Schnittke: Choir Concerto & Minnesang

Featuring

Stephen Layton
Rachel Gledhill
The Holst Singers
Alfred Schnittke

Did you know?

1/7

Composer's Artistic Vision

Schnittke stated about the Concerto for Mixed Chorus: 'I wrote music which was evoked by this text, but not the music I wanted to write,' indicating his deep responsiveness to the text.

Composition History

Voices of Nature (Golosa prirodi, 1972) was originally an episode from the music for the documentary 'And Yet I Believe' by Mikhail Romm, accompanying dreamlike scenes of nature.

Compositional Technique

The musical language of the Concerto for Mixed Chorus is extremely simple, based on traditional harmony and familiar melodic formulae of Russian Orthodox music, yet it contains typical elements of Schnittke's personal style.

Composition History

Schnittke's Concerto for Mixed Chorus (1984/5) is based on the third chapter of 'The Book of Lamentations' by the Armenian monk Grigor Narekatsi (951-1003).

Historical Context

Schnittke's strong interest in God and religion, a subject important to the Russian intelligentsia, was forbidden during Soviet times and often raised as a protest against communist ideology.

Compositional Technique

Minnesang (1980-81) was written for 52 voices, with Schnittke specifically instructing singers to be dispersed on and around the stage, or to perform the piece outside a concert hall.

Composer Biography

Alfred Schnittke, a deeply respected composer, unexpectedly shifted from radical avant-garde to a more conventional and simplified musical style in the early 1970s.