POLYSTYLISM AND TIMBRAL FORM IN ALFRED SCHNITTKE’S VIOLA CONCERTO
By
Stephanie Zimmerman
Senior Honors Thesis Department of Music
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 22 March 2015
Approved:
©2015
Stephanie Zimmerman ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ABSTRACT
Alfred Schnittke’s Viola Concerto is a landmark twentieth-century work that has received little attention in the scholarly and critical literature. The purpose of this thesis to fill this lacuna with a study interpreting the work from four sides: the biographical, historical, technical, and
hermeneutic. Historically and biographically, the Concerto was the gateway to the final decade of Schnittke’s artistic life—an era in which he sought to express a personal tragedy: his experience of debilitating strokes. He called the Concerto that was completed just before his first stroke, “a premonition of what was to come.” I understand the three movements of Concerto
programmatically as a musical expression of his life before the first major stroke, the experience of the stroke itself, and finally his life after the
Op. 2, no. 3 and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring feeding into the underlying tragic narrative.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my advisor, Severine Neff, and Professors Stephen Anderson
and Nicholas DiEugenio for their time and assistance with my research. I would
also like to thank my viola teacher, Hugh Partridge, for introducing me to
Schnittke’s Viola Concerto. Finally, I am grateful to my family for their continued
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Formal Breakdown and Analysis of Major Themes in Each Movement
LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music Franz Schubert’s 12 Valse Nobles Op. 77, No. 2
INTRODUCTION
Alfred Schnittke’s Viola Concerto (1985), is one of the many concertos he composed with specific Soviet string players in mind. The Soviet Union’s political atmosphere bred a strong sense of community among artists known as “The Intelligentsia.”1 Because of this social network, many renowned Soviet composers had close professional relationships with performing musicians. For example, two of Schnittke’s predecessors, Sergey Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, worked with musicians such as violinist David Oistrakh, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and pianist Sviatoslav Richter. Following in their footsteps, Schnittke wrote concertos for violinists Oleg Kagan (Violin Concerto No. 3 [1978]) and Gidon Kremer (Violin Concerto No. 4 [1984]), cellists Natalya Gutman (Cello Concerto No. 1 [1986]), and Mstislav Rostropovich (Cello Concerto No. 2 [1990]), and violist Yuri Bashmet for whom the Viola concerto was dedicated.2
Because of their deep professional and personal friendship, Schnittke set the letters corresponding to Bashmet’s name as a theme in the Viola Concerto—an important theme repeated throughout the entire piece. Specifically, he encoded Bashmet’s name using a combination of German notation for the first five notes and French notation for the final note (there is no way to notate the “t”), which translates to B-flat–A–E- flat-C–B–E.3 It was relatively common for Schnittke to use this sort of symbolism in his
1 "Intelligentsia," Merriam-Webster, accessed March 2, 2015,
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intelligentsia
2 Gerard McBurney. “Viola Concerto (1985),” American Symphony Orchestra, accessed February 2, 2015, http://americansymphony.org/viola-concerto-1985/
music. For example, he spells the names of 33 composers in the notation of his Third Symphony.4 However, the composer may also have put a bit of himself into the concerto’s musical cryptograms. A is a central pitch in all three movements of the concerto and is also the shared letter between Bashmet’s name and his own.
Schnittke’s Viola Concerto includes many of his signature
compositional features, including polystylism, a technique that uses musical quotations and stylistic ideas from different time periods and composers, and timbral form, which Schnittke defines as “the functional use of timbral relationships” to shape a work’s formal units.5 As we shall see, Schnittke’s use of timbre, perhaps more so than specific pitch or rhythm, organizes phrases and the overall structure of the piece. Elements of polystylism are evident throughout the work, with musical quotations from an early
Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 3 Op. 2, no. 3, and the “Augurs Chord” from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Fragments of an unidentifiable Viennese waltz (probably heard in Schnittke’s youth in Vienna) and unidentifiable
Chopinesque excerpts influenced by his extensive study of piano in the Russian School round out the list of borrowed materials.
Schnittke wrote the Viola Concerto just before the onset of the stroke that altered the way in which he viewed mortality. In 1989, he asserted, “I have the growing feeling that the same time can vary in length … at the
4 Valentina Kholopova, “Alfred Schnittke’s Works: A New Theory of Musical Content,” in
Seeking the Soul: the Music of Alfred Schnittke, comp. George Odam (The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, 2002), 39.
5 Alfred Schnittke, A Schnittke Reader, trans. John Goodliffe, edit. Alexander Ivashkin
moment every one of my days is a long period of time that contains a great deal ... every second I experience not as a brief instant but as a definite period of time.”6 Both remarkably and ironically (depending on your point of view), I contend that the Viola Concerto foreshadows the experience of the stroke. The first movement, the shortest of the three, is relatively simple and relaxed by comparison, symbolizing life before the stroke. Then the second movement is a shocking change of pace – loud, fast and chaotic, full of flashbacks to earlier works, it could easily resemble what Schnittke was feeling at the time of his stroke. The third movement is very similar to the first, but has elements of the second and is significantly longer and more anxious in its affect than the first movement. Therefore, it resembles life for Schnittke after the stroke. In this movement, “every second [is]
experience[d] not as a brief instant but as a definite period of time” –it possesses a conscious significance.
Reflecting back on the stroke and its association with the Viola Concerto, Schnittke himself said, “In a certain respect the piece has the character of a – temporary – farewell. For ten days after finishing work on it, I was placed in a situation from which there was hardly any way out. I could only slowly enter a second phase of life, a phase through which I am still passing. Like a premonition of what was to come, the music took on the character of a restless chase through life (in the second movement) and that
of a slow and sad overview of life on the threshold of death (in the third movement).”7
CHAPTER 1: Historical and Biographical Information
An overview of Alfred Schnittke’s life
The music critic Alex Ross called Alfred Schnittke a “Connoisseur of Chaos”—chaos in that his music combines multiple styles of classical music, popular music, and jazz with an orchestral technique all his own. Schnittke himself described his sense of musical expression as a unique journey:
My musical development took a course similar to that of some friends and colleagues, across piano concerto romanticism, neoclassical academicism, and attempts at eclectic synthesis..., and took cognizance also of the unavoidable proofs of masculinity in serial self-denial. Having arrived at the final station, I decided to get off the already overcrowded train. Since then I have tried to proceed on foot.
His solo trek has created music—and especially a viola concerto —that have, in Ross’s words, “startling vistas” and unmistakable voices.
Schnittke was born in Engels, a city in southern Russia, on November 24, 1934.8 Although Russian by birth, Schnittke was not Russian by blood.9 His father, Harry, was a Jew born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1914; his mother, Maria, a German Catholic who was born in Russia.
