THE COMPOSER
The truth—like air and sun— costs nothing. It lends itself to an infinite number of compositions of equal likelihood. And this is how what was is indistinguishable from what might have been.
—- Paul Valery, "Remarks About Myself"
This is the gravestone of Soviet-German composer Alfred Schnittke (1934 - 1998), located in the famous repository of Russian artists, namely, Novodevichy Cemetery.
Sculptor Alexander Rukavishnikov created the gravestone itself (as well as the monument to Schnittke in Moscow), but the design for the gravestone came from one of the composer’s close friends, fellow composer and collaborator Sofia Gubaidulina. Irony, humor, passion, personality: these were the qualities Gubaidulina hoped to reflect in her tribute. She reached into musical notation itself, and selected markings indicate both silence and sound, life and death, eternity and temporality.
As she described the design:
“On top of the stone, there is musical staff with a semibreve (the center bar) indicating a rest or pause in the music. The fermata (the half circle + dot at the top) indicates to hold the note (in this case the rest) as long as desired. The note should then be performed fortississimo (the three f's at the bottom), meaning it should be performed extremely loudly/strongly. So it's essentially an extremely loud/strong silence (rest) to be held as long as desired.”
THE MUSIC
I set down a beautiful chord on paper, and suddenly it rusts.
— Alfred Schnittke
Although influenced by the compositions of Shostakovich (who has been on my mind quite a bit since hearing his 10th performed recently), Schnittke’s music is sharper, a bit bleak, tighter at the throat somehow, like a vase with a very thin throat. One feels the inhibitions and limitations of space when listening to him. This intensified concentration of sound in Schnittke shows up in this arrangement of a piece from The Fairytale of Wanderings, which has been in my head often during the past week (and which I shared below).
Among the pieces by Alfred Schnittke that haunt me, or prefigure particular resonances:
“Declaration of Love” from The Fairytale of Wanderings
“Psalm 8” from Psalms of Repentance
performed by Tõnu Kaljuste and Swedish Radio Choir
“IV. Senza Tempo” from 5 Aphorisms for Piano
performed by Anna Gourari
Concerto Grosso no. 2
performed by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra, Oleg Kagan, Natalia Gutman
A Paganini
performed by Gidon Kremer
Agony Suite from Elem Klimov’s film, "Agony"
“III. The Faces, The Flights, Pyramids” from The Glass Harmonica Suite
arranged by F. Strobel
The final piece on this list is from “The Glass Harmonica Suite,” which Schnittke composed for The Glass Harmonica (1968), a short, animated film directed by Andrey Khrzhanovskiy. It sticks in my mind for the harrowing pitch that the strings interpose against the piano and percussion: you can almost hear the strings corkscew and swirl into a mad series of spirals. By the eighth minute, a chilling sensation of suspense and dread appears when the brass announces itself; one recognizes the dread had been building, simmering, waiting for release.
Alfred Schnittke considered his Ninth Symphony to be a work apart and completely dissimilar to his preceding symphonies. As Irina Schnittke expressed it, he wrote this symphony as it were ‘for his departure’.
— Alexander Raskatov, as quoted by William C. White
Alfred Schnittke, Autograph manuscript graphic score signed for Cantus perpetuus for keyboard, solo percussion and four percussionists, 1973/75—- with colored pencils on 18-stave paper
I found the graphic score for Cantus perpetuus at an auction site which claims that “this is the only written form for the work, and is intentionally open to differing interpretations by the performers.” Schnittke’s Cantus perpetuus was first performed in Moscow on 14 December 1975, “a performance which Schnittke himself regarded as definitive.” Additional notes translate the Russian color key to note “central rhombic figure with internal crossing lines also in five colors; a key in Russian at upper left noting that the red, green, blue and yellow lines represent 'polyphony', 'melody', 'rhythm' and 'harmony'.”
More rabbit-holes for those who are interested . . . the secret art of dedications in Schnittke’s compositions . . . more of the (rather brilliant) music Schnittke composed for films in order to support himself in the Soviet Union . . . excerpts from interviews and media (he mentions aleatory methods at the end) . . . a different view of Schnittke’s gravestone that is made of the same black stone as the fermata but has a large crucifix in the center?
