Mikael Bellini, a counter-tenor on this recording, initially trained as a piano technician before dedicating himself to singing.
Composition History
Alfred Schnittke's Requiem was composed as incidental music for Schiller's Don Carlos, intended to be celebrated invisibly in the background of the stage events.
Composition History
Alfred Schnittke's Requiem originated in 1975 as an offshoot of his Piano Quintet, which was dedicated to his mother, Maria Vogel.
Compositional Technique
Alfred Schnittke's Requiem is largely written in a tonal harmonic style, but its aesthetic spirit differs from more 'western' composers like Penderecki through insistent repetition and harmonically distant notes.
Performer Biography
Okko Kamu, one of the foremost Finnish conductors, won the first Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition in Berlin in 1969.
Composition History
The themes for Alfred Schnittke's Requiem were initially composed for a movement in his Piano Quintet, but he found them to have an exclusively vocal character.
Composer's Artistic Vision
The composer, Alfred Schnittke, believed that strict rules do not limit an artist, but rather their absence does.
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