The Schnittke family moved to Vienna in 1946, where Alfred’s father was a journalist, and both he and Maria worked as Russian-German
translators. Alfred had many new musical opportunities in Vienna, where he studied the accordion and piano and also started composing. Free of Soviet control, he was able to attend concerts and listen to music on the radio for the first time, including works by Russian composers such as Dmitri
Shostakovich, his predecessor as Russia’s foremost composer.10 Schnittke lived in Vienna for only two years, but his time there greatly influenced his later compositional technique, which is displayed in his Viola Concerto.
In 1948, the family moved to Moscow, where Alfred attended the October Revolution Music College to further his musical studies.11 Then in 1953, Schnittke began studying at the Moscow Conservatory. As a student at the Conservatory, he studied composition with Evgeny Golubev and
8 Saratova Engels. "Alfred Schnittke: Biography,” Boosey & Hawkes, last modified August
3, 1998, http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/composer/composer_main.asp? composerid=2731&ttype=BIOGRAPHY&ttitle=Biography%2F.
9 Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, 10
10 Michael Lawrence Hall, “Polystylism and Structural Unification in the Alfred Schnittke
Viola Concerto” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2000), 20-21.
orchestration with Nicolai Rakov. After receiving his graduate diploma, he was hired as a faculty member to teach orchestration and polyphony until 1972. The Communist regime, the highly political Union of Composers, and certain composition faculty who were party members prevented him from teaching courses in composition.
During his early years of teaching at the Conservatory, Schnittke completed his Symphony No. 1, which was premiered on 9 February 1974 in Gorky, USSR.12 The Symphony, which Alex Ross called, “the apex of
unruliness in Schnittke’s output,” was the first time that the Russian public heard Schnittke’s use of polystylism – the use of multiple styles, genres or musical techniques in a single work. In the Symphony, Schnittke borrowed styles from classical compositions such as Joseph Haydn’s, “Farewell” Symphony, No. 45, Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2, and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.13
Schnittke’s popularity among artists and the Russian intelligentsia grew in the decades that followed, in part due to fewer restrictions on the circulation of music in and out of the Soviet Union.14 The years 1981–85 particularly showed a rapid increase in the number of performances of Schnittke’s music. His popularity grew not only in the Soviet Union but in the West as well. Schnittke’s music was featured in the programs of major modern music festivals throughout Europe. He was especially highly
12 Ibid, 218.
13 Alex Ross. “Connoisseur of Chaos: Schnittke,” Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise, last modified
September 28, 1992, http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/05/schnittke_1992.html
regarded in Germany around this time, when he was elected to the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1981 and was invited to be a guest of honor at the Witten Festival in West Germany in 1982.15 The first half of 1985, the year in which the Viola Concerto was written, was a particularly successful year —indeed the peak of his career in terms of lasting, well-known works. At that time, Schnittke’s music had taken a different direction, which he called “series B.”16 Scholars and critics have characterized “series B” as a “new and more emotionally charged compositional style.”17
As mentioned above, a significant turn in Schnittke’s personal life occurred in 1985; soon after completing the Viola Concerto, on July 21, 1985, he had a serious stroke that left him hospitalized for three weeks. At the time, Schnittke was staying with his family in Pitsunda, a resort on the Black Sea, while attending a music festival organized by Georgian violinist Liana Isakadze. After accompanying his son, Andrey, to the train station, he attended a small gathering in the conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky’s hotel room—and collapsed.18 Schnittke was then seen by Alexander Potapov, who at the time was the leading Russian authority on neurosurgery.
Potapov was doubtful that Schnittke would recover. The stroke had caused a massive brain hemorrhage, and Schnittke was clinically pronounced dead on three separate occasions.19 However, Schnittke did eventually recover
15 Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, 183-86. 16 Ross, “Connoisseur of Chaos.”
17 Hall, “Polystylism and Structural Unification,” 25 18 Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, 198.
and finally was able to leave the hospital two months later (near the end of September of that year). He immediately went back to composing.
In 1990, Schnittke moved to Hamburg, Germany, after looser
emigration laws resulted from events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 and crucially, glasnost. While living in Germany,
Schnittke suffered through several more strokes in 1994. At this point he dictated his works to his students and friends who copied them on score paper. Despite his failing health, Schnittke continued to compose in this way until he suffered a final, fatal stroke on August 3, 1998.
Schnittke’s relationship with Yuri Bashmet
If there is a rock star of the viola, Yuri Bashmet is it. Not only because of his natural charisma and commanding stage presence, but because he literally started his rise to musical fame as a rock star – a guitarist in a popular band in Lvov, Ukraine, that he started when he was only ten years old.20 He already played the violin and piano by that time, and was “the best violin player in the school” by his account. In 1967, at age 14, he decided to switch to the viola.21
Three years later, Bashmet ended his guitar career and focused entirely on the viola. Part of his decision rested on Jimi Hendrix’s rise to fame – a guitarist with whom Bashmet felt he could not compete. ''When
20 Hall, “Polystylism and Structural Unification,” 27.
21 K. Robert Schwarz. “The Accidental Violist,” The New York Times, last modified
Hendrix's music arrived in Lvov, I felt that as a guitar player, I couldn’t do this abstract, psychedelic improvisation,” Bashmet said in an interview with the New York Times.22 “It was almost a tragic moment.”
Committed to the viola, Bashmet grew frustrated. He wanted a career as a soloist—a highly unlikely career trajectory. The viola has little solo repertory compared to the violin and the cello, but this fact did not sway Bashmet’s desires and beliefs. He formed his own chamber orchestra, The Moscow Soloists, and traveled around the world (once political conditions in the Soviet Union allowed it) to give solo recitals on the viola with his group. Because of the lack of quality solo repertory for the viola, Bashmet became deeply involved in commissioning new works for the instrument. “In
quantity there is enough music,” he said. “Stamitz, Hoffmeister, thousands of names like that. In quality there is not enough. And that is also the
reason I founded the chamber orchestra. Because I can't play third-class music all the time. Maybe second-class, but not third.”23 Enter Schnittke.
