tubular bells, Allegretto,
dedicated to Karine Georgian (1977)
Sonata No. 1 for Cello and Piano (1978), dedicated to Natalia Gutman, fp Moscow January 1979
i. Largo (attacca)
ii. Presto (attacca)
iii. Largo
Stille Nacht [Silent Night] for Violin and Piano (1978), dedicated ‘to Gidon [Kremer] and Lena
[Liana Isakadze], on the occasion of Christmas 24 December 1978’36, fp Leningrad January 1979
Stille Musik [Quiet Music] for Violin and Cello (1979), dedicated to Mikhail Druskin, fp Paris
autumn 1979
Moz-Art for Oboe, Harp, Harpsichord, Violin, Cello and Double Bass (1980), after
sketches by Mozart, K416d, fp Lockenhaus July 1981
String Quartet No. 2 (1980), dedicated ‘to the memory of Larisa Shepitko’, fp Évian May 1980
284
Works list
i. Moderato (attacca)
iii. Mesto (attacca)
iv. Moderato
Lebenslauf [Course of Life] for Four Metronomes, Three Percussionists and Piano (1982),
dedicated to Wilfried Brennecke and John Cage, fp Witten 25 April 1982
Septet for Flute, Two Clarinets, Violin, Viola, Cello, Harpsichord and Organ (ad lib.)
(1981–1982), fp Moscow 14 November 1982
Introduktion. Moderato (attacca)

i. Perpetuum mobile. Allegretto
ii. Choral. Moderato
A Paganini for Unaccompanied Violin (1982), fp Leningrad 29 September 1982
Schall und Hall [Sound and Resound] for Trombone and Organ (1983), fp Moscow 22 May 1983
String Quartet No. 3 (1983), fp Moscow 8 January 1984
i. Andante (attacca)
iii. Pesante
String Trio (1985), fp Moscow 2 June 1985
i. Moderato
ii. Adagio
Klingende Buchstaben [Sounding Letters] for Solo Cello (1988), ‘dedicated to Alexander
Ivashkin on the occasion of his 40th birthday’, fp Moscow 28 December 1988
Piano Quartet (Sketch for the Second Movement of a Piano Quartet by G. Mahler) (1988),
dedicated to Oleh Krysa, fp Kuhmo 29 July 1988
3x7 for Clarinet, French Horn, Trombone, Harpsichord, Violin, Cello and Double
Bass (1989), fp Witten 22 April 1989
String Quartet No. 4 (1989), dedicated to the Alban Berg Quartet, fp Vienna 21 October 1989
i. Lento (attacca)
ii. Allegro (attacca)
iii. Lento
iv. Vivace (attacca)
v. Lento
Moz-Art à la Mozart for Eight Flutes and Harp (1990), after sketches by Mozart K416d, fp
Salzburg 2 August 1990
285
Works list
Madrigal in Memoriam Oleg Kagan for Unaccompanied Violin or Cello (1991) fp (cello
version) Kreuth 13 July 1991
Herrn Alfred Schlee zum 90. Geburtstag [To Mr Alfred Schlee on his 90th Birthday] for
Unaccompanied Viola (1991), fp Vienna 18 November 1991
Piano Trio (1992), arrangement of the Piano Trio, dedicated ‘to Alexander Potapov, who saved my
life twice’, fp Évian 25 May 1993
Epilogue from the Ballet Peer Gynt for Cello, Piano and Tape (199237), dedicated to
Mstislav Rostropovich, fp Évian 20 May 1993
Percussion Quartet (199338), fp Hamburg 27 January 1994
Improvisation for Unaccompanied Cello (1993–1994), dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich,

fp Paris 19 June 1994
Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano (1994), dedicated to Mark Lubotsky, fp Moscow 10 October 1994
i. Andante [attacca]
ii. Allegro (molto)
iii. Adagio [attacca]
iv. Senza tempo (tempo libero ma inquieto)
Musica Nostalgica for Cello and Piano (1994), arrangement of Minuet from Suite in the Old
Style, dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich, fp London 17 November 1994
Sonata No. 2 for Cello and Piano (1994), dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich, fp London 17
November 1994
i. Senza tempo
ii. Allegro (attacca)
iii. Largo
iv. Allegro (attacca)
v. Lento
Minuet for Violin, Viola and Cello (1994), dedicated to Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and
Mstislav Rostropovich, fp Moscow 19 October 1994
Variations for String Quartet (1995–1998), fp London 30 April 2000
Keyboard works
Six Children’s Pieces for Piano (196039)
i. Moderato Umnitsa [Wise Girl]

ii. Vivo Skripach [Violinist]
iii. Moderato Miamlik i Shustrik [named after 1950s children’s TV characters]
286
Works list
iv. Andantino Vostochnaia skazka (Karavan) [Eastern tale (Caravan)]

v. Allegro Igra v priatki [Hide-and-Seek]
vi. Andantino Kolybel’naia [Lullaby]40
Prelude and Fugue for Piano (1963), fp Moscow 1965
i. Andante
ii. Allegro
Improvisation and Fugue for Piano (1965), fp Moscow April 1973
i. Lento
ii. Vivo
Variations on a Chord (1965), fp Moscow 20 June 1966
Children’s Pieces (Little Pieces) for Piano (1971), ‘dedicated to my son Andrei’, fp (Nos. I–IV)
Moscow 21 December 1971
i. Andantino Folk song (originally ‘Naigrysh’ – Instrumental Tune)

ii. Moderato In the Mountains
iii. Vivo Cuckoo and Woodpecker
iv. Andante Melody
v. Lento Tale
vi. Allegro Play
vii. Andantino Children’s Piece
viii. Allegretto March41
Dedication to Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich for Piano Six Hands (1979), fp Moscow
28 December 1979
Two Short Pieces for Organ (1980), dedicated to Thomas Daniel Schlee, fp Vienna 1980
Sonata No. 1 for Piano (1987), dedicated to Vladimir Feltsman, fp New York 22 May 1988
i. Lento (attacca)
ii. Allegretto [attacca]
iii. Lento [attacca]
iv. Allegro – Pesante
Three Fragments for Harpsichord (1990), fp Hamburg 14 June 1990
i. Andante
ii. Vivo
iii. Lento
Five Aphorisms for Piano and Reciter (1990), texts (chosen by the performers) by Joseph
Brodsky, dedicated to Joseph Brodsky and Alexander Slobodyanik, fp New York 21 October
1990
287
Works list
i. Moderato assai
ii. Allegretto
iii. Lento
iv. Senza tempo
v. Grave
Sonata No. 2 for Piano (1990–1991), dedicated to Irina Schnittke, fp Lübeck 1 February 1991
i. Moderato
ii. Lento
iii. Allegro moderato
Sonata No. 3 for Piano (1992), dedicated to Justus Frantz, fp Tel Aviv 14 March 1996
i. Lento
ii. Allegro
iii. Lento
iv. Allegro
Sonatina for Piano Four Hands (1994), dedicated ‘to my granddaughter Irina and her grand-
mother Irina’
Electronic music
Stream (1969), tape work created on ANS synthesiser
Cadenzas
Cadenzas for the Beethoven Violin Concerto op. 61 (1975/1977)
Cadenza for first movement for Solo Violin and Timpani, fp Perm 197642
Cadenza for second movement for Solo Violin, fp Salzburg 3 August 197743
Cadenza for third movement for Solo Violin, 10 Violins and Timpani, two versions, first version
fp Salzburg 3 August 1977
Cadenza to Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24, K 491 (Movement I) (1975)
Two Cadenzas to Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21, K 467 (Movements I and III) (1980)
Cadenza to Mozart Piano Concerto No. 25, K 503 (Movement I) (1983)
Two Cadenzas to Mozart Bassoon Concerto, K 191 (Movements I and II) (1983), dedicated
to Valery Popov
Two Cadenzas to Mozart Piano Concerto No. 2, K 39 (Movements I and III) (1990), fp
Hamburg 19 April 1991
Transcriptions
Two Preludes for Piano by Dmitri Shostakovich (1919–1921, Nos. I and II), transcribed
for small orchestra (1976)
288
Works list
The Queen of Spades opera by Tchaikovsky, restructuring with addition of harpsichord

interludes (1977), fp Karlsruhe 10 November 1990
Ragtime for Piano by Scott Joplin, transcribed for orchestra (1984), fp Moscow 1
December 1984
Serenade for Mezzo-soprano and Piano by Adolf Jensen, transcribed for Mezzo-
soprano and large orchestra (1984), fp Moscow 17 February 1984
Beschwörung for Mezzo-soprano and Piano by Friedrich Nietzsche, transcribed for

Mezzo-soprano and large orchestra (1984), fp Moscow 17 February 1984
Canon ‘An das Frankfurter Opernhaus’ by Alban Berg, transcribed for nine strings (1985), fp
Moscow 2 April 1985; transcribed for solo violin and strings (1985), fp Dartington 1 August 1987
Early, unfinished and occasional works

(works deliberately omitted by Schnittke from his 1993 Early Works list are marked with an
asterisk)
Concerto for Accordion and Orchestra (1948–1949), lost
Poème for Piano and Orchestra (1953), two-piano short score only
The Passing Line of Clouds Grows Thinner [Redeet oblakov letuchaia griada] for Voice and
Piano (1953), Russian text by Alexander Pushkin
Fugue for Solo Violin (1953), fp New York 23 October 1999
Six Preludes for Piano (Five Preludes and Fugue) (1953–1954), fp London 14 February 2009
i. A♭ Major Moderato
ii. A Minor [Andante]
iii. D Minor Presto – Prestissimo
iv. E Minor Lento (also two variant versions)
v. D Minor [Maestoso] – Scherzando – Tempo I
vi. [Fugue] in B Minor [Andante]
Variations for Piano (1954–1955)
Sonata No. 0 for Violin and Piano (1954–1955)
i. [Allegro]
ii. Andante
Sonata for Piano (1954), one movement44
Three Songs for Voice and Piano (1954–1955), fp London 21 November 2009
289
Works list
i. Sumrak [Dust], Russian text by Fyodor Tyutchev

ii. Nishchii [Beggar], Russian text by Mikhail Lermontov*
iii. Berezka [Birch Tree], Russian text by Stepan Shchipachev
Four Choruses for Mixed Choir (1954–1955)

