# SS 31.10.15 - Schnittke #1



## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

A continuation of the Saturday Symphonies Tradition:

Welcome to another weekend of symphonic listening!

For your listening pleasure this weekend:*

Alfred Schnittke (1934 - 1998)*

Symphony No. 1

1. Senza Tempo. Moderato
2. Allegretto
3. Lento
4. Lento. Allegro

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Post what recording you are going to listen to giving details of Orchestra / Conductor / Chorus / Soloists etc - Enjoy!


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

A work and a composer I'm not familiar with. Looking forward to trying something new. I'll be listening too:

View attachment 77076


Leif Segerstam/Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

I've never heard this work before. I'll be listening to Rozhdestvensky's performance.


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## Jeff W (Jan 20, 2014)

realdealblues said:


> A work and a composer I'm not familiar with. Looking forward to trying something new. I'll be listening too:
> 
> View attachment 77076
> 
> ...


Trusting your judgement on this one. Completely new work and composer for me!


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

I love this work - when I first heard it I thought it was totally barking! Back then I thought that the novelty of its patchwork/collage style would soon wear thin (if not wear off altogether) but I've never tired of it.

The BIS recording for me, too:


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## Kivimees (Feb 16, 2013)

The BIS recording for me as well. I'll follow with symphony no. 2.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

realdealblues said:


> A work and a composer I'm not familiar with. Looking forward to trying something new. I'll be listening too:
> 
> View attachment 77076
> 
> ...


An exciting live performance of a wild symphony! And even if it turns out to be not your cuppa tea, I'd encourage you to try other Schnittke works. The symphonies are all different, and there's many fine concertos of all kinds. And his choral works are sublime!


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I have, and enjoy immensely, Segerstam's *Schnittke*: Symphony 2 (rec.1994), so it'll default to his 1, if I can find it at YT. :tiphat:


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Vaneyes said:


> I have, and enjoy immensely, Segerstam's *Schnittke*: Symphony 2 (rec.1994), so it'll default to his 1, if I can find it at YT. :tiphat:


May I be of assistance, sir?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

This is probably the most bizarre work on the entire list. Absolute insanity (try seeing how many quotes you can catch).

I'll go for streaming Segerstam on BIS.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

I'll roll with Segerstam.

A nice program note, here:

https://alfredschnittke.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/symphony-no-1/

_1. Senza tempo - Andante
2. Allegretto
3. Lento
4. Lento

According to the composer himself, the title "symphony" in this instance is to be understood as partly serious, partly ironical. Written at a time (1969-72) when the lure of new techniques had led only to the seeming impasse of avante-garde serialism, Schnittke's First Symphony evidently represents an attempt to clear a path into the future - demolishing the musical landscape of the late 1960s as a prelude to reconstructing it from fragments of a remote as well as a more recent past. The symphonic structure arising from this sometimes brutal demolition process is likened to the architecture of a Warsaw church which, flattened by war-time bombing, was rebuilt by inserting such fragments as remained of the old within the walls of the new, "without concern for stylistic unity".

Schnittke goes on to say that his symphony likewise reconstructs symphonic form "from left-over bits and pieces" - he lists Beethoven, Chopin, Strauss, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, the Dies Irae, Gregorian chant and Haydn - "the missing areas being filled in with new material".

The resulting structural collage (the composer's own word) seeks to question the very existence of the symphony as a meaningful contemporary form. Akin to a musical manifesto, it expresses Schnittke's determination to disregard the stylistic anxieties that plague so many present-day composers and, while remaining true to himself, "freely to invoke contemporary tensions without attempting to arrive at false solutions". Some of these tensions are expressed through stylistic argument, others in terms of the degree to which a composer may have control over his own material; this ranges from none at all (at the outset, just before the entry of the conductor), to some (as in the freely-outlined suggestions which may, but need not, be adhered to as a basis for improvisation), to almost total (most of the apparently improvised tutti passages are in fact notated in extraordinary detail).

It is not hard to imagine the political implications - whether by design or no - of such an anarchic musical statement; the 1974 premiere of the work was relegated to the remote city of Gorky, and the first Moscow performance took place only last year [1985].

The symphony is scored for huge orchestra: quadruple woodwind (plus three saxophones) and brass, forty-eight strings, piano, celesta, harpsichord, organ, two harps, electric guitar and a large amount of percussion - including a rhythm section. Very much the product of its time and physical surroundings, this is a work likely to arouse strong reactions. Impressively crafted, it is nonetheless full of contrasts that are often intentionally crude, emotionally (as well as musically) disturbing, even shocking. It is also nearly impossible to describe or to prepare for in any detail.

Nevertheless it is clear that the first and third movements are the mainly new walls of the symphonic edifice, with the second and fourth containing the patched-in fragments of the old. The work begins as the first player walks on stage and starts, as if casually, to warm up for his or her part in the ensuing proceedings; as the last to enter, the conductor eventually brings this increasingly improvised chaos to a stuttering halt.