Schnittke first met Bashmet in 1977 during a recording session of his Piano Quintet. Bashmet was familiar with Schnittke’s work and asked him to write a concerto for the viola. The composer, who admired Bashmet’s playing, agreed. At that point, neither the composer nor the violist knew that the concerto would not be completed until about eight years later in June of 1985. This course of events was largely due to Schnittke’s schedule in composing for the Soviet film industry.24
22 Ibid. 23 Ibid.
The completion of the Viola Concerto coincided with the rise of Perestroika, the reformation movement within the Soviet Union’s Communist Party, implemented during the mid-1980s.25 This reform loosened travel restrictions for Soviet citizens, and many musicians, including Bashmet, were free to travel and perform outside of the Soviet Union. Thus, Bashmet premiered Schnittke’s Viola Concerto on January 12, 1986 with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.26 Several years later, the British composer and scholar of Russian and Soviet music Gerard McBurney wrote, “Since its first appearance, Schnittke’s Viola Concerto has made a most powerful impression wherever it had been performed, and it had been taken up by a number of soloists in different countries. But it is in the hands of its dedicatee, Yuri Bashmet, that the music fully reveals why it is the way it is: the fruit of the sort of intimate collaboration between composer and performer that has always been a special feature of Russian musical life.”27
Bashmet said that he strongly identified with Schnittke’s Viola
Concerto. “When I play Schnittke’s music, I am like a dramatic actor from a Shakespearean tragedy,” he told the New York Times. “I am not only a musician. Because his music tells us about basic human categories, like life and death, good and bad. And for once the viola is a hero. Here, Schnittke makes the instrument grow very strong.”
25 “Perestroika,” Encyclopedia Britannica, last modified December 5, 2014,
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/451371/perestroika.
The Viola Concerto in the context of Schnittke’s earlier compositions
Schnittke’s music has several characteristics that distinguish it from that of other twentieth-century Russian composers and define his personal style.28
1. Polystylism: As mentioned above, Schnittke aimed to combine different kinds of music – serious and light, old and new, structured and free – through a technique he called “polystylism.” He believed that this fusion of music was necessary to capture the spirit of the twentieth century, in which live performance and technological advances (e.g., radio, television) allowed individuals to hear different kinds of music every day. He understood his role as a composer as depicting and commenting on the human condition of everyday life. For example, his Symphony No. 1 has quotations from classical sources, rock music, and jazz. “’The goal of my life,’ wrote Schnittke in the late 1970s, ‘is to unify ‘E’ [Ernste Musik,
serious music] and ‘U’ [Unterhaltungsmusik, light music], even if I break my neck in so doing!’”29
28 Ibid, 38.
2. A sense of mysticism: Schnittke believed that a composer should be “a medium or sensor, whose business it is to remember what he hears – namely music, from ‘somewhere else’ – and whose mind acts as a translator only. Music comes from some sort of ‘divine’ rather than ‘human’ area.”30 Within this mystic process, Schnittke’s compositional style fluctuated and changed
frequently – like Stravinsky’s.31
3. A dependence upon the emotive powers of the string section: Whereas many avant-garde composers avoided violins because they were less modern and too romantically subjective,
Schnittke embraced them. Schnittke believed that string section would provide him with an “emotional, almost human” musical voice.32 Besides the viola concerto, he composed a number of works for string solos, four violin concertos, two concertos for cello and orchestra, and several other works for string solos with orchestral accompaniment.33 Among the more renowned works for string are Monologue (1989) for viola and string orchestra, Quasi una sonata (1987) for violin and chamber
orchestra, and Konzert zu dritt (1994) for solo violin, viola, cello, and string orchestra.34
30 Ibid, 92.
31 Hall, “Polystylism and Structural Unification,” 38. 32 Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, 92.
33 Hall, “Polystylism and Structural Unification,” 40.
34 Steven Coburn. “Alfred Schnittke,” All Music, accessed March 2, 2015,
4. A preoccupation with undoing and transforming music from Vienna’s Golden Age: Schnittke’s fascination with Vienna’s Golden Age, the era of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, first arose from his time living in Vienna and continued
throughout his life.3536 In the Viola Concerto, he uses a motive from one of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas—Op. 2, No. 3—as one of the main recurring ideas.
5. An ever-present nationalistic quality: Schnittke permeated his works with numerous characteristics of Russian music despite his having a rather conflicting national identity. Particularly, he used the dark harmonies and thick orchestral textures
associated with Russian nationalistic music, such as that of Dmitri Shostakovich. Additionally, he uses quotations from the works of other Russian composers—in the Viola Concerto from Igor Stravinsky.
Periods
Schnittke’s career as a composer divides into three parts: the Early Period
(1958–68), the Middle Period (1968–85), and the Late Period (1985–98).
1. The Early Period (1958–68):
35 Hall, “Polystylism and Structural Unification,” 40.
36 A. Peter Brown, The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart,
The works of Schnittke’s early period largely conformed to the conservative standards of the Soviet Union’s Composers’ Union. It tended to have a nationalistic character presented with traditional harmonic and melodic content drawn from European art music of the nineteenth century.37
Despite its conservative nature, Schnittke’s music was not without criticism from the Composers’ Union. Nagasaki, which was perhaps his most famous work from this period, was
disparaged for the depiction of the atomic bomb through the use of tone clusters, other atonal structures, and loud brass.38
Schnittke also began to explore contemporary
compositional techniques during the latter part of his early period. This included twelve-tone and aleatoric music in much of his chamber music at the time, including his Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1, written in 1963, use a twelve-tone row.
Example 1: Schnittke's Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1, Movement 1, Measures 1–7.39
However, the use of serialism characterizing his music would come to be short-lived (the technique, as he said, was used by an “already overcrowded train” of composers at the time), and he soon shifted to his own compositional techniques.
2. The Middle Period (1968–85):
Schnittke’s middle period (1968–85) marked the
beginning of his use of polystylism. He described his music of this period to be a necessity for modern listeners:
“Contemporary reality will make it necessary to experience all the musics one has heard since childhood, including rock and jazz and classical and all other forms, combining them into a
synthesis.”40 By doing so, Schnittke had not entirely abandoned the music he had written and developed in the past. Instead, he combined familiar contemporary styles and techniques with historical musical characteristics, and also with aspects of contemporary popular music.41
Schnittke’s Symphony No. 1 was the first work in which he employed polystylism. It also serves as a bridge between his film music and serious music and epitomizes his aforementioned goal of unifying “serious music” and “light music.” The
Symphony itself was an extension of a film score he wrote for The World Today, directed by Mikhail Romm. The movie was a documentary that gives an overview of twentieth century
history, which was a fitting setting for Schnittke to experiment with polystylism.42
Schnittke’s primary motivation behind this Symphony was the imagery in the documentary, which juxtaposes positive scientific discoveries with negative events such as poverty and environmental destruction. In the preface to his score, Schnittke wrote, “If I had not seen all these shots in the film, I would never have written this symphony.”43