Gornye vershiny [Mountain Peaks], Russian text by Mikhail Lermontov (two versions)*
Kuda b ni shel, ni ekhal ty [Wherever You Go], Russian text by Mikhail Isakovsky*
Zima [Winter], Russian text by Alexander Prokofiev
Kolybel’naia [Lullaby], Russian text by Alexander Mashistov, lost*
Scherzo for Piano Quintet (1954–1955), presumed lost, also orchestral version, fp of orchestra l
version Warsaw 24 January 2016
Intermezzo for Piano Quintet45 (1954–1955)*
Suite for String Orchestra (1954–1955), five movements, also chamber orchestra version
Symphony No. 0 (1956–1957), fp Moscow 1957
i. Allegro ma non troppo

ii. Allegro vivace
iii. Andante
iv. Allegro
Overture for Orchestra (195746)
Vocalise for Mixed Choir a cappella (195847)
Nagasaki for Mezzo-soprano, Mixed Chorus and Symphony Orchestra (1958), Russian
texts by Anatoly Sofronov, Georgi Fere, Eneda Eisaku and Tōson Shimazaki, fp Cape Town 23
November 2006
i. Nagasaki – gorod skorbi [Nagasaki, City of Grief] Andante sostenuto, poco pesante
ii. Utro [The Morning] Allegretto
iii. V etot tiagostnyi den’ … [On That Painful Day …] L’istesso tempo
iv. Na pepelishche [On the Ashes] Andante
v. Solntse mira [The Sun of Peace] Andante sostenuto
Songs of War and Peace for Soprano, Mixed Chorus and Orchestra (1959), Russian texts by
Anatoly Leontyev and Andrei Pokrovsky, fp Moscow 20 December 1960*
i. Zolotiatsia travami drevnie kurgany [Golden Grass on Ancient Burial Mounds] Moderato
(attacca)
ii. Na poliakh gremit voina [War Is Rumbling in the Fields] Allegretto
iii. Oi da sertse, gor’ko serdtse stonet [My Heart Is Moaning Bitterly] Andante (attacca)
iv. Otgremel uragan v nebe rodnom [The Storm Has Passed. The Motherland Sky Is Clear]
L’istesso tempo
290
Works list
String Quartet (1959), lost, later rearranged as Concerto for Electric Instruments
i. Allegretto moderato
ii. Allegretto
iii. Andante
Four Early Works for Violin and Piano48 (1960)*
Poem about Space [Poema o kosmose] for Symphony Orchestra (1961), dedicated to Yuri
Gagarin’s first space flight in 1961, two versions, first includes electronic instruments: ekvodin,
campanolla, theremin*
Suite for Children for Small Orchestra (1962), orchestral version of Six Children’s Pieces for
Piano (1960) fp Moscow 1962
The Eleventh Commandment (The Lucky Man) (1962), opera in two acts, libretto by Marina
Churova, Georgy Ansimov and Alfred Schnittke (piano score only)
African Ballad (1961–1962), opera, libretto by Sergei Tsenin (incomplete)*
Music for Chamber Orchestra (1964), fp Leipzig November 1965
i. Lento (attacca)
ii. Presto (attacca)
iii. Lento (attacca)
iv. Moderato – Allegretto – Allegro moderato – Presto – Adagio
Charleston for Light Music Ensemble (1965), arrangement by P. Dementyev of number from
the film Adventures of a Dentist
Two Fragments from the music to the film The Tale of the Moor of Peter the Great for Small
Orchestra (1976)
Polyphonic Tango for Instrumental Ensemble (1979), movement of collaborative work Pas de
quatre, fp Moscow 15 September 1979
Music to an Imaginary Play for Ensemble (1985), based on incidental music for a staging of
Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, fp Moscow 7 November 1985
i. Zinmiaia doroga [Winter Road]

ii. Zapev [Introduction to a Song]
iii. Marsh [March]
Polka for Violin and Piano (1993), arrangement of incidental music to The Census List, dedicated
to Alexander Rozhdestvensky, fp Moscow 1993
291
Works list
Incidental music
Music for cinema

Introduction [Vstuplenie] (1963), Mosfil’m, dir. Igor Talankin
Adventures of a Dentist [Pokhozhdeniia zubnogo vracha] (1965), Mosfil’m, dir. Elem Klimov
Just a Little Joke [Shutochka] (1966), Mosfil’m, dir. Andrei Smirnov
The Commissar [Komissar] (1967, 1986), Gorky Film Studio, dir. Alexander Askoldov
The Angel [Angel] (1968), Experimental Creative Film Studio, dir. Andrei Smirnov
House and Owner [Dom i khoziain] (1968), Mosfil’m, dir. Budimir Metalnikov
Day Stars [Dnevnye zvezdy] (1968), Mosfil’m, dir. Igor Talankin
Used Cartridge Cases [Strelianye gil’zy] (1968), Gorky Film Studio, dir. Evgeny Fridman
The Sixth of July [Shestoe iiulia] (1968), Mosfil’m, dir.Yuri Karasik
Sick at Heart [Toska] (1969), Mosfil’m, dir. Alexander Blank
Uncle Vanya [Diadia Vania] (1971), Mosfil’m, dir. Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky
Belorussky Railway Station [Belorusskii vokzal] (1971), Mosfil’m, dir. Andrei Smirnov
Sport, Sport, Sport (1971), Mosfil’m, dir. Elem Klimov
The Seagull [Chaika] (1971), Mosfil’m, dir.Yuli Karasik
You and I [Ty i ia] (1972), Mosfil’m, dir. Larisa Shepitko
Hot Snow [Goriachii sneg] (1973), Mosfil’m, dir. Gavriil Yegiazarov
Where the Arbat Crosses Bubulinas Street [Na uglu Arbata i ulitsy Bubulinas] (1973), Mosfil’m,
dir. Manos Zacharias
The Right to Jump [Pravo na pryzhok] (1973), Mosfil’m, dir.Valeriy Kremnev
Agony [Agoniia] (1974, 1981), Mosfil’m, dir. Elem Klimov
Cities and Years [Goroda i gody] (1974), Mosfil’m, dir. Alexander Zarkhi
Autumn [Osen’] (1974), Mosfil’m, dir. Andrei Smirnov
The White Ship [Belyi parokhod] (1976), Kyrgyzfilm, dir. Bolotbek Shamshiyev
Take Aim [Vybor tseli] (1976), Mosfil’m, dir. Igor Talankin
Clowns and Kids [Klouny i deti] (1976), Mosfil’m, dir. Alexander Mitta
The Tale of the Moor of Peter the Great [Skaz pro to, kak tsar’ Petr arapa zhenil] (1976), Mosfil’m,
dir. Alexander Mitta
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1976), Tsentrnauchfil’m/Children’s Film Society of India, dir. Alexander
Zguridi
Ascent [Voskhozhdenie] (1977), Mosfil’m, dir. Larisa Shepitko
Story of an Unknown Actor [Povest’ o neizvestnom aktere] (1977), Mosfil’m, dir. Alexander Zarkhi
Travka’s Adventures [Prikliucheniia Travki] (1977), Mosfil’m, dir. Arkadi Kordon
Father Sergius [Otets Sergii] (1978), Mosfil’m, dir. Igor Talankin
What Are The Babirusa’s Tusks For? [Zachem Babiruse klyki?] (1979), Tsentrnauchfil’m, dir.
Alexander Zguridi and Nana Kldiashvili
Air Crew [Ekipazh] (1980), Mosfil’m, dir. Alexander Mitta
Starfall [Zvezdopad] (1982), Mosfil’m, dir. Igor Talankin
Sturdy Boy [Krepysh] (1982), Tsentrnauchfil’m, dir. Alexander Zguridi and Nana Kldiashvili
Leave-Taking [Proshchanie] (1983), Mosfil’m, dir. Elem Klimov (music by Schnittke and
Vyacheslav Artyomov)
A Tale of Travels [Skazka stranstvii] (1983), Mosfil’m, dir. Aleksandr Mitta
The White Poodle [Belyi pudel’] (1984), Tsentrnauchfil’m, dir. Alexander Zguridi and Nana
Kldiashvili
292
Works list
The Last Days of St Petersburg [Poslednie dni Sankt-Peterburga] (1927, music 1992), dir.Vsevolod
Pudovkin (music by Alfred and Andrei Schnittke)
The Master and Margarita [Master i Margarita] (1993), TAMP, dir. Yuri Kara (music by Alfred
and Andrei Schnittke)
Music for television dramas

Aim the Barrage at Us [Vyzyvaem ogon’ na sebia] (1964), Mosfil’m Television Association, dir.
Sergey Kolosov
The Night Call [Nochnoi zvonok] (1969), Ekran, dir.Valerian Kvachadze
The Waltz [Val’s] (1969), Mosfil’m Television Association, dir.Viktor Titov
The Last Run of the Albatross [Poslednii reis ≪Al’batrosa≫] (1971), Ekran, dir. Leonid Pchelkin
The Cottage in Kolomna [Domik v Kolomne] (1971), Mosfil’m, dir. Lev Elagin
My Past and Thoughts [Byloe i dumy] (1973), Gosteleradio SSSR, dir. Lev Elagin
The Captain’s Daughter [Kapitanskaia dochka] (1974), Tsentral’noe televidenie SSSR, dir. P.
Krotenko
Faryatev’s Fantasies [Fantazii Fariat’eva] (1979), Lenfil’m, dir. Ilya Averbakh
LittleTragedies [Malen’kie tragedii] (1980), Mosfil’m Television Association, dir. Mikhail Schweitzer
Evgenii Onegin (1981), Tsentral’noe televidenie SSSR
Dead Souls [Mertvye dushi] (1984), Mosfil’m Television Association, dir. Mikhail Schweitzer
Music for cartoons

