Schnittke: Symphony No.7/Cello Concerto No.1
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Music CD Cover
Performer: Alexander IvashkinComposer: Alfred Schnittke
Conductor: Valery Polyansky
Orchestra: Russian State Symphony Orchestra
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2000-08-22
Music Label: Chandos
Soundtracks:
- Symphony No. 7: I. Andante
- II. Largo
- III. Allegro
- I. Pesante
- II. Largo
- III. Allegro vivace
- IV. Largo
Free Music Notes for Schnittke: Symphony No.7/Cello Concerto No.1
Free Music Review: a strange, spooky symphony and a splendid concerto
Hit: 5 Stars
Schnittke's Symphony No. 7 may have the strangest form of any work ever to be called a symphony. Only 24 minutes long, it begins with two short movements (andante and largo), and then concludes with a 14'30 allegro. The piece begins with a 42-bar violin solo, and nowhere are the full orchestral forces deployed at once. The music sounds like a fearful walk through a dark woods, with shadows that might be monsters all about -- it's ominous and grotesque but verging on comical at turns as well. Penultimately there is a promising outbreak, a Brucknerian horn chorale, followed by a harsh response from the strings, and then a haunted melody from winds and trumpet. As the momentum subsides, the piece ends with a waltz played on tuba, contrabassoon and double bass.
The second work on this disc is nearly twice as long -- the "Cello Concerto No. 1," (40'), here played by Alexander Ivashkin. This is a tremendous performance, far surpassing the original recording by Natalie Gutman (see my review of the 1986 recording in the Moscow Studio Archives series). Ivashkin's tone is warmer and more lyrical than Gutman's, and Valeri Polyansky leads the Russian State Symphony Orchestra to a splendid performance, much better than that of Gennady Rozhdestvensky in the original. The composition of the "Cello Concerto" was interrupted by Schnittke's first stroke in 1985. He had left three movements, which he had to rework because he had forgotten it all, and that was supposed to be the entire work. But a wonderful fourth movement, a largo, came to him, featuring an absolutely lovely cello line. This is the best performance of one of Schnittke's finest works.
So far Polyansky has recorded Schnittke's Symphonies 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8 for Chandos, and they are of uniformly superb quality. I eagerly await Nos. 3, 5 and the as yet unrecorded 9! There are those who disparage Schnittke's symphonies, especially the late ones (see Gramophone's reviews, for instance) but given the quality of Schnittke's "late" 6th, 7th and 8th Symphonies according to MY ears, I hope we don't have long to wait to hear his last, Symphony No. 9.
It's a shame that the cover is not appearing on Amazon -- it is a stunning time-lapse photo of a falling, burning book and two hands, against a black background. I'm not ordinarily overly impressed with the Chandos art department, but this is one of their finest.
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