40 Hall, “Polystylism and Structural Unification,” 47. 41 Ibid.
The Symphony began with several different working titles, including K(eine) Symphonie and Symphony-Antisymphony; Antisymphony-Symphony. They hinted at Schnittke’s aim to depart from the symphonic genre in its historical sense. And indeed, the Symphony was anything but traditional,
encapsulating many different kinds of music that represented the sounds of everyday life during thetwentieth century.44
The music itself contains so many quotations from classical and non-classical music that they are usually
unrecognizable. It includes a free section with the orchestra tuning, bits of minimalism and serialism, a variety of
instruments that are not typically involved in symphonic repertory such as the electric guitar, and includes several sections of jazz improvisation. Another unusual feature is the orchestral choreography, in which players enter and leave the stage. By the end, only two violins remain, playing a duet of the last phrase of Haydn’s ‘Farewell’ Symphony (which, incidentally, also includes players walking off stage before the conclusion of the piece).45 In 1988, a review of the American premiere of the Symphony at the Glasnost Music Festival in Boston emphasizes the oddity of Schnittke’s choreography. “At one point, the players are supposed to threaten the conductor with angry gestures, and a
few of them seemed all too sincere. For its part, the audience became
increasingly rife with restless natives, and defections increased as the
symphony rambled to its deceptive close (or new beginning).”46 Though public opinion of the Symphony was mixed, few can deny that Schnittke succeeded in capturing his
interpretation of the twentieth century in this Symphony. The collage of sounds, feelings, moods, and genres capture the extreme range of this century’s events, both wonderful and terrible. Thus, with his First Symphony, Schnittke succeeded in diminishing the line between music as cultural expression and music as a product of everyday life.
The music of Schnittke’s middle period also began to stray from the structured and rational music in his early period.
Dramatic shape was more of a priority than pre-established musical form and structure. At this point in his career, he began to think of music as more of a divine translation rather than a creation by a single person.47 After he completed his Symphony No. 1., he continued to use polystylism in the Piano Quintet (1976), the Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1977), and the String Quartet No. 2 (1980).48 Concerto Grosso No. 1, for example, juxtaposes the Baroque form of the concerto grosso (Prelude, Toccata, Recitativo, Cadenza, Rondo, and Postludio) with
46 Martin Bernheimer, "Music Review: Schnittke Symphony at Glasnost Music Festival in
Boston," Los Angeles Times, Mar 26, 1988.
elements of waltzes and tangos and employs micro-tonal intervals, and free chromaticism.49
Example 2: Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 1, Movement 5, Measures 90–103. Note the tango rhythm in the harpsichord bass line.50
3. The Late Period, or “Series B” (1985-1998):
Near the beginning of 1985, Schnittke’s style acquired a mystic quality – dark, introspective, and personal. He attributed this change to a premonition of his failing health that came true
49 Hall, “Polystylism and Structural Unification,” 52.
50 Alfred Schnittke, Concerto Grosso No. 1 (Saint Petersburg: Izdatelʹstvo "Kompozitor,"
in July of that year with his first major stroke.51 Other features brought out in Schnittke’s later works include an increased use of long pedal tones and a “stronger sense of nostalgia” for early Viennese music.52 This period also included some of Schnittke’s most popular works, including the Viola Concerto. The more relaxed political atmosphere in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, particularly during Gorbachev’s leadership and the
‘perestroika,’ or ‘restructuring,’ policies, allowed Schnittke’s works to find a wider audience.
One composition that epitomizes Schnittke’s late period is his Monologue (1989). Written for solo viola and string
orchestra, this piece made frequent use of pedal tones heard throughout the first 25 measures of the piece.
Example 3: Schnittke's Monologue, Measures 1–7. Note the long, pedal tones in the orchestra.53
Additionally, the piece has a very dark and ephemeral quality in part because the somber solo viola, compared to the brightness in tone of a violin or the rich cello tone. Much of the piece is written in a relatively low register for the accompanying strings and for the solo viola, aside from a few agitated sections that bring the piece to a climax about three-quarters of the way through.
Another of Schnittke’s compositions, his String Trio
(1985), also demonstrates Schnittke’s stylistic transformation in his late period. The Trio was commissioned by the Alban Berg Foundation to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Berg’s birth, and the opening theme appropriately presents itself
53 Alfred Schnittke, Concerto for Viola and Orchestra; Monologue for Viola and String
within the rhythmic motive that begins “Happy Birthday.”54 Schnittke juxtaposes this lighthearted rhythmic motive with a serious and dissonant harmonic structure, which demonstrates his continuing use of polystylism in a dialectical form expressing a serious context.
The Trio, like the Viola Concerto, has an introspective quality. Many of its melodies have a serene, albeit dissonant, quality to them, representing an uneasy sense of peace within oneself. However, this precarious calm suddenly becomes agitated at times. For example, the Trio goes into a ferocious dance-like frenzy in measure 77, which shows the fragility of his state of being.
Film music
In the early 1950s through the beginning of the 1960s, the Soviet Union’s rigid political censorship on art was loosened during the period known as “Khrushchev’s thaw,” (named after the Soviet leader who proceeded and denounced Stalin). Even though the “thaw” was thwarted
during the following regime of Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet film industry experienced new-found freedoms in the 1960s and 1970s.55 As a result, Schnittke’s generation of cinema composers included many of the leaders of modern experimental music in the Soviet Union.56 Both the financial
incentives and the opportunity of artistic freedom contributed to Schnittke’s devotion to this medium. As mentioned above, his ongoing activities in film delayed the completion of the Viola Concerto for years.
Schnittke’s experience writing film music contributed in many ways to the composer’s eventual mastery of polystylistic technique. In film music, one must pair the musical mood and style with the action occurring on screen. Thus, Schnittke was forced to represent often antithetical emotional states—and he did so by combining serious with light music.
Chapter 2: Analysis
This analysis uses the concepts that Schnittke wrote about to explain and interpret their execution in the Viola Concerto and to give a better
55 Tatiana Egorova, Soviet Film Music: An Historical Survey, ed. Peter Nelson and Nigel
Osborne, vol. 13 of Contemporary Music Studies (Overseas Publishers Association, 1997), 145.
understanding of the Concerto as a whole. These include his notions timbral form and thematic material, combined with polystylism.
Orchestration
Example 4: Instruments used in Schnittke's Viola Concerto57
Orchestration in the Viola Concerto is a structuring force in the piece as a whole. The soloist is able to be heard clearly despite the softer,
accompanimental nature of the instrument and the presence of a large brass and percussion section. Schnittke achieves this timbral design by
frequently using the viola’s upper register and by employing percussive effects on the instrument such as the solo viola chords—especially
throughout the second movement.
One distinct feature of the Concerto’s orchestration is its lack of violins, which is uncommon. Schnittke clearly knew that violins have a
tendency to cover the viola, both in register and in volume—and he probably knew that his Viola Concerto was not the first to omit a violin section.