The Glass Harmonica [Stekliannaia garmonika] (1968), Soiuzmul’tfil’m, dir.Andrei Khrzhanovsky
Ballerina on the Boat [Balerina na korable] (1969), Soiuzmul’tfil’m, dir. Lev Atamanov
The Wardrobe [Shkaf] (1971), Soiuzmul’tfil’m, dir. Andrei Khrzhanovsky
Cheer Up,The Worst is Yet to Come [Vyshe golovu] (1972), Soiuzmul’tfil’m, dir. Lev Atamanov
The Butterfly [Babochka] (1972), Soiuzmul’tfil’m, dir. Andrei Khrzhanovsky
In Fableworld [V mire basen] (1973), Soiuzmul’tfil’m, dir. Andrei Khrzhanovsky
My Memories Take Me to You... [Ia k vam lechu vospominan’em…] (1977), Soiuzmul’tfil’m, dir.
Andrei Khrzhanovsky
I Am with You Again [I s vami snova ia] (1981), Soiuzmul’tfil’m, dir. Andrei Khrzhanovsky
Autumn [Osen’] (1982), Soiuzmul’tfil’m, dir. Andrei Khrzhanovsky
Music for documentaries

Our Gagarin [Nash Gagarin] (1971), Central Studio for Documentary Film
Chile in Struggle, Hope and Despair [Chili v bor’be, nadezhde i trevoge] (1972), Central Studio
for Documentary Film, dir.Yuri Monglovsky
And Still I Believe… (The World Today) [I vse-taki ia veriu… (Mir segodnia)] (1976), Mosfil’m,
dir. Mikhail Romm, completed Elem Klimov and Marlen Khutsiev
The Arduous Roads of Peace [Trudnye dorogi mira] (1973), Central Studio for Documentary
Film, dir. Anatoly Koloshin
Trainers [Dressirovshchiki] (1976), Tsentrnauchfil’m, dir. Alexander Belenky
Paradoxes of Evolution [Paradoksy evoliutsii] (1979), Tsentrnauchfil’m
Larisa (1980), Mosfil’m, dir. Elem Klimov
293
Works list
Music for theatre and radio

Mayakovsky’s Debut [Maiakovskii nachinaetsia] after Vladimir Mayakovsky (1950s), radio play
One Ear is Not Yet Bread [Odin kolos eshche ne khleb] by Ignat Nazarov (late 1950s), television
theatre broadcast
Modern Tragedy [Sovremennaia tragediia] by Rezo Ebralidze (1961), Stanislavsky Theatre
The Rose and the Cross [Rosa i krest] by Alexander Blok (1962), telecast
Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw (1963), Mossovet Theatre
Nails [Gvozdi] (1965),Yermolova Theatre (production cancelled)49
The Colonel’s Widow [Vdova polkovnika] by Juhan Smuul (1966), Mossovet Theatre
Boris Godunov by Alexander Pushkin (1968), Krasny Fakel Theatre, Novosibirsk
The Hidden Cabaliero [Spriatannyi kabal’ero] by Pedro Kalderon (early 1970s), television
broadcast from Mossovet Theatre
Don Carlos by Friedrich Schiller (1972), Mossovet Theatre
Turandot by Bertolt Brecht (1973), Taganka Theatre
A Shooting Party [Utinaia okhota] (1978), by Alexander Vampilov, Moscow Art Theatre
The Census List [Revizskaia skazka] (1978), after Nikolai Gogol, Taganka Theatre
The Possessed [Besy] (1985), after Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Almeida Theatre, London
Homage to Zhivago, performed in Russia as Zhivago (doktor), after Boris Pasternak (1993),
Taganka Theatre company, premiered on tour in Vienna
Notes
1 Available online at https://www.sikorski.de/media/files/1/12/190/249/334/14076/schnittke_
werkverzeichnis.pdf.
2 Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 88.
3 Kholopova & Chigreva 1990, 46 fn.
4 This work was included in Collected Works, Series IV, Volume 6 on the basis of Schnittke’s description
to Ivashkin (Ivashkin 2003, 104) and derived from the film score in the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive.
However, the music does not fit naturally to Lermontov’s words, and there is no record of the composer
ever intending the work for concert performance. It does not appear in any previous works list.
5 Kholopova 2003, 198.
6 Tsvetkova 1998, 140.
7 Tsvetkova 1998, 140.
8 Handwritten page, in Ivashkin’s hand, with score in Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive.
9 Title as per Ivashkin 2003, 24.
10 Ovchinnikov 2009.
11 Ivashkin 1996, 277.
12 Ivashkin 1996, 279.
13 Lubotsky 2015, 70.
14 Mika 2010, 51.
15 Ivashkin 2003, 263.
16 Kholopova & Chigareva 1990, 65.
17 https://web.archive.org/web/20101029222806/http://biennale.cantus.hr/mono1971.php3 (accessed
20 September 2020).
18 Universal Edition score UE 32 633.
19 Title page of manuscript.
21 Collected Works score Series III,Volume 22.
22 Preface to Collected Works.
23 https://archive.salzburgerfestspiele.at/archive_detail/programid/2081/id/212/j/1985.
24 Ivashkin 2003, 272.
294
Works list
26 Ivashkin gives 1992 (Ivashkin 2003, 274).