The first movement proper gets under way as he then calls things to order on a unison C; thereafter, and despite the early intrusion of a group of alien ideas, it is as if a modern symphonic movement were seriously trying to emerge from a cloud of chromatic writing that is never allowed to acquire any too discernible features. Although underpinned by sporadic attempts to attach the music to tonal centres, the whole movement has a restless, searching feel - with numerous interruptive elements and with wind and percussion becoming ever more detached from the sobering influence of the material heard on the violins at the outset. Not until near the end is there a concerted tutti outburst as the first obvious quotation (here seeming like the inevitable outcome of the initial unison C) for a moment holds sway.

The following scherzo seems about to enter another world as the strings announce an elegantly classical theme which, rondo fashion, recurs throughout. Meanwhile, all sorts of Ives-like chaos intervene, gathering momentum to become a whirling fray in which the dance-band element gradually comes to the fore - eventually obliterating the rest in an improvised cadenza. During the sudden quiet of a brief coda, the wind players leave the platform, until only the flute remains to carry the thread of the music to its inconclusive end.

In many ways the philosophical heart of the work, the third movement is an extended and largely self-contained adagio for string orchestra; with no more than an occasional touch of colour from one or other of the percussive instruments left on stage, it has a grave and sometimes eerie beauty that sets it apart from the rest. From its pianissimo start on two solo violins, the tone gradually increases as the texture thickens to arrive at a midway climax on a C minor chord that is reinforced from afar by the wind.

The finale begins with the off-stage players returned to the fold - bringing with them a number of quotations that aptly reflect the elegiac vein of the movement just ended. But this mood of resignation is soon rudely shattered - to be recaptured only in the intensely moving circumstances of a penultimate peroration that is once again initiated by the unison C. Old memories are revived one last time as a distant echo of Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony launches the work full circle to quote its own origins in the improvised turbulence from which it all began._


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## Mika (Jul 24, 2009)

Leif is my man also. For some reason his symphonies didn't make it to the list


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Like several others new for me also


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

The BIS for me also. What a fun, wacky piece.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Rozhdestvensky and Russian State Symphony Orchestra for me.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I'm listening to starthrower's YT suggestion above


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## Asterix77 (Oct 17, 2015)

This is new for me, I also will be listening to the BIS recording.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Listened to this on Spotify on a train yesterday . Gennady Rozhdeventsky leading a Russian Orchestra . My first hearing of the piece, but not my first exposure to Schnittke. A wild ride!


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

I discovered this work some weeks ago and was blew away. So many quotes and music styles... Music for the end of everything. This is the one that I have:










I'll go with it.


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## OldFashionedGirl (Jul 21, 2013)

I listened this symphony for the first time just a few weeks ago. It was like being in a roller coaster.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

I've got both recordings (Segerstam & Rozhdestvensky) of this bonkers symphony. Both are live recordings from the 1990's and, if I'm honest, it's been a long time since either of them found their way onto my CD player.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

Someone on youtube commented that this work needs "be seen to be believed", which is probably fair!

I reckon the third movement is quite worthwhile.


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## dzc4627 (Apr 23, 2015)

The Rozhdestvensky is, in my opinion, the better of the two. It better portrays the boisterous nature of the work and as a bonus there is a lot of background between Roz and Schnittke. After listening to all of the symphonies each many times over, this one ranks #4 on my list. Although it is awesome in many aspects and is incredibly fun and even majestic at point, it is actually not a very good work to represent Schnittke's net output. He seems to abandon the rhythmic looseness of the 1st in pretty much every other large work.

Interesting Note: A ton of the material that is present in the symphony can actually be scavenged from the relatively unknown "Serenade," an earlier work of his. Even the opening chime section can be heard near the end.

Mp3 for "Serenade" link: http://www.filedropper.com/serenade


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

Thank goodness for the Saturday Symphony, for I would never had heard this piece (maybe some time far in the future, sporadically, among a random venture into contemporary stuff, or maybe when I finally _understood_ Schnittke's concerti grosso or cello concerti...blahblah).

I just heard the work, and *WOAH WHAT*

The quote of LvB's Fifth is the greatest thing.


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## dzc4627 (Apr 23, 2015)

hah yeah that one is great.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

A postscript. I don't remember "Saturday Symphonies" listening getting such robust positive response from so many. It's good to see. realdealblues does a magnificent job in setting the tone each week.

Re *Schnittke*: Symphony 1, this was one that certainly fell through my collecting cracks. That has been remedied, with an ordering of the Rozhdestvensky (Melodiya, rec.1987).

I listened to both Segerstam and Rozhdestvensky, and for me the decision involved expansive versus urgent. Urgent won in this case, but it wasn't a slam dunk. Segerstam has the better finale. I preferred, too, the Melodiya sound engineering. As in the conducting, an element of risk-taking in the mixing worked more than once or twice. Cheers! :tiphat:


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

Vaneyes said:


> A postscript. I don't remember "Saturday Symphonies" listening getting such robust positive response from so many. It's good to see. realdealblues does a magnificent job in setting the tone each week.


Thank you Vaneyes, and thanks to everyone for the continued participation. This past weekend was the 121st edition of the Saturday Symphonies. Hard to believe it's been going on for over 2 years now!


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