Hindemith’s Der Schwanendreher, one of the “big three” of viola concerto repertory, leaves out violins and violas in its orchestration in order for the solo viola to be heard. Centuries earlier, Johann Sebastian Bach’s
Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, BWV 1051, was written to include two viola soloists—it also was one of the earliest concertos to feature the viola as a solo instrument. The piece was orchestrated for two violas, two viola da gambas, cello, and basso continuo. Thus I contend that Schnittke’s decision to leave violins out of the orchestration of the Viola Concerto very much reflects the resurrection of earlier styles.
Another feature of Schnittke’s viola concerto is the heavy use of the low register in the orchestral combinations. He writes plentiful low brass parts, has keyboards playing in the lower register, and asks for a string section that is very bass-heavy, with eight violas, eight cellos, and eight basses. Significantly, this combination allows the solo viola to cut through a variety of thick textures because by contrast, it has one of the highest
in the first movement, almost the entire orchestra is playing at a loud dynamic, yet the viola is able to be heard soaring above the rest of the orchestra in the upper end of the instrument’s range.
Certain combinations of instruments consider other orchestrations related to a particular time period and repertory, although their scoring may not be entirely identical to a specific earlier style. For example, the waltz rhythm from measures 132–46 in the second movement are not just in the viola solo, but also occur in the cembalo rather than a contemporary piano. These triplet figures exemplify the typical “jump” bass in a keyboard waltz – the first note acting as the bass of the chord followed by two lighter chords. The ongoing cembalo part acts as the bass line of the waltz
Example 5: Chopin’s Fantaisie–Impromptu, Op. 66, Measures 1–8.58
Example 6: Schnittke’s Viola Concerto, Movement 2, Measures 215–219.59
Specifics of Polystylism
a. As mentioned numerous times above, polystylism is perhaps the most distinctive feature of Schnittke’s music. The juxtaposition of different styles in the same piece of music can create “sentimental nostalgia and
58 Frédéric Chopin, Chopin Masterpieces: for solo piano, 46 works (Mineola, NY: Dover,
1998).
savage irony” for the listener.60 For example, the Russian music scholar John Webb describes polystylism as, “a technique, which combines styles in a disruptive manner with the intent of exploiting their incongruity.”61
Schnittke lists several general reasons for his use of polystylism in his essay, “Polystylistic Tendencies in Modern Music.” He said it widens the range of possibilities in terms of musical expression and creates a “general democratization of style.” He further asserted that polystylism creates new avenues in which composers can use tropes to express ideas about “eternal questions” such as war, peace, life and death. He writes, “It is doubtful whether one could find another musical approach that expresses as
convincingly as the polystylistic method the philosophical idea of the links between the ages.62 “Indeed, Schnittke’s goal of polystylism, corresponds to the variety of cultural, religious, linguistic and geographical components of his life. As mentioned above, his parents both spoke German, and he had a German-sounding name despite growing up mostly in what is now Russia. He also moved around as a child, living not only in the Soviet Union, but also in Vienna for a time. Additionally, Schnittke’s parents practiced two different religions – his father Judaism and his mother Catholicism.
Within the framework of polystylism, there were several specific and distinct forms of quotation and reference that Schnittke used in his works. In his essay, “Polystylistic Tendencies in Modern Music,” Schnittke wrote, “By the polystylistic method I mean not merely the ‘collage wave’ in
60 Hall, “Polystylism and Structural Unification,” 35.
contemporary music but also more subtle ways of using elements of another’s style.”63 He therefore distinguished between “quotation” and “allusion.”
Principle of Quotation – The principle of quotation ranges from
“the quoting of stereotypical micro-elements of an alien style … to exact or reworked quotations or pseudo-quotations.”64 This principle could refer to adapting another composer’s musical language into one’s own, as Schnittke does with the Beethoven Op. 2, No. 3, theme in the Viola Concerto. Here he takes the theme from Beethoven’s Sonata and orchestrates it in a way that is uniquely his – tossing it back and forth between the solo viola and other solo string and wind players.
Example 7: Beethoven Op. 2 No. 3, measures 1–765
63 Ibid, 87. 64 Ibid.
Example 8: Schnittke Viola Concerto, Movement 2, measures 207–21466
Schnittke understands the orchestration in Anton Webern’s Fuga (Ricercata) as an example of this technique: Webern reinterprets the motivic elements of Bach’s lines in a variety of quickly changing timbres.67
Example 9: Anton Webern’s Fuga (Ricercata), Measures 56–60. Note the recurring rhythmic motive being passed between different instruments.68
The principle of quotation could specifically refer to the technique of another composer, as Schnittke does in his
Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1977). Here he uses the form of the Baroque concerto grosso, but integrates modern elements and musical genres into it, thus creating an utterly contemporary conception of the genre (see Example 2). In the Viola Concerto, the Chopin piano bass line in measures 215–46 is an example of this form of quotation. Here, Schnittke uses the undulating, arpeggiated bass line typical of Chopin’s piano music and
68 Johann Sebastian Bach and Anton Webern, Fuga (Ricercata), (Vienna: Universal Edition,
incorporates it into a style entirely unlike that of Chopin’s music (see Example 5).
Example 10: "Do Re Mi" from The Sound of Music, Measures 1–869
69 Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, The Sound of Music, comp. Howard Lindsay
Example 11: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 2, Measures 303–312.70
Similarly, the waltz rhythm in the cembalo and solo viola in measures 133–146 match the rhythms in Schubert’s second of 12 Valse Nobles, Op. 77., but the character is so different and the rhythm so common that one cannot fairly call it a direct quotation of the piece.
Example 12: Schubert’s second of 12 Valse Nobles, Op. 77.71
Example 13: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 2, Measures 132–135.72
Timbral Form
“The emancipation of dissonance (in the works of Debussy, Schoenberg, Scriabin, and Ives) meant, in practical terms, the emancipation of timbre as well. Emancipated dissonance brought to light the direct expressivity of coloristic harmony, that is, of harmony as timbre.”—Alfred Schnittke73
The timbral relationships in Schnittke’s viola concerto are a crucial aspect of the structure of the piece. In his writings, Schnittke discussed timbre as an autonomous compositional tool comparable to traditional musical elements such as harmony, melody, and rhythm. According to Schnittke, timbre, like harmony, can manifest itself on both horizontal and vertical planes, and for this reason, he developed a method of classifying timbral relationships in a functional capacity and described them with terms he borrowed from harmonic and polyphonic characterizations.
The following discussion elucidates terms that Schnittke used to distinguish timbral structures. I have explained their significance within the context of his viola concerto.
Timbral consonance occurs when related timbres are blended,
masking the characteristics of individual instruments and unifying them as a single tone color.74 Schnittke begins and ends the concerto with timbral consonances, consisting of only strings and solo viola. Specifically the first 28 measures of the piece consist of this
combination, as well as the final five measures of the last movement. Not only is the natural timbre of the instruments similar, but their range, dynamics, and articulation contribute to their unified quality.