27 Date on last page of autograph, 27/12/93.
28 Ivashkin 1996, 275.
29 Ivashkin 1996, 275.
30 Dubinets 2014.
31 Mika 2010, 55.
32 Schmelz 2009c, 251 fn.
33 Dubinsky’s 50th birthday fell in 1973.
34 http://www.alexanderivashkin.com/03events.html.
35 Retitled ‘Minuet’ in Collected Works, Series VI,Volume 3.
36 Below the music on the last page of the autograph.
37 Date on title page of manuscript ‘1986–1992’.
38 Mention of ‘Quartett fur vier Schlagzeuger’ in sketches for Cantata dated 12/93 suggest the Quartet had
already been composed.
39 Shulgin 2004, 35.
40 Titles from Ivashkin 2003, 289.
41 From the Sikorski edition (2366). Ivashkin orders the movements I, II, IV,VI,V, III. He omits the last two
pieces (written later) and the titles for numbers IV–VI (Ivashkin 2003, 289). The compilation as eight
pieces, and the title Little Pieces, where probably by Sikorski rather than Schnittke.
42 Lubotsky 2015, 86.
43 https://archive.salzburgerfestspiele.at/archive_detail/programid/2470/id/272/j/1977.
44 Ivashkin, Preface to Collected Works, Series VII,Volume 1, Part 1.
45 Sikorski catalogue says lost, but a copy of the manuscript is held at the Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive.
47 Sikorski catalogue gives 1958. Schnittke’s 1993 works list gives ‘1956?’.
48 Manuscript copy in Ivashkin-Schnittke Archive.
49 Tsvetkova 2018, 104.
295
A NOTE ON SOURCES
Readers seeking further information on Schnittke’s music will find a range of publications in the
Bibliography, many in English, although Russian and German sources predominate. For reliable
scholarly publications of Schnittke’s music, the Collected Works Edition is recommended (Schnittke
2010–).This project was instigated by Alexander Ivashkin and is being published by Compozitor
in St Petersburg (all texts appear in both Russian and English). Much of Schnittke’s music from
the late 1970s onwards was originally published in the West, meaning that the composer was
unable to check the proofs, leading to numerous errors. The Collected Works aims to overcome
this problem by returning to Schnittke’s original manuscripts (or to photocopies) as the primary
sources. At the time of writing, around 30 volumes of the edition have been published, covering
most of Schnittke’s chamber, piano and choral works, as well as several concertos and concerti
grossi. The Collected Works edition is available in the West via ruslania.com.
Two major archives of Schnittke’s scores and sketches are open to researchers. The Ivashkin-
Schnittke Archive at Goldsmiths, University of London includes photocopies of almost all
Schnittke’s manuscripts (this is the source for the Collected Works). The photocopies were made
by Alexander Ivashkin, a project he began when he helped Schnittke move apartments in the late
1980s. Copies of compositional sketches for around 20 works are also included in the Archive.
A more substantial collection of compositional sketches is held at the library of the Juilliard
School in New York. In 2006, the library received a huge bequest from Bruce Kovner, chairman
of the Juilliard board. The collection, now known as the Juilliard Manuscript Collection,
includes autograph sketches and manuscripts by Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Mahler. It also
contains 573 pages of sketches by Schnittke, all bought at Sotheby’s in the previous decade.
Most of the sketches relate to works from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. The sketches have
been digitised but are not currently available online. However, a detailed catalogue of the
Schnittke holdings in the Juilliard Manuscript Collection has been compiled by Ivana Medić
(Medić 2017b).
Schnittke’s own writings and discussions, on his own music and that of others, are avail-
able in several publications. A book of conversations with Dmitri Shulgin was published in
Russian in 1993 (3rd edition Shulgin 2014). Most of the conversations took place in 1976, with
additions up to 1989, and cover Schnittke’s early music, up to the mid-1970s, hence the title,
Gody neizvestnosti Al’freda Shnitke [Alfred Schnittke’s Years of Obscurity]. Another Russian-language
book of conversations with Schnittke, with Alexander Ivashkin, appeared in 1994 (2nd edition
296
A note on sources
Ivashkin 2003).Where the Shulgin conversations address the circumstances of each of Schnittke’s
compositions, the Ivashkin conversations are broader in scope, exploring the philosophy and
theology behind his work. The volume has been published in German and Japanese translation,
but only excerpts have appeared in English: A Schnittke Reader (Schnittke 2002) includes English
translations of two of the original volume’s eight chapters (Chapters 5 and 6). A Schnittke Reader,
edited by Alexander Ivashkin, also includes English translations of many articles by Schnittke.
Ivashkin later edited a more comprehensive collection of these articles, which was published in
the original Russian as Stat’i o muzyke [Articles on Music] (Schnittke 2004).
In 1994, Sikorski Verlag published a German-language Festschrift to commemorate Schnittke’s
60th birthday (Köchel 1994).This contains brief introductions by Schnittke for most of his major
works. The volume also includes an itemised bibliography listing Schnittke’s published writings,
interviews with the composer, secondary literature and concert programmes.
Two biographies of Schnittke are currently available, by Alexander Ivashkin (Ivashkin 1996)
and Valentina Kholopova (Kholopova 2003, 3rd edition 2020). Ivashkin writes in English and
Kholopova in Russian, but both are similar publications, based primarily on the authors’ personal
memories of the composer. Schnittke’s sister, Irina, has also published a book of reminiscences
(Komardenkova-Schnittke 2003). It discusses Schnittke’s childhood, in Engels and Vienna, up to
the family’s return to Russia in 1948. At the time of writing, Peter J. Schmelz is working on a
further biography of the composer (Schmelz 2021, 26).
The first detailed study of Schnittke’s music was written jointly by Valentina Kholopova and
Evgeniia Chigareva (Kholopova & Chigareva 1990). The book was completed in 1986, but pub-
lication was delayed until 1990.The authors discuss all of Schnittke’s major works up to the Cello
Concerto No. 1, combining their own analytical observations with comments from conversations
with the composer. Both authors later published separate volumes on Schnittke. Kholopova’s
biography includes several analytical essays covering the major works composed after 1986.
Chigareva’s Khudozhestvennyi mir Al’freda Shnitke: Ocherki [The Artistic World of Alfred Schnittke:
Essays] (Chigareva 2012) is a broader study of the composer’s poetics, addressing his music from
a range of perspectives, including Viennese and Russian musical traditions, Romanticism, irony
and the influences of Mozart and Schoenberg.
Several shorter monographs address specific aspects of Schnittke’s work, usually based on
postgraduate research. Dziun Tiba made the first major study of Schnittke’s late symphonies in
Simfonicheskoe tvorchestvo Al’freda Shnitke: Opyt intertekstual’nogo analiza [The Symphonic Works of
Alfred Schnittke: An Attempt at Intertextual Analysis] (Tiba 2004). Maria Kostakeva also addresses
Schnittke’s late work in Im Strom der Zeiten und der Welten [In the Current of Times and Worlds]
(Kostakeva 2005).This includes chapters on Peer Gynt and each of the three mature operas. Ivana
Medić’s From Polystylism to Meta-Pluralism: Essays on Late Symphonic Music (Medić 2017c) traces
changing attitudes towards polystylism in symphonies by Soviet composers of Schnittke’s gener-
ation and includes detailed analyses of the Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3.
The main focus of Schnittke scholarship in Russia from 1999 to 2015 was the journal
Al’fredu Shnitke posviashchaetsia iz sobranii ‘Shnitke-Tsentra’ [Dedicated to Alfred Schnittke from the
Collections of the Schnittke Centre] (see preface to Bibliography below). The journal includes
many articles on Schnittke by Russian scholars, as well as memorials and recollections from his
colleagues and friends. Similar anthologies have appeared in German and English. Alfred Schnittke
Analyse – Interpretation – Rezeption (Flechsig & Storch 2010) is a collection of German-language
essays, including a significant section on Schnittke’s film music. Two collections of articles on
Schnittke’s music have been published in English. Seeking the Soul: The Music of Alfred Schnittke
(Odam 2002) presents the proceedings of a conference held at the Guildhall School of Music and
Drama to coincide with the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s 2001 Schnittke festival. Schnittke Studies
297
A note on sources
(Dixon 2017) is a more substantial volume of articles, most of which were instigated or assisted
by Alexander Ivashkin, in whose memory it is published.
Peter J. Schmelz has published several articles and books on Schnittke. His book Such Freedom,
if Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw (Schmelz 2009c) surveys Schnittke’s early
career within the context of the 1960s generation of composers and the ‘unofficial’ Modernist
movement during the Brezhnev era. Schmelz has also published a book-length study devoted
to the Concerto Grosso No. 1 (Schmelz 2019) and, most recently, Sonic Overload: Alfred Schnittke,
Valentin Silvestrov, and Polystylism in the Late USSR (Schmelz 2021). In these publications, Schmelz
takes a broad, contextual approach to Schnittke’s music, drawing parallels with the work of his
contemporaries (not only composers) and discussing reception history, both in the Soviet Union
and in the West.
298
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306
INDEX
[0,1,6,7] pitch set 21, 24, 35–38, 47, 67, 130, 138, 196; Violin Concerto No. 1 147; Violin Concerto
160, 185, 227, 235–36, 243, 247, 248–51, 256 No. 2 147
Bashmet,Yuri 7, 34, 135, 162–64, 167, 173–74, 229,
Adorno, Theodor 43, 64, 123 280, 281, 285
Alban Berg Quartet 196, 285 Beethoven, Ludwig van 5, 24, 33, 34, 43, 53, 98,
Albrecht, Gerd 69, 281 102, 104, 112, 114, 115, 126, 134, 172, 194–96,
Aleksandrovich, Nikolai 78 203, 210, 287; Grosse Fuge 194–96; Piano
ANS synthesiser 11 Concerto No. 4 161; Piano Sonata No. 8, op. 13
Ansimov, Georgy 59, 289 ‘Pathétique’ 195, 233; Piano Sonata No. 13, op.
Anthroposophy 14 27 no. 1 ‘quasi una sonata’ 203; Piano Sonata
Artyomov,Vyacheslav 268, 291 No. 14, op. 27 no.2 ‘quasi una sonata’ 155, 203;
Askoldov, Alexander 269 Piano Sonata No. 29, op. 106 19; String Quartet
Atamanov, Lev 262 No. 15, op. 132 195, 196; Symphony No. 5 106,
248; Symphony No. 6 113; Symphony No. 7 163;
Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel 32 Variations and Fugue, op. 35 ‘Eroica’ 205; Violin
Bach, Johann Christian 32 Concerto 145–48
Bach, Johann Sebastian 8, 13, 16, 29–34, 48, 112, bell-ringing 15, 21–24, 52, 58, 64, 65, 86, 88, 93,
113, 114, 119, 121, 123, 149, 160–62, 189, 201, 110, 118, 126, 150, 154, 157, 158, 166, 167, 220,
206, 208, 210, 211, 224, 262; Air on the G-String 226, 246, 247, 248, 252, 253, 260
30; The Art of Fugue 30; B Minor Mass 16, 17, Berg, Alban 5, 6, 8, 25, 34, 94, 114–15, 160–61,
18, 30, 110; Brandenburg Concertos 29, 135, 156; 162, 169, 205, 227–29, 247, 288; Canon ‘An das
Cantata No. 56, ‘Gladly Shall I Bear the Cross’ 16; Frankfurter Opernhaus’ 230; Chamber Concerto
Cantata No. 60, ‘O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort’: Es 152, 239; Lulu 36, 64; Lyric Suite 43, 229; Piano
ist Genug 115, 147–48; English Suite No. 6 204–5; Sonata No. 1 248; Violin Concerto 8, 43, 114–15,
Partita No. 2 for Solo Violin 212; St John Passion 30, 147–48, 151, 161, 201, 203, 205, 212, 228, 229;
82, 84; St Matthew Passion 30, 63, 74, 82–83, 110– Der Wein 8; Wozzeck 64, 65, 82
11; The Well-Tempered Clavier 31–32, 113, 161, 167 Berio, Luciano 89; Sinfonia 26, 147, 244n3
B-A-C-H monogram 13, 16, 17, 18, 24, 29, 30–32, Berlinsky,Valentin 210, 219, 226, 283
33–35, 63, 68, 78, 95, 97, 98, 111, 113, 114, 115, Berman, Boris 249
121, 123, 124, 129, 150, 151, 154, 156, 160–62, Bertolucci, Bernardo: Last Tango in Paris 28
171, 173, 195, 201, 202–6, 207, 211, 217, 225, Blake, David xviii, 238, 244n9/10
232, 241 Bletschacher, Richard 64, 65, 71n6, 274
Balanchine, George 211 Böhme, Jakob 100
Barkauskas,Vytautas: Toccamento 44 Bolshoi Theatre 51, 53, 59–60, 61
Bartók, Béla 3, 74; Bluebeard’s Castle 65; Boccherini, Luigi 267
Improvisations op. 20 155; Mikrokosmos 250; Borodin Quartet 33, 189, 191, 192, 209, 226, 282
String Quartet No. 4 36; String Quartet No. 6 Bortniansky, Dmitry 85
307
Index
Bosch, Hieronymus 98–101 Fere, Georgy 75, 289

