# Schnittke also composed some great great music!



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Even in tonal music, there was great music following Shostakovich. Some from Schnittke and M. Arnold.

Check out this string quartet by Schnittke:





Or this great symphony:


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

"Schnittke also composed some great great music!" 

I thought that was a given.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Schnittke is an easy step from Shostakovich and Weinberg, just another step in an unbroken tradition in Russia, where the best composers, unlike some of their French contemporaries (ahem), felt no inclination to repudiate and insult their forebears.

The Seventh Symphony is great. One of those fascinating works, not uncommon for Schnittke, where the end is the beginning: Much of the dissonant harmony in the middle is built from the verticalization of phrases from the final dirge.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Dead Souls - Schnittke arr. Rozhdestvensky


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> Even in tonal music, there was great music following Shostakovich.


I overlooked this statement earlier. Are you suggesting that Schnittke was a tonal composer?



Becca said:


> Dead Souls - Schnittke arr. Rozhdestvensky


This is film music, obviously of inherent value but not as representative of Schnittke as his concert works. Trout's made a great list of some of those other works here.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Portamento said:


> This is film music, obviously of inherent value but not as representative of Schnittke as his concert works. Trout's made a great list of some of those other works here.


I am quite aware of that list but I take exception to the implication that music written for films has a lesser inherent value, especially given how much of Schnittke's output was film music.

BTW, does that comment also apply to Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich etc.?

And how about all the 'incidental music' written for plays? How does that rank on the inherent value scale?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Even in something more abstract as his _String Quartet,_ there's still a sense of it periodically having tonal centers no matter how they may sound veiled or disguised, including how it begins, sounding key-oriented... The same in _Dead Souls_ where there's a strong fundamental bass at the beginning that orients the sound in the direction of tonality. That's what I like about it-that it hadn't been entirely abandoned though there's a sense that he's stretching it about as far as he can go... Nor does the beginning of his _Symphony No. 7_ sound anything atonal, at least to me, despite some of its sharper dissonances. Just a few personal reactions to what I've heard so far and I hear nothing unworthy in any of them, film music or not. If one hasn't seen the film then it can exist as a concert piece as it's presented here. There seems to be nothing to suggest that he put in any less effort here than in any of his other works, other than perhaps being somewhat less ambitious. But when he goes strident and dissonant, he goes courageously all the way. What a remarkable composer who does not remind me of Shostakovich in any significant way because of the amazing density, sharpness of the dissonances, and colors in the works I've heard. Glad to find out more about him.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Becca said:


> I am quite aware of that list but I take exception to the implication that music written for films has a lesser inherent value, especially given how much of Schnittke's output was film music.
> 
> BTW, does that comment also apply to Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich etc.?
> 
> And how about all the 'incidental music' written for plays? How does that rank on the inherent value scale?


Good point - I'll backpedal (and none of what I said was meant a personal attack because that's how you seem to have taken it). I just don't want people to label Schnittke based solely on one aspect of his music.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Becca said:


> Dead Souls - Schnittke arr. Rozhdestvensky


Gennady ''saved'' and other works of Alfred. He was GREAT director and GREAT orchestrator / arranger. Alfred was a good musician. And brave enough to withdraw (or to reject) some of his late works, in the period he was very ill. I believe his 1st symphony is a good one. A very nice and historic video this one! Thank you!


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Portamento said:


> Good point - I'll backpedal (and none of what I said was meant a personal attack because that's how you seem to have taken it). I just don't want people to label Schnittke based solely on one aspect of his music.


I wasn't taking it as a personal attack, I just don't want people to label Schnittke based on ignoring one aspect of his music.  It is too easy for a sense of elitism to creep into the valuation.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Becca said:


> I wasn't taking it as a personal attack, I just don't want people to label Schnittke based on ignoring one aspect of his music.  It is too easy for a sense of elitism to creep into the valuation.


I see what you did there...


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Schnittke is good. I like all of his string quartets, his Choir Concerto, his Requiem, concerti grossi, cello concertos. He composed also a lot of great film music.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Becca said:


> I am quite aware of that list but I take exception to the implication that music written for films has a lesser inherent value, especially given how much of Schnittke's output was film music.
> 
> BTW, does that comment also apply to Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich etc.?
> 
> And how about all the 'incidental music' written for plays? How does that rank on the inherent value scale?


Fair enough but a lot of CM is about the longer game, structure and so on. Film music (and incidental music and probably even complete ballets approached as pure music) can still be great music but the possibilities of developing a musical argument over time is much less with it. There is a difference.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Schnittke wrote some great music that I love deeply. He also wrote a lot that leaves me cold. I don't especially enjoy his symphonies but many of the concertos are great and I love works like the piano quintet.


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## Guest (Dec 23, 2018)

My favourite work of his is his first symphony. It’s taken me a while to really come to enjoy some of his other works, but now I enjoy the third string quartet, all of his concertos and his choral music as well. The other symphonies aside from his first haven’t tickled my fancy yet.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

One work I really enjoy is _Sketches_ - by designation a ballet but in reality a patchwork quilt of 22 short pieces after Gogol which expanded upon the incidental music he wrote for a production entitled _The Inspector's Tale_ (eight pieces of which were originally arranged as _The Census List_ and then the _Gogol Suite_).


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> Fair enough but *a lot of CM is about the longer game*, structure and so on. Film music (and incidental music and probably even complete ballets approached as pure music) can still be great music but the possibilities of developing a musical argument over time is much less with it. There is a difference.


And a lot of it isn't, probably more than is.

Incidentally [sic] _Dead Souls_ is not even film music, it is TV series music, only one step above video game music :lol:


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Fair enough. I do tend to go for music that develops and goes somewhere over time but acknowledge that there is lots of lovely and great music that doesn't work that way.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Portamento said:


> I overlooked this statement earlier. Are you suggesting that Schnittke was a tonal composer?
> 
> This is film music, obviously of inherent value but not as representative of Schnittke as his concert works. Trout's made a great list of some of those other works here.


To me he is a primarily tonal composer even without using key signatures, he makes no attempt to avoid some tonal harmonies in much of his music, but he does add some chromatic harmonies. Some say it's polytonal


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Becca said:


> And a lot of it isn't, probably more than is.
> 
> Incidentally [sic] _Dead Souls_ is not even film music, it is TV series music, only one step above video game music :lol:


I still enjoy Jeremy Soule's music more than 95% of modern music. This snooty attitude combined with the inaccessibility of modern music is one of the factors behind the loss of audiences/failure to draw young people to classical music


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Here, just in time for Christmas Eve:
https://slippedisc.com/2018/12/alfred-scnhittke-wishes-you-a-creepy-christmas/


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## BHKraft (Dec 25, 2018)

*Alfred Schnittke - The Ascent Suite (film music)*


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2018)

My choice of outstanding works by Schnittke:
-Symph: 1, 7, 8. Violin Ctos: 2-4. Cto grosso: 1, 5. SQ 1-4. Piano Quintet Psalms of Repentance


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^ I would choose totally differently - which must prove he is a great composer. I agree with the piano quintet and the violin concertos 3 and 4. But would put the piano and the cello and the viola concertos before the rest.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

10 Favorite Schnittke works:

Cello Sonata #1
String Quartet #2
Symphony #5/Concerto Grosso #4
Concerto Grosso #1
Concerto Grosso #2
Piano Quintet
Faust Cantata
Concerto for Piano and Strings
Cello Concerto #1
Viola Concerto


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Oh yes - the Faust Cantata!


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