Example 14: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 9–21.75
74 Ibid, 102.
This balanced design makes the beginning and end of the concerto “timbrally consonant,” as Schnittke explains, ““in the context of the whole piece the last bars are a timbral “resolution” of the opening bar.”76
Timbral harmony describes the compilation of timbral consonance
between individual lines, just as the combination of simultaneously sounded pitches creates simultaneities. For example, in the third movement of the viola concerto, measures 124–38 demonstrate timbral harmony. Despite the variety in instrumentation, the
dynamics, articulations, and character of lines are analogous between the different instruments involved—Schnittke describes this as
“timbrally consonant.” The timbral harmonic shape peaks at measure 130, where all instruments are sounding together. Before that point, instruments, particularly in the brass and strings, are added steadily to the texture as the dynamics gradually increase. At measure 130, all of the instruments are at either a ff or fff dynamic, after which
instruments gradually drop out and the dynamics grow softer.
Example 15: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 3, Measures 121–138.77
Timbral dissonance, on the other hand, combines timbres that retain
their own individual characteristics.78 This occurs throughout the concerto, often when the solo viola is paired with brass, wind or percussion instruments. For example, in the third movement, measures 23–33 combine the viola with trombones. The two
instruments are vastly different from a timbral sense; the viola with a soft, dark texture contrasts the trombones’ bright, loud sound.
Example 16: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 3, Measures 19–32.
Another example of timbral dissonance occurs later in the movement in measures 56–60, where the piano plays staccato, accented notes against legato string melodies and legato accompaniment in the tubular bells, trumpet, trombone and oboe.
Example 17: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 3, Measures 56–60.79
Timbral polyphony, which Schnittke defines as “a consistent
prolonged dissonance of timbres,” in which streams of different
timbres sound simultaneously.80 A clear example of timbral polyphony occurs in the second movement of the Viola Concerto, from measures 147–62. The passage begins with the viola and piano, two timbrally dissonant instruments, playing short, accented triplet figures at a mp dynamic. Simultaneously, the muted tuba plays a series of quarter notes and half notes, all at a piano dynamic and all marked with tenuto lines. A third timbral texture occurs in the xylophone, which sporadically chimes in every other measure or so. This texture
continues and is passed around to different instruments, later adding pizzicato strings and harp glissandos to further add to the timbral
polyphonic texture. Schnittke said that “only when a timbral dissonance is prolonged can the ear gradually come to fix all its components.”81 In this case, so many different timbres sound
simultaneously for so long, one cannot help but separate them and listen for each individual component.
Timbral modulation is a gradual transition between timbres. Schnittke
uses the example of the second movement of Brahms Symphony No. 1 to illustrate his point. In the excerpt, the theme seamlessly transitions from the oboe to the clarinet. Brahms achieves this effect by having the clarinets enter the texture four beats before the oboe stops playing.
Example 18: Brahms Symphony No. 1, Op. 68, Movement 2, Measures 38–46.82
Schnittke uses Brahms’ technique throughout the Viola Concerto and does so quite effectively, especially in the sections where the viola plays alone. The solo viola is sounding through almost the entire concerto, so it is the perfect instrument to bridge the gap between different timbres. For example, at measure 92 in the third movement, the trombones and horns are holding long, soft chords, whereas the viola plays soft, accented chords underneath. By measure 96, the timbral role of the brass has shifted to include the strings playing tenuto eighth notes at a mf dynamic and to the tam-tam and piano playing mp chords, whereas the viola now plays fortissimo, accented chords. There is a single measure, measure 95, which lies between these two timbres. This measure, which consists of solo viola accented chords and a gradual crescendo to a fortissimo dynamic, acts as a timbral modulation between the two sections. It grows in dynamic to allow for the louder dynamic printed in the other instruments at measure 96, and the viola part essentially consists of the same
Example 19: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 3, Measures 92–98.83
A timbral scale is a progression of changing timbres that ultimately aims to unify all of the timbres into a coherent group. While Schnittke says that “an infinitely differentiated scale of interpolating sonorities, which move one to the next and which include every imaginable
richness from the world of sound, can be conceived only in theory,” he still makes use of the timbral scale in the Viola Concerto to the extent that is possible.84 One example of this occurs from measures 72–95 in the second movement. The timbral scale begins with the solo viola, tuba and cembalo, and viola section. Later, more strings are added, and the tuba is replaced with a trombone and contrabassoon. The register and dynamics continue to grow higher, and the higher winds are added in measures 88 and 89. By the end of the scale, almost all of the winds, brass and strings have joined in. The timbral group,
therefore, consists of the winds, brass, strings and cembalo (which plays throughout), but the gradual shift from instrument to instrument in the section acts as a rising timbral scale, showing as much as
possible each possible sonority.
Example 20: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 2, Measures 86–90. This is a segment of a timral scale. In this case, the lower brass and woodwinds are beginning to drop out. They are exchanged for
woodwinds in higher registers.85
One of Schnittke’s goals, according to his writings, was to make timbre as much a part of the structure of a piece as pitch and rhythm—and
certainly the structure of Viola Concerto can in part be analyzed on the relation of timbre and thematic material that help create a work’s form. In Schnittke’s words:
“The analogy between timbral and pitch organization of music lies in the fact that in both cases there exists the possibility of a functional system with a scale of nuances and gradual modulations. But it is also revealed in the possibility of consciously avoiding traditional
functional logic. It is no accident that the move away from the overt gravitational tendencies in functional tonality toward the concealed polysemantic pitch associations of atonalism should have been
accompanied by a similar move away from more conventional timbral affinities among orchestral groups, and toward daring combinations of instruments that at first appear unrelated.”—Alfred Schnittke86
Formal Breakdown and Analysis of Major Themes in Each Movement
Movement 1
The first movement of the Viola Concerto represents Schnittke’s life before the stroke that occurred shortly after writing it. It is by far the most stable of the three movements in terms of form and pitch structure. First, the movement can be easily organized into a traditional ternary form, which cannot be said of the second and third movements. The first movement’s stability is centered on a single pitch – A. Finally, the material is shorter and simpler than the final two movement, in general but not entirely
symbolizing Schnittke’s life before the stroke.
Form
The presence of specific musical characteristics shape the movement’s ternary form. These features are: the repetition of the stable pitch A; secure held chords; a descending chromatic line, a trope associated traditionally with pain; and a trill figure with energy. They each have a distinctive pitch collections and orchestration.