Boulez, Pierre 6, 11, 139, 143, 179, 224n3; Le Fere,Vladimir 75, 277
Marteau sans maître 110; Notations 9; Structures Filanovsky, Boris: Seemphony 104
176, 179 Flamand, Frédéric: Titanic 50
Brahms, Johannes 97, 150, 151, 263; Symphony Floros, Marc-Aurel 64, 66
No. 4 113; Violin Sonata No. 2 205 Foss, Lukas 89: Timecycle 26
Brant, Sebastian: Das Narrenschiff 99, 243 Franck, César: Violin Sonata 204–5
Brecht, Bertolt 70, 92; Turandot, or the Whitewashers’ Frantz, Justus 186, 249, 287
Congress 92, 264, 275, 292 Frid, Grigory 14
Brennecke, Wilfried 240, 242, 284
Brodsky, Joseph 254, 287 Garanyan, Georgiy 106–7
Bruckner, Anton 33, 108–9, 113, 129; Symphony Georgian, Karine 219, 284
No. 1 109; Symphony No. 2 109; Symphony Gershkovich see Hershkowitz, Philipp
No. 8 129 Geyter, Pierre De: Internationale 61, 183–84, 229
Brumberg, Leonid 251 Glinka, Mikhail: Song of Margarita 19
Buddhism 14, 77, 235 Gogol, Nikolai 27, 53–54, 61, 70, 215, 273
Busoni, Ferruccio: Doktor Faust 68 Golubev, Evgeny 1–2, 4, 15, 73, 90, 102, 220, 277
Butsko, Juri: Polyphonic Concerto 116, 219 Górecki, Henryk 9, 49n4
Gregorian chant 11, 15, 16, 17, 73, 77, 78, 79, 89,
cabbala 14, 221, 240 92, 108, 109–11, 124, 226, 261
Cage, John 9, 240, 284 Griboyedov, Alexander: Waltz in E minor 262
Catholic Church 13–14, 15, 25, 77, 116, 228 Grieg, Edvard 186; Peer Gynt 56, 107; Piano
Chaikovsky, Boris: Symphony No. 2 24 Concerto 245
Chekhov, Anton 54, 258 Grindenko, Tatiana 33, 149, 160, 278, 279
Chopin, Fryderyk: Nocturnes 155; Funeral March 97, Gruber, Franz Xaver: Silent Night 156–57, 211–12
107, 241; Preludes 245 Gubaidulina, Sofia 14, 34, 54, 78, 91, 94, 157, 159,
Christianity xvii, 12, 13–24, 63, 73, 81–83, 86, 102, 253, 268, 273, 276; In Croce 16; Garden of Joys
115–19, 154, 235, 254, 260, 269 and Sorrows 94; Piano Sonata 24; Seven Words 16;
Chernetsov, Grigory 262 Stimmen Verstummen 101n1
Churova, Marina 59, 289 Gutman, Natalia 34, 134, 156, 164, 190, 214, 215,
circulatio motif 16, 17, 18–19, 21, 32, 47, 110, 116, 280, 284
121, 124–26, 154, 216, 227, 256
Cocteau, Jean: Orpheus 226 Handel, George Frederic 8, 34, 112, 114, 160–61
common-mediant chord relations 18–21, 77, 228, Hartmann, Thomas de 52
242, 243, 247, 248, 255 Hauer, Josef Matthias 8, 48, 49, 206–7, 217;
Corelli, Arcangelo 135, 150, 212 Apocalyptic Fantasy 48; Twelve-Tone Game 48
Cowell, Henry 9, 240 Haydn, Joseph 53, 112, 113, 114; Piano Sonata
Cui, César 90 in D, HOB.XVI:37 241; Symphony No. 45
‘Farewell’ 108, 238
Darmstadt School 4, 9, 11 Henry, Pierre 9
Davydova, Lydia 96 Henze, Hans Werner 24, 49n4
Denisov, Edison 3, 5, 34, 54, 140, 157, 159, 235, Hershkowitz, Philipp 5
273; Romantic Music for Harp, Oboe and String Hesse, Hermann: Narcissus and Goldmund 51
Quartet 143; Sun of the Incas 91 Hindemith, Paul 3, 36, 102, 138; Piano Concerto
Desyatnikov, Leonid 264 152; Trauermusik 36
Dohnányi, Christoph von 82 Hinduism 14, 37, 235
Druskin, Mikhail 227, 284 Huber, Klaus: Noctes intelligibilis lucis 143
Dubinsky, Rostislav 33, 184, 191–92, 209–10, Holliger, Heinz 143, 277
226, 283 Holliger, Ursula 143, 277
Edlina, Lyubov 202, 209, 226, 282 I Ching 14, 20, 228, 240
Eimert, Herbert 5 Ibsen, Henrik 55, 56, 186, 273
Eisaku, Eneda 289 Isakadze, Liana 284
Isakovsky, Mikhail 72, 89n1, 288
Faust 26–27, 54–55, 58, 114 Islam 235
Fellini, Federico 263 Ivashkin, Alexander xvii, 3, 13, 34, 42, 44, 48, 60,
Feltsman,Vladimir 34, 246, 286 70, 72, 74, 103–4, 116, 124, 130, 132, 134, 160,
308
Index
165–66, 170, 175, 176, 178, 183 185, 187, 199, Lean, David 71
202–3, 207, 209, 214–15, 217, 219, 220, 221, Leontyev, Anatoly 75, 289
227, 235, 244n6, 248, 249, 250, 252, 272, 284 Lermontov, Mikhail 72, 89n1, 274, 288
Ives, Charles 9 Ligeti, György 5, 6, 8–9, 11, 39, 178–79, 181–83,
188n19, 198, 235; Apparitions 39; Atmosphères
Jarre, Maurice 71 11, 178, 182; Lontano 11, 12, 178; Melodien 39;
Judaism xvi, 14, 25, 94, 115, 228, 235, 254, 269 micropolyphony 11, 12, 76, 181–82, 235, 266;
Jurowski,Vladimir 69 ‘Pierre Boulez: Decision and Automatism in
Structure Ia’ 11; Requiem 40
Kabakov, Ilya 60–61, 62 Liebermann, Rolf 88
Kabalevsky, Dmitry 1, 102, 277: Prelude in C major, Liszt, Franz 19–20, 114, 134, 167; Faust Symphony
op. 38, no. 1 1 114; Funerailles 245; Piano Sonata in B minor 167;
Kafka, Franz 112; ‘In the Penal Colony’ 7, 179 Valse oubliée No. 2 19–20
Kagan, Oleg 34, 152, 156, 214–15, 278, 285 Lips, Friedrich 135, 256
Kagel, Mauricio 112 Litinsky, Henrikh 140
Kaljuste, Tõnu 78 Lloyd Webber, Andrew: Jesus Christ Superstar 78
Kancheli, Giya 104 Lubimov, Alexei 134, 190, 234
Kandinsky, Wassily 14, 50, 52–53, 273; On the Lubotsky, Mark 64, 91, 107, 135–37, 140, 145–47,
Spiritual in Art 53 200, 201, 202, 206, 208, 209, 210–11, 230, 277,
Kara,Yuri 270 282, 285
Karetnikov, Nikolai 14, 28; The Mystery of Paul the Lupachev,Viacheslav 149
Apostle 28 Lutosławski, Witold 9
Kasparov,Yuri 270 Lyubimov,Yuri 53, 69–71, 82, 92, 93, 215
Khachaturian, Aram 103
Kholopov,Yuri 7–8, 36 Machaut, Guillaume de 24
Khomitser, Mikhail 218 Mahler, Gustav 25–26, 28, 37, 42–43, 44, 102,
Khrzhanovsky, Andrei 24, 150, 202, 257, 258–9, 112, 114, 119, 121–123, 128, 129, 152, 162,
261–63; A Cat and a Half 263; School of Fine Arts: 230–32, 285; Symphony No. 1 128; Symphony
Juniper Landscape 263 No. 2 121; Symphony No. 3 121; Symphony
Kitayenko, Dmitri 51 No. 4 150; Symphony No. 5 123, 149;
Klas, Eri 131 Symphony No. 6 123, 128; Symphony No. 7 123;
Klimov, Elem 9, 13, 29–30, 150, 170, 208, 258, 265, Symphony No. 9 113, 122, 129; Symphony
266–69; Come and See 268–69 No. 10 121, 124–25, 128, 230
Klusák, Jan: Variations on a Theme of Mahler 26 Mann, Thomas 112; Doktor Faustus 4–5, 28, 60,
Knaifel, Alexander 104 80–84; Tonio Kröger 27
Knox, Garth 242 Marco, Tomás 89
Köchel, Jürgen 67, 156, 274 Markiz, Lev 262
Konchalovsky, Andrei 270 Marseillaise, La 149, 241
Korndorf, Nikolai 131 Martynov,Vladimir 104
Krainev,Vladimir 154, 251, 278 Marzendorfer, Ernst 65
Kremer, Gidon 33, 34, 46, 88, 134, 145, 148, 149, Mashistov, Alexander 72, 89n1, 289
157–59, 171, 173–74, 190, 211, 278, 279, 281, Mass for Peace 88
284 Masur, Kurt 104, 127, 281
Krenek, Ernst 5 Matsudaira,Yoritsune 88–89
Krieger, Armando 89 Mazel, Lev 19–21
Krylov, Ivan 262 Mendelssohn, Felix: Wedding March 241
Krysa, Oleh 160, 212, 279, 285 Menotti, Gian Carlo 89
Kurbatskaya, Svetlana 7 Messiaen, Olivier 78; Mode de valeurs et d’intensités 178
Kurtág, György 89 Meyerhold,Vsevolod 70
Kutavičius, Bronius: Dzūkischen Variationen 44 micropolyphony see Ligeti, György
Mikhailov, Lev 232
lamento motif 30, 124, 133, 142, 143–44, 197, 225 Mitta, Alexander 150, 258, 259, 263–64; Alfred
Lasker-Schuler, Else 98, 277 Schnittke: Portrait with Friends 264
Lasso, Orlando di 33, 43, 194–95: Stabat Mater monograms xvii, 7, 8, 13, 16, 30–35, 44, 49n5,
(1585) 194 87, 88, 89, 95–96, 98, 105, 109, 110, 111–15,
late style xvii, 45–49 127, 129, 134–35, 149, 157–63, 172–73, 174,
Lazarev, Alexander 52 188n9, 194–96, 198–99, 205, 207, 210, 211, 213,
309
Index
214–15, 221, 224, 225, 226, 237, 239–41, 243, Pototsky,Yan 265
246–47, 250, 253–54, 256n4, 264; see also B-A- Pousseur, Henri: Votre Faust 82
C-H monogram Prokofiev, Alexander 72, 288
Morgener, Jörg see Köchel, Jürgen Prokofiev, Sergei 33, 36, 74, 90, 136, 253–54;
Moroz, Alexei 169 Alexander Nevsky 74–75; Children’s Pieces, op. 65
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 25, 33, 112, 114, 20; Humorous Scherzo 253–54; Five Melodies, op.
115, 184, 203, 208, 233, 239, 240, 263, 278, 35bis 201; The Prodigal Son 211; Sarcasms 252;
283, 285, 287; Bassoon Concerto 149; Music for a Violin Concerto No. 2 136
Pantomime, K 446/K 416d 237–38; A Musical Proust, Marcel 61, 63
Joke, K 522 238; Piano Concerto No. 2, K 39 Pudovkin,Vsevolod 269
149; Piano Concerto No. 12, K 414 41–42, 112; Pugacheva, Alla 82
Piano Concerto No. 20, K466 241; Piano Concerto Pushkin, Alexander 69, 70, 262–63, 288; A Feast in
No. 21, K 467 149; Piano Concerto No. 24, K Time of Plague 96–97
491 148–49; Piano Concerto No. 25, K 503 149;
Requiem 77–78; Rondo à la Turk 241; Symphony Rachmaninov, Sergei 1, 2, 85, 136, 138, 246; Piano
No. 40 238 Concerto No. 2 245; Prelude in C♯ minor, op. 3,
Mussorgsky, Modest: Boris Godunov 62, 65; Pictures no. 2 1; Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini 212
at an Exhibition 201, 255 Raskatov, Alexander 131–34, 282; Nunc Dimittis
Myaskovsky, Nikolai 1–2, 136; Piano Sonata No. 1 2; 131
Piano Sonata No. 4 2; Piano Sonata No. 8 2 Ravel, Maurice 29; Bolero 267, 270
Rademann, Hans-Christoph 87
Neumeier, John 50, 51, 54–59, 68, 149, 273; Fenster Reimann, Aribert: Fragmente aus der Oper Lear 184
zu Mozart 50, 149; Othello 50, 54; Sounds of Rendine, Sergio 89
Empty Pages 51; A Streetcar Named Desire 50, 54 Rihm, Wolfgang 89
Nono, Luigi 14 Rilke, Rainer Maria 97
numerology 4, 7, 240 Rilling, Helmuth 89
Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai 24; The Golden Cockrel
Ogiński, Michał: Polonaise 262 233; The Maid of Pskov 267; The Tale of Tsar
Orff, Carl 75; Carmina Burana 3–4, 74, 102–3 Saltan 267; The Tsar’s Bride 267
Orthodox Church xvi, 12, 13, 14, 15, 21–22, 26, Rochberg, George: String Quartet No. 3 26
62, 85, 86, 154, 155, 228, 229, 260, 268; see also Romm, Mikhail 25, 76, 105, 257, 267, 268, 292
Russian Orthodox chant Rostropovich, Mstislav 34, 61, 62, 64, 123, 135,
168, 173–74, 209, 216, 221, 223, 280, 281, 285
Paganini, Niccolò 33, 134, 210, 212–14; 24 Caprices Rozhdestvensky, Alexander 34, 88, 171–72, 215,
op. 1 212–13 281, 290
Panov,Valery: Dreyfus – J’Accuse 50 Rozhdestvensky, Gennady 27, 34, 52, 53–54, 60,
Parin, Aleksei 65 70, 82, 88, 89, 107, 108, 109, 119, 129, 131, 166,
Pärt, Arvo 14, 34, 104, 157, 159, 235; Collage on 171, 190, 215, 227, 235, 253, 270, 273, 275, 277,
B-A-C-H 24; Pro et contra 24; Symphony No. 3 16 278, 281, 282
Pasternak, Boris 276: Doctor Zhivago 14, 16, 93–94, Russian Orthodox chant 13, 15, 22, 54, 73, 85,
140 86–87, 116, 129, 153, 154–55, 166, 192–94,
Pekarsky, Mark 96, 234, 276 219–20, 227, 229, 255, 260, 266, 268, 274
Penderecki, Krzysztof 9, 89 Rygiert, Beate: Moz-Art 50
Petrov, Andrei 53–54, 273 Ryzhkin, Iosif 1
Plessi, Fabrizio: Titanic 50
Pletnev, Mikhail 174 Salzburg Festival xvii, 51, 184, 280
Pokrovsky, Andrei 75, 289 Scarlatti, Domenico 8, 34, 160–62
Pokrovsky, Boris 61, 62 Schiff, Heinrich 219, 283
Pokrovsky, Dmitri 268; Dmitri Pokrovsky Schlee, Alfred 34, 242–43, 278, 285
Ensemble 263 Schlee, Thomas Daniel 255, 286
Polyansky,Valery 65, 73, 85, 119, 188n8 Scherzer, Birget: Frauen – Männer – Paar 50
polystylism xvii, 4, 24–44, 45, 50, 59, 60, 61, 62, 71, Schnittke, Alfred: piano playing 1, 137, 151, 245,
81, 82, 145, 150, 169, 183, 200, 208, 232, 233, 261, 263
251, 257, 266–67 Schnittke, Andrei (son) 67, 228, 250, 269, 270, 286
Popatov, Alexander 229, 285 Schnittke, Harry Viktorovich (father) 12, 25, 223
Popov,Valery 149 Schnittke, Irina (wife) 131, 137, 166, 167, 228, 229,
Postnikova,Viktoria 88, 166, 171, 253, 280, 281 246, 247, 248, 252, 255, 280, 287
310
Index
Schnittke,Viktor (brother) 82, 97–98, 227, 276 Stravinsky, Igor 3, 24, 33, 44, 74, 191, 198–99, 201,
Schnittke stretto 11, 38–41, 47, 138, 175, 176, 183, 220, 253–54; Les noces 22, 253; Neoclassicism
184, 222, 227, 230, 235, 238, 246, 250, 258, 261 29, 237; Oedipus Rex 83; Orpheus 121; Requiem
Schoenberg, Arnold 3, 4, 5, 48, 97, 207, 247; Canticles 77, 110; Septet 238–39; The Nightingale
Herzgewächse 110; Pierrot lunaire 90, 242; Von 74, 253–54; The Rite of Spring 73, 136, 259; The
heute auf morgen 230 Soldier’s Tale 51; Three Japanese Lyrics 74; Violin
Schubert, Franz 113, 152, 184; Impromptu, D Concerto 121, 136
935/2 158 Strobel, Frank 269–71
Schumann, Robert: Carnaval 255 student works 1–4
Schütz, Heinrich 82, 160–61 Suslin,Viktor 87, 206, 268
Scriabin, Alexander 245; Piano Sonata No. 5 155 Sviridov, Gigory 4, 75
Second Viennese School 4, 5, 24, 161, 195, 196
serialism xvii, 4–8, 9, 10, 12, 24, 26, 34–35, 39, 43, Taganka Theatre 53, 69, 70, 71, 82, 92, 292
53, 59, 60, 77, 90–91, 94, 105–6, 115, 138–39, Talankin, Igor 9, 220, 257, 258, 259–61
143, 144, 150, 154, 161, 166–67, 176–81, 190, Taneyev, Sergei 90
191, 200–1, 202, 203, 218–19, 225, 227, 230, tango 27, 28–29, 51, 54, 62, 67, 82, 83, 84, 150,
232–33, 246, 251, 252, 257, 259 151–52, 239, 268
Shchedrin, Rodion 14; Musical Offering 115; Piano Tanzer, Francisco 33, 94–96, 276
Concerto No. 2 24; Piano Concerto No. 3 44–45, Tarnopolsky,Vladimir 104
277 Tchaikovsky, Pyotr 24, 42–43, 53, 81, 85, 136, 208,
Shchekoldin,Yevgeny 206, 280 259, 288; 1812 Overture 154; Piano Concerto
Shebalin,Vissarion 3, 136 No. 1 107, 233; Romeo and Juliet 261; Symphony
Shepitko, Larisa 9, 13, 150, 192, 258, 265–66, 268, 284 No. 5 267; Symphony No. 6 42–43, 124–25; Violin
Shimazaki, Toson 289: Utro (‘Morning’) 74 Concerto 151
Shostakovich, Dmitri 3, 8, 13, 24, 31, 33, 34, 42, 43, Terteryan, Avet 104
74, 75–6, 90, 91, 102, 103, 121–22, 134, 136, 137, Theremin, Lev 240
165, 187, 194–96, 199, 210–11, 216, 227, 241, Tiomkin, Dmitri 259
250, 253–54, 259, 287; 10 Aphorisms op. 13 254; Tishchenko, Boris: Symphony No. 5 26
Cello Concerto No. 1 169; The Golden Age 253–54; Tolstoy, Alexei: The Empress’s Conspiracy 268
The Nose 71n5; Piano Quintet 189, 224; Piano Trio Tsenin, Sergei 291
No. 2 193, 200, 201; String Quartet No. 8 195, Tsvetaeva, Marina 91
196; Symphony No. 6 74, 132, 171; Symphony
No. 7 131; Symphony No. 8 3, 74, 122; Symphony Uspensky, Nikolai: The Ancient Russian Art of
No. 9 3; Symphony No. 10 3, 103, 195–96, 250; Singing 15, 219
Symphony No. 11 103, 122; Symphony No. 14
103, 129; Symphony No. 15 103, 104, 124; Viola Vasiliev,Vladimir 51, 273
Sonata 152, 155, 164; Violin Concerto No. 1 3, Vieru, Anatol 106, 144
134, 136, 147, 200 Vivaldi, Antonio 106, 135, 151, 262, 267
Sidelnikov, Nikolai 14, 277 Vlady, Marina 92
Silvestrov,Valentin 104; Symphony No. 5 26 Vogel, Maria Iosifovna (mother) xvii, 12, 14, 25, 33,
Slobodyanik, Alexander 254, 287 34, 76, 98, 223, 225, 283
Slonimsky, Sergei: Songs to Poems of M.Tsvetaeva 91 Volkonsky, Andrei 262; Laments of Shchaza 91, 96;
Slutsky, Boris 92, 275; Kyol’nskaya yama (‘Cologne Mirror Suite 96; String Quartet 244n4
Pit’) 73 Voznesensky, Andrei 92, 275
Smirnov, Dmitri xviii, 49n6, 203–5 Vysotsky,Vladimir 92, 263–64
Socialist Realism xvii, 26, 72, 74, 75, 102, 184
Sofronov, Anatoly 73–75, 290 Wagner, Richard 112, 114, 245; Das Rheingold
Sondeckis, Saulius 160, 186, 278, 280 40, 41–42, 112, 127; Destiny motif 204; Die
sonorism 9, 10, 43, 53, 183, 258 Meistersinger von Nürnberg 84; The Ride of the
Spiegelman, Joel 267 Valkyries 241; Tristan chord 67, 82, 196; Tristan
Spivakov,Vladimir 98, 209, 277 und Isolde 56, 58, 84, 124
Steiner, Rudolf 14 Warsaw Autumn Festival 9
Stockhausen, Karlheinz 5, 113, 139; Formel 9; Weber, Carl Maria von 33, 239; Der Freischütz 264
moment form 124 Webern, Anton 5, 6, 13, 48, 106, 191, 227, 253;
Strauss, Johann Jr. 97, 112; Tales from the Vienna Cantata No. 2, op. 31 227; String Quartet, op. 28
Woods 107 195; Symphony, op. 21 205; Variations for Piano, op.
Strauss, Richard: Also sprach Zarathustra 113, 270 27 252
311
Index
Weill, Kurt 114; The Threepenny Opera 28 Songs of War and Peace 3, 72, 75–76, 289
Weinberg, Mieczysław: Symphony No. 10 188n7 Der Sonnengesang des Franz von Assisi 16, 22,
Wellesz, Egon: Prosperos Beschwörungen 184 78–79, 274
Vocalise 72, 289
Yerofeyev,Viktor 60, 61, 62, 63, 273 Voices of Nature 72, 76, 274
Yoga 14, 234–35
Yoneda, Eisaku: Bud’ vechno prekrasnoy reka! (‘River, SOLO VOCAL WORKS
always be beautiful!’) 74; Na pepelishche (‘On the Fünf Fragmente zu Bildern von Hieronymus Bosch 45,
ashes’) 74 48, 98–101, 243, 277
Drei Gedichte von Viktor Schnittke 90, 97–98, 276
Zavadsky, Evgeny 78 Eight Songs from Don Carlos 28, 69, 77, 90, 92–93, 276
Zhdanov, Andrei 3 Three Madrigals 94–96, 276
Zimmermann, Bernd Alois 114 Magdalina’s Song 16–17, 18, 23, 71, 93–94, 276
Žiūraitis, Algis 33, 70, 102, 235–37 Mutter 98, 277
Znamenny chant see Russian Orthodox chant Three Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva 6, 9, 90–91, 275
Three Scenes 59, 90, 96–97, 276
WORKS Three Songs (1954–1955) 90, 288
10 Songs from Turandot 70, 90, 92, 275–76
STAGE WORKS
African Ballad 3, 59, 290 WORKS FOR ORCHESTRA
The Eleventh Commandment 3–4, 7, 26, 50, 59, 60, Four Aphorisms for Chamber Orchestra 185, 280
251, 289 Cello Concerto No. 1 see Concerto No. 1 for Cello and
Der gelbe Klang 14, 50, 52–53, 90, 273 Orchestra
Gesualdo 29, 37–38, 60, 64–67, 274 Cello Concerto No. 2 see Concerto No. 2 for Cello and
Historia von D. Johann Fausten 28–29, 32, 60, 67–69, Orchestra
81, 274 Concerto for Accordion and Orchestra 134, 289
Labyrinths 50, 51–52, 273 Concerto for Oboe, Harp and String Orchestra 11, 12,
Life with an Idiot 28, 30, 32, 47, 60–64, 268, 273 143–45, 278
The Lucky Man see The Eleventh Commandment Concerto for Piano and Orchestra 3, 36, 37, 134,
Peer Gynt 46, 49, 50–51, 54–59, 186, 187, 221–23, 137–38, 277
270, 273 Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra 15, 19, 20,
Sketches 27, 50, 53–54, 70, 273 22–3, 32, 45, 93, 154–56, 279
The Yellow Sound see Der gelbe Klang Concerto for Piano Four Hands and Chamber Orchestra
22, 46, 166–67, 194, 281
CHORAL WORKS Concerto for Three 173–74, 282
Agnus Dei 88–89, 275 Concerto for Viola and Orchestra 7, 28, 51, 134, 135,
Canticle of the Sun see Der Sonnengesang des Franz 162–64, 167–68
von Assisi Concerto Grosso No. 1 11, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29,
Choir Concerto see Concerto for Mixed Chorus 30, 35, 39–40, 43, 45, 50, 54, 62, 77, 109,
Chorus from the film Autumn 72, 274 148, 149–52, 157, 160, 241, 258, 262, 264,
Three Choruses 73, 85, 87, 274 268, 278
Four Choruses 72, 89n1, 288–89 Concerto Grosso No. 2 11, 25, 29, 30, 35, 39, 43, 45,
Concerto for Mixed Chorus 20–21, 73, 85–86, 274–5 135, 156–57, 279
Faust Cantata see Seid nüchtern und wachet… Concerto Grosso No. 3 8, 11, 25, 30, 34, 37, 39, 43,
Festive Chant 88, 275 135, 160–62, 183, 280
Lux aeterna (‘Communio II’) 14, 89, 275 Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5 11, 26,
Minnesang 11, 14, 25, 40–41, 73, 79–80, 274 29, 30, 37, 39, 46, 113, 119–23, 135, 185, 229,
Nagasaki 1, 30, 72, 73–75, 176, 241, 289 230, 281
Opening Verse for the First Festival Sunday 87–88, 275 Concerto Grosso No. 5 30, 48, 135, 170–71, 174,
Penitential Verses see Psalms of Repentance 281
Psalms of Repentance 73, 86–87, 275 Concerto Grosso No. 6 135, 171–73, 215, 282
Requiem 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 28, 32, 35, 69, 72–73, Concerto No. 1 for Cello and Orchestra 22, 37, 42, 46,
76–78, 92, 208, 225, 274 58, 134, 164–66, 168–70, 229, 280