Analytic comment on prominent musical features
THE REPETITION OF A
A is the most prominent sounding pitch in the first movement. The first note, a G#, highlights the pitch by acting as an upbeat into the pitch A which sounds in both the orchestra and solo viola. Moreover, for the majority of the opening, the cello drone on the A is the
highest sounding pitch.
Example 21: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 1–887
The beginning of the Bashmet theme in the viola includes a double-stop B-flat and A. Thus, although Bashmet’s name (in encoded musical notes) begins with the B-flat, the A is present. It is also the longest sustained pitch in the entire Bashmet section (measures 17– 28)
Example 22: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 17–20.88
An A is also present at the beginning of the B section (measures 29– 37) for the first two measures. The remainder of this section does not sound the actual pitch A, but it does dance around it. For
example, the descending chromatic line of that section descends to an A# and then bounces back to a B, as if avoiding the tonal center. Then, the minor third jump to a G# in the transition (measure 37) and the following G# act as a “leading tone” to the A (measures 38– 50).
Example 23: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 29–37.89
Measures 38–50 is the climax of the movement in terms of volume and register—and it begins and ends on an A in the solo viola.
Beginning of section:
Example 24: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 38–46.90
End of section:
Example 25: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 47–50.91
The following trill motives in the viola all lead to an A
Example 26: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 51–52.92
The final four measures in the first movement, which bring back the opening motive, begin with A as a central pitch. Again G#
crescendos into an A in the solo viola like at the opening of the work. Schnittke could have ended the movement there, but instead, he adds the final two measures as a mini-coda and transition into the next movement. Specifically, in the final two motions, As leap to A#s in the solo viola – sounds that are quite unsettling as a conclusion for the movement because the A# is a half-step above the central pitch A, leaving the movement sounding unresolved on its final note. For
this reason, the final two measures clearly act as transition material into the next movement.
Example 27: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 57–6093
HELD CHORDS, CHROMATIC DESCENTS, TRILL FIGURES
Group 1: Measures 1–12
The held chords begin at the start of the movement in the violas, cellos and double basses. Held chords acting as pedal tones are a common characteristic of Schnittke’s late period, and he makes such frequent use of them in the Viola Concerto that they become an important musical idea used throughout the concerto.
The solo viola line begins with a four-measure idea consisting of large melodic leaps, a theme that returns again in the final four measures of the movement. Shortly thereafter, while the string section is still holding their chord, the viola comes in with a four-measure descending chromatic line, combining two of the major themes early
on in the piece. The section ends with another series of melodic leaps in the viola.
Example 28: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 1-894
Group 2: Measures 13–16
This section consists of a descending melodic line in the solo viola. No other instruments play at this time. The note values become smaller as the line descends, creating for the listener a false sense of moving forward in tempo. This line indicates a sense of forward direction, and therefore, acts largely as a transition.
Example 29: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 13-1595
Group 3: Measures 17–28 (the Bashmet theme)
This unit marks the first time that Schnittke spells
Bashmet’s name encoded in notation. As mentioned above, Schnittke uses is B-flat – A – E-flat – C – B – E. The opening double-stop of a minor second – A and B-flat opening the subsequent section echoes the idea of the A as the most prominent pitch in the movement. It then moves to the A-natural alone and continues the pattern through
syncopated, irregular rhythms.
Bashmet’s name is spelled out in the first four measures, which continues in a similar pattern of melodic leaps abundant in tritones and other dissonant intervals (major sevenths and minor ninths, for example). The major
sevenths and minor ninths reiterate the intervals in the solo viola at the opening of the movement and will frequently recur as melodic intervals throughout the
piece.
Example 30: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 17-20.96
Group 4: Measures 29–37
Here, the orchestra drops out again, leaving just the solo viola. The entire section, save the final measure, consists of double-stops. Yet measures 29–36 are entirely a
chromatic descending line – one of the major ideas returning from before, again in the viola solo. The final measure of the section, measure 37, includes another large melodic leap in the viola (a major 7th) that not only brings back that idea but also acts as a transition into the next section.
Example 31: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 29-37.97
Group 5: Measures 38–50
This excerpt is similar to section two in that it is another example of a chromatic descending line, gaining speed in its descent through the quickening note values. This time, unlike section 2, it includes nearly the full orchestra. This is the first time that any instruments other than strings play in the piece, and it is a climactic moment in the movement. The section also includes held chords in several of the instruments, most of which are difficult to decipher due to the huge amount of sound produced in the section (everyone is either at a forte or fortissimo
dynamic). This section also includes heavy, dissonant, repeated chords in the strings that ascend chromatically. These chords are leading up to an A, the central pitch of the movement, while the solo viola goes down in pitch. They eventually wind up together, cadencing on A at
Example 32: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 38-46.98
Group 6: Measures 51–60
After the previous section introduced the other instrument families en masse, this section separates them into
individual subsections, with keyboard instruments
incorporated at short intervals as well. First, the solo viola comes in with the trill motive, a subtle introduction to a
major theme that is expanded upon in the second and third movements. This theme in the later movements comes from the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 2 [See Example 7], but is not an exact quote at this point. The pitch pattern is the same, but the rhythm is different.
In measures 53 and 54, some of the winds come in with the viola trill motive, including English horn, clarinet, and bassoon. The next two measures introduces the brass, two trumpets and two trombones, with the solo viola, the first measure of which also has a cembalo chord. The final four measures bring back the strings and the introductory idea of melodic leaps in the solo viola, with a piano chord in the penultimate measure.
Example 33: Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Movement 1, Measures 51-52. This is the first time the trill motive is introduced in the Concerto. 99
Movement 2
The second movement symbolizes Schnittke’s life at the chaotic time of his stroke. As mentioned above, the stroke was so severe that he was pronounced dead on multiple occasions. The shift to a faster tempo and more technically challenging writing symbolizes the struggles that came along with his illness. Additionally, the use of mixed meter, hemiolas, and sporadic accents throughout show the cessation of a normal, functioning circulatory system. The references to The Rite of Spring further
demonstrate this arrhythmic heartbeat, since the “Augurs” chord
demonstrates a lack of a regular pattern of accents. The use of polystylism further contributes to the idea of chaos, as many unrelated styles of music are juxtaposed throughout the movement.
Musical Ideas
The second movement is drastically different in character from the first. However, three main ideas from the first movement and some of the smaller themes as well, are expanded upon throughout the movement. In addition to the Bashmet melody, descending chromatic line, the trill motive, and long, held chords, the second movement includes two other new
1. Repeated chords that emphasize a rhythmic pulse, often referencing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
2. An alternative, chromatic melody to contrast the Bashmet melody. This occurs, for example, in measures 293–306 in the horns and trumpets.