Three Sacred Hymns see Three Choruses Concerto No. 1 for Violin and Orchestra 3, 22, 39, 134,
Seid nüchtern und wachet … 27, 28, 29, 30, 42, 54, 135–37, 273, 277
58, 59, 60, 67–69, 73, 78, 80–84, 85, 97, 99–100, Concerto No. 2 for Cello and Orchestra 22, 134, 168–
168, 274 70, 268, 281
312
Index
[Concerto No. 2] for Viola and Orchestra 41, 49, 175, Viola Concerto No. 2 see [Concerto No. 2] for Viola
199, 255, 282 and Orchestra
Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Chamber Orchestra 6, Violin Concerto No. 1 see Concerto No. 1 for Violin
7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18, 26, 44, 140–43, 152, and Orchestra
190–91, 199, 218, 278 Violin Concerto No. 2 see Concerto No. 2 for Violin
Concerto No. 3 for Violin and Chamber Orchestra 12, and Chamber Orchestra
13, 17, 42, 152–54, 215–16 Violin Concerto No. 3 see Concerto No. 3 for Violin
Concerto No. 4 for Violin and Orchestra 21, 22, 24, 28, and Chamber Orchestra
42, 134, 157–60, 170, 174, 243, 279 Violin Concerto No. 4 see Concerto No. 4 for Violin
Epilogue from the Ballet Peer Gynt for Mixed and Orchestra
Choir (Tape) and Orchestra 221, 280
For Liverpool 186–87, 282 CHAMBER WORKS
Gogol Suite 53–54, 70, 215, 279 3x7 242, 285
Hommage a Grieg 56, 186, 187, 281 A Paganini 35, 189, 212–14, 285
In Memoriam 39, 227, 278 Canon ‘An das Frankfurter Opernhaus’ 160, 230, 289
(K)ein Sommernachtstraum 184–85, 209, 280 Canon in Memoriam Igor Stravinsky 12, 44, 198–
Konzert zu Dritt see Concerto for Three 99, 283
Monologue for Viola and String Orchestra 167–68, Cantus perpetuus 14, 37, 39, 234–35, 283
254, 281 Cello Sonata No. 1 see Sonata No. 1 for Cello and
Music for Chamber Orchestra 6, 7, 44, 90, 138, 176– Piano
78, 291 Cello Sonata No. 2 see Sonata No. 2 for Cello and
Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra 6, 7, 90, Piano
138–40, 176, 277 Concerto for Electric Instruments 5, 7, 36, 190, 200,
Passacaglia 11, 41, 181–82, 235, 278 251, 291
Pianissimo… 7, 10, 11, 44, 144, 178–81, 219, 278 Dialogue for Cello and Seven Instrumentalists 9,
Poem about Space 3–4, 39, 175–76, 291 152, 283
Poème 1, 134, 289 Epilogue from the Ballet Peer Gynt for Cello, Piano
Quasi una sonata 206, 280 and Tape 221–23, 286
Ritual 41, 183–84, 280 Four Early Works for Violin and Piano 43–44,
Sonata for Violin and Chamber Orchestra 10, 278 190, 291
Suite for Children (1962) 250, 291 Fugue for Solo Violin (1953) 189, 289
Sutartinės 183, 185–86, 281 Greeting Rondo 184–85, 188n21, 209–10, 283
Symphonic Prelude 186–87, 282 Herrn Alfred Schlee zum 90. Geburtstag 242–43, 286
Symphony No. 0 3, 102–3, 290 Hymns I–IV for Cello and Ensemble (1974–1977)
Symphony No. 1 6–7, 11, 22, 25, 28, 30, 35, 39, 13, 15, 19–20, 22, 45, 73, 219–20, 260, 284
41, 50, 54, 76, 81, 103, 104, 104–8, 111, 131, Improvisation for Unaccompanied Cello 223, 286
149, 150,176, 184, 202, 208, 233, 238, 241, Klingende Buchstaben 212, 221, 285
257, 278 Lebenslauf 212, 240–41, 285
Symphony No. 2, ‘St Florian’ 7, 8, 11, 15, 17, 19, 22, Madrigal in Memoriam Oleg Kagan 214–15, 286
30, 32, 35, 49n1, 73, 77, 108–11, 115, 153, 176, Minuet for Violin,Viola and Cello 174, 286
235, 242, 266 Moz-Art (all versions) 25, 39, 50, 148, 149, 237–38,
Symphony No. 3 8, 11, 25, 27, 31–32, 34, 39, 40, 278, 284
41–42, 43, 78, 82, 104, 110, 111–15, 127, 128, Music to an Imaginary Play 70–71, 291
161, 176, 183, 205, 222, 239, 241, 279 Musica Nostalgica 209–10, 286
Symphony No. 4 15, 22, 26, 41, 45, 85, 115–19, 183, Percussion Quartet 100, 243, 286
219, 235, 269, 280 Piano Quartet 26, 37, 38, 44, 121, 230–32, 285
Symphony No. 5 see Concerto Grosso No. 4/ Piano Quintet 12, 13, 17, 20–21, 22, 30, 35, 39,
Symphony No. 5 49n1, 69, 76–77, 163, 168, 189, 195, 208, 223–
Symphony No. 6 19, 22, 48, 104, 123–27, 131, 133, 281 27, 235, 283
Symphony No. 7 28, 30, 41, 48, 104, 123, 127–29, Piano Trio 227–30, 286
282 Polka for Violin and Piano 215, 291
Symphony No. 8 22, 38, 48, 49, 104, 123, 129–30, Polyphonic Tango 32, 235–37, 291
186–87, 200, 282 Prelude in Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich 12, 13, 31,
Symphony No. 9 30, 49, 104, 131–34, 171, 175, 187, 210–11, 283
199, 255, 282 Schall und Hall 18, 241–42, 285
Trio-Sonata 229, 280 Septet 27, 238–40, 285
Viola Concerto see Concerto for Viola and Orchestra Serenade 6–7, 9, 10, 11, 24, 25, 187n1, 232–33, 283
313
Index
Silent Night see Stille Nacht Sonata No. 3 for Piano 47–48, 49, 190, 246, 248,
Sketch for the Second Movement of a Piano Quartet by 249–50, 256, 288
G. Mahler see Piano Quartet Sonatina for Piano Four Hands 49, 255, 288
Sonata No. 0 for Violin and Piano 1, 2, 189, 190, Three Fragments for Harpsichord 256, 287
289 Two Short Pieces for Organ 18, 255–56, 287
Sonata No. 1 for Cello and Piano 12, 13, 19, 26, 153, Variations for Piano 246, 289
189, 190, 215–16, 217, 222, 284 Variations on a Chord 22–3, 246, 252–53, 287
Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano 6, 7, 9, 19, 30, 32,
43, 140, 190, 200–2, 207, 282 ELECTRONIC MUSIC
Sonata No. 2 for Cello and Piano 22, 48, 190, 216–18, Stream 11, 288
286
Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano (‘Quasi una Sonata’) CADENZAS
10, 24–25, 30–31, 41, 195, 200, 202–6, 216, 241, Cadenza to Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24, K 491
257, 261, 283 148–49, 288
Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano 32, 190, 206–7, 286 Cadenza to Mozart Piano Concerto No. 25, K 503
Stille Musik 13, 227, 284 149, 288
Stille Nacht 13, 211–12, 284 Cadenzas for the Beethoven Violin Concerto 25,
String Quartet (1959) see Concerto for Electric 39–40, 145–48, 288
Instruments Two Cadenzas to Mozart Bassoon Concerto, K 191
String Quartet No. 1 6, 7, 43, 190–92, 198, 199, 149, 288
219, 283 Two Cadenzas to Mozart Piano Concerto No. 2, K
String Quartet No. 2 13, 15, 45, 190, 192–94, 197, 39 149, 288
266, 284 Two Cadenzas to Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21, K
String Quartet No. 3 25, 43, 98, 190, 194–96, 285 467 149, 288
String Quartet No. 4 30, 32, 37, 44, 45, 46, 190,
196–98, 285 INCIDENTAL MUSIC
String Trio 20, 25, 35, 43, 46, 227–29, 285 Adventures of a Dentist 29–30, 106, 208, 266–67,
Suite in the Old Style 25, 106, 208–9, 237, 241, 267, 268, 292
283 Agony 9, 28, 29, 51, 62, 150, 152, 170, 226, 258,
Variations for String Quartet 49, 199–200, 286 266, 267–68, 270, 292
Violin Sonata No. 0 see Sonata No. 0 for Violin and Piano Air Crew 263, 264, 292
Violin Sonata No. 1 see Sonata No. 1 for Violin and And Still I Believe… 25, 72, 76, 105, 257, 267, 293
Piano Ascent 9, 13, 150, 151, 258, 265–66, 268, 292
Violin Sonata No. 2 see Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Autumn (cartoon) 262–63, 293
Piano (‘Quasi una Sonata’) Autumn (film) 72, 292
Violin Sonata No. 3 see Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano Ballerina on the Boat 262, 293
The Butterfly 51, 150, 151, 262, 293
KEYBOARD WORKS The Captain’s Daughter 258, 293
Children’s Pieces 41, 250–51, 287 The Census List 27, 70–71, 215, 294
Dedication to Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich Cheer Up,The Worst is Yet to Come 262, 293
88, 253–54, 256, 287 Clowns and Kids 263, 292
Five Aphorisms for Piano and Reciter 246, 250, The Commissar 269, 270, 292
254–55, 287 The Cottage in Kolomna 258, 293
Five Preludes and Fugue see Six Preludes for Piano The Crew see Air Crew
Improvisation and Fugue 6, 7, 22–3, 24, 41, 246, Day Stars 9, 30, 220, 258, 260, 292
251–52, 287 Dead Souls 54, 293
Piano Sonata No. 1 see Sonata No. 1 for Piano Don Carlos 28, 69, 72, 77–78, 92–93, 294
Piano Sonata No. 2 see Sonata No. 2 for Piano Evgenii Onegin 54, 225–26, 293
Piano Sonata No. 3 see Sonata No. 3 for Piano Father Sergius 260, 261, 292
Prelude and Fugue 6, 7, 36, 60, 190, 246, 251, 252, A Fairy Tale of Wanderings see A Tale of Travels
287 The Glass Harmonica 24, 31, 35, 143, 150, 151,
Six Preludes for Piano 1, 245–46, 289 202, 205, 206, 223, 241, 257, 258, 259, 261–
Sonata for Piano (1954) 246, 289 62, 293
Sonata No. 1 for Piano 8, 21, 26, 41, 190, 246–47, Homage to Zhivago 47, 71, 294
249, 287 I Am with You Again 262–63, 293
Sonata No. 2 for Piano 21, 23, 24, 41, 190, 245, 246, In Fableworld 259, 262, 293
247–49, 288 Introduction 257, 259–60, 292
314
Index
Larisa 266, 293 Sport, Sport, Sport 29–30, 208, 258, 266, 267, 270,
The Last Days of St Petersburg 269–70, 293 292
Leave-Taking 13, 265, 266, 268, 292 Starfall 260, 261, 292
Little Tragedies 96, 270, 293 The Story of Voyages see A Tale of Travels
The Master and Margarita 29, 270, 293 Take Aim 260–61, 291
Mayakovsky’s Debut 257, 294 A Tale of Travels 51, 258, 263, 264, 291
My Memories Take Me to You 262–63, 293 The Tale of the Moor of Peter the Great 150, 151,
My Past and Thoughts 270, 293 263–64, 270, 292
Nails 107, 294 Uncle Vanya 258, 270, 292
One Ear is Not Yet Bread 257, 294 The Waltz 270, 291
The Possessed 70–71, 294 The Wardrobe 262, 291
The Rose and the Cross 257, 294 The World Today see And Still I Believe…
The Seagull 258, 259, 290 You and I 9, 265, 292
Sick at Heart 258, 292 Zhivago (doktor) see Homage to Zhivago
315
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(Routledge Russian and East European Music and Culture) Gavin Dixon - The Routledge Handbook to the Music of Alfred Schnittke (Routledge Russian and East European Music and Culture)-Routledge (2022)

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(Routledge Russian and East European Music and Culture) Gavin Dixon - The Routledge Handbook to the Music of Alfred Schnittke (Routledge Russian and East European Music and Culture)-Routledge (2022)

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THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK TO THE

MUSIC OF ALFRED SCHNITTKE

Music of the Soviet Era

Popular Polish Electronic Music, 1970–2020

Black Sea Sketches

Singing Soviet Stagnation

The Routledge Handbook to the Music of Alfred Schnittke

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-

ISBN: 978-0-367-22246-8 (hbk)

1 Eras and techniques 1

4 Solo vocal works 90

5 Orchestral works 102

Symphony No. 2, ‘St Florian’ 108

6 Chamber works 189

Herrn Alfred Schlee zum 90 Geburtstag 242

7 Keyboard works 245

8 Film music 257

Works list 272

6.1 String Quartet No. 2, movement II, Fig. 16 193

1.1 Tone rows from Schnittke’s works as interval classes 7

Transliteration of Cyrillic script

Student works 1953–1962

Serial period 1963–1971

Figure 1.1 Tone rows from Schnittke’s works as interval classes

Sonorism: Ligeti and the Polish school

post-war Modernism, particularly extended performing techniques. Another movement in the

Example 1.2 Violin Concerto No. 2, Fig. 41

Funereal and religious works 1972–1980

Funereal works: Schnittke’s quiet period

Liturgical allusions in instrumental works

Representations of the Cross

Common-mediant chord relations

[t]he effect of the common-mediant chord change is … complex and contradictory.

Example 1.4 Piano Quintet, movement III, Fig. 7

Representations of evil: popular music and the banal

In general, I consider some of the consciously amassed banalities in Sketches to be

Bach and the Baroque

Example 1.6 Violin Sonata No. 2, last two bars

1. He encoded the names of individuals with particular relationships to the works in

Figure 1.3 (Continued)

everything “hidden” in the music – monograms, symbols, proportions, references, allusions – is

Harmonic and contrapuntal techniques

Non-tonal triadic relations

The [0,1,6,7] pitch set

Example 1.8 Piano Quartet, bars 161–67

Late style 1985–1994

Der gelbe Klang

Gogol Suite and Sketches

Life with an Idiot

Example 2.2 Life with an Idiot, Intermezzo (vocal parts only)

Historia von D. Johann Fausten

Music plays an important functional role in Lyubimov’s performances. It recreates the

Example 3.1 Nagasaki, Fig. 41, brass ensemble 2

Songs of War and Peace

Seid nüchtern und wachet … (Faust Cantata)

Opening Verse for the First Festival Sunday

Three poems of Marina Tsvetaeva

10 Songs from Turandot

Eight Songs from Don Carlos

Example 4.1 Three Madrigals, Francisco Tanzer monogram, as employed in movement II

Three Scenes for Soprano and Ensemble

Drei Gedichte von Viktor Schnittke for Tenor and Piano

Five Fragments to Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch/

i. Strings. Two sections. 3 minutes + 4 minutes.