The second movement is the longest movement of the piece by number of measures (the third movement is longer in duration due to its slower
tempo), and is the only one that has a prolific use of polystylism with references to the music of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Chopin and others. In order to effectively parse the movement for analytical purposes, I have divided it into 17 large groups with 40 smaller subsections. The groups indicate different themes or ideas that are used, while the 40 subsections indicate changes in instrumentation, timbral harmony, and timbral form.
Group 1:
crossing necessary to reach them with the bow. Schnittke also writes accents on the first sixteenth note of each half note pulse to ensure the affect he wants.
This section begins with the solo viola, but the piano and low strings come in on the second beat of the third measure, and they reintroduce the Bashmet melody, spelling out his name in a powerful, low register with accented notes at a forte dynamic.
Group 2:
Group 2 emphasizes the two ideas unique to the second movement. First he repeated chords are presented in the orchestral strings and piano in short quarter and eighth notes patterns with accents on the downbeats. The solo viola continues by arpeggiating these chords, in an altered version that is more melodious. Secondly, the new, chromatic melody begins to emerge, one that will reoccur several times throughout the second and third movements. This line is analogous to the Bashmet melody in that it is full of large leaps, but it has a different pitch structure – one that is equally
chromatic. This melody is only hinted at while the horns play a hollow, rhythmically simple series of dissonant intervals.
Group 3:
harmonies are more complex, and the notes change faster and more
frequently than they did initially. The cembalo helps to emphasize the beats by playing quarter note chords. Meanwhile, string section has trills
throughout this group, although they are different from the trill motive since the trills are continuous throughout the section and do not resemble the Beethoven motive. The Bashmet theme also occurs in this section, this time played by the tuba.
Group 4:
Group 4 is very similar to Group 1 in terms of thematic material, except it excludes the Bashmet theme in the piano. This unit is purely
focused on the repeated chords with rhythmic emphasis. The pulse is set in motion by a waltz-like bass, playing in ¾ meter with the tuba having tenuto downbeats and trombones performing staccato quarter notes on beats two and three. This waltz theme is very much in the style of Schnittke’s later works, as his late period is often described as being reminiscent of early Viennese music.
Group 5:
well, consisting of changing timbres through staggered entrances,
highlighting the timbral distinctiveness of each combination of instruments used.
Group 6:
This unit frequently utilizes repeated chords for rhythmic emphasis. The strings play short, heavy chords on the quarter notes in 3/2 meter. However, this pattern is alternated with triplet patterns in the viola and cembalo. These triplet patterns emphasize the three beats in each measure, which are accented with triple stops in the viola that are doubled in the cembalo.
Group 6 combines allusions to both Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and a waltz rhythm. The rhythm in the cembalo and viola solo is essentially identical to the second of Franz Schubert’s 12 Valses Nobles, D. 969 [See Example 12]. This waltz rhythm alternates with heavy, repeating chords with sporadic accents in the strings, like that of “Dances of the Youths and Maidens” Fin The Rite. Also like passages in The Rite, these sections consist of polychords. The Rite’s renowned “Augurs” chord has two chords
Example 34: The Augurs Chord from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.100
Group 7:
Group 7 has significant rhythmic emphasis, expanding the waltz
rhythm into a hemiola that no longer resembles a waltz in the keyboard and viola. These instruments play staccato, quarter note triplets with accents on every other quarter note, whereas the tuba plays a legato line with regular quarter and half notes. The polyrhythm displayed in this section – that is, the unusual timing between the hemiola accents and the tuba quarter notes – projects an unsettling feeling. This kind of complex, mixed-meter material is common in Stravinsky’s writing. This unsettled feeling also makes sense given that this section is quite timbrally dissonant. It is one of the most dissonant passages in the entire piece, not just in pitch, but in rhythm and timbre as well.
Group 8:
Group 8 returns to the sixteenth notes outlining repeated chords in the viola. It is very similar to Group 4 except that it contains more melodic leaps in the winds, foreshadowing what is to come.
Group 9:
Group 9 is essentially an offshoot of the wind material presented in Group 8. It includes several melodic leaps and acts as a transition into Group 10.
Group 10:
This group brings back the descending chromatic line with a built in accelerando.
Group 11:
Group 11 focuses on the trill motive, which is passed around between different soloists in the orchestra and the solo viola. This event also occurs at the very center of the piece (in terms of measure numbers). Here, the pitch A returns as a center, recalling the first movement and acting as a precursor of events in the third movement.
motive was originally only played on the piano, the motive in this section is passed between the solo viola, bass, trombone, cello, and flute. Schnittke also incorporates a stereotypical Chopin piano bass line in the piano part – the shape of line seems to specifically recall Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu, op. 66 [See Example 5].
Group 12:
Group 12 is analogous to Groups 1, 4 and 8 in character, with a slightly varied timbral makeup. This section acts as a recapitulation, since the material from the beginning of the movement comes back in the solo viola.
Group 13:
Like Group 2, Group 13 constitutes large leaps in the melody that resemble the original Bashmet theme, with steady quarter note pulses emphasizing larger beat patterns in the accompaniment. Again, the time signature starts as 3/2, so beats 1 and 4 are accented in many of the
accompanying lines. Similar accents occur on strong beats when the meter changes throughout the section.
Group 14:
outlining strong rhythmic beats in the solo viola and the steady rhythmic quarter notes in the accompanying lines. Group 14 also brings back the simultaneous mixture of duple and triple meter, which occurred in Group 7.
Group 15:
Group 15 is the viola cadenza using many of the themes from this movement (i.e., the repeated sixteenth note chords and large melodic leaps of the Bashmet theme). The passage also brings back some of the melodies from the first movement and elaborates on them rhythmically and
melodically. Finally, the cadenza acts as a precursor of ideas in the third movement. For example, the long held pitches played against pizzicati is rhythmically and texturally very similar to an idea that begins in Group 3 of the third movement. Moreover, the bowed and pizzicato pitches allow for timbral variation even though only one instrument is playing. In these ways Group 15 functions as a timbral modulation into the next section.
Group 16:
Group 16 resembles Group 5 in the first movement. They have similar concluding sections, each bringing together numerous instrument groups. In terms of timbral form, these sections occur at the climax of each
movement. This is the point of total timbral dissonance, with every instrumental group playing at once, all with varied rhythms and
dynamic climax of the movement, with every instrument at either ff or fff dynamics. This section also happens to be the only time in the entire piece where the solo viola is not present.
Does this represent the experiences of near death during the stroke?
Group 17:
The final group in this movement, like the ending of the first
movement, acts as a coda. It contains elements similar to previous themes – the long, held chords return here and the steady repeated quarter note pulses continue to the end. The passage has a morendo quality, as the dynamics gradually grow softer, and the solo viola’s pizzicato notes grow further and further apart, giving a sense of slowing down—the pain and fury are over.
Movement 3
