Alfred Schnittke - Prelude in memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich (audio + sheet music)

Many of Alfred Schnittke's works deal with memory in some way, and more than a few seem to serve as memorials -- Shostakovich allegedly once called his symphonies "tombstones" for the private and public history of Russia, and Schnittke's music can be seen under a similar light, as tombstones for Russian history, but also for musical history as well.

These uncanny qualities are each exhibited in Schnittke's 1975 Prelude in Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich for solo violin and tape. Schnittke speaks about the work with a predictable mix of humility and irony. Upon being asked by friend and violinist Mark Lubotsky to write a piece for Lubotsky's last Moscow concert, Schnittke recalls, "I remembered that I had written my Canon in Memory of Stravinsky in one day, and so I decided to write a piece, just as quickly, in memory of Shostakovich. I managed to bring this off."

And yet, despite the Prelude's quick gestation period and modest five-minute length, it is a rich and complicated theatrical statement, densely furnished with an anagrammatic and gestural symbolism characteristic of Schnittke. The musical material arises from the development of Shostakovich's musical monogram, D/E flat/C/B (D-S-C-H in German notation), surely one of the most famous sound-signatures in Western music--Shostakovich himself used it consistently from his Tenth Symphony (1953) onwards.

This monogram is only one half of the material of Schnittke's Prelude, however; Schnittke employs another monogram, that of J.S. Bach's name, B flat/A/C/B natural (again, B-A-C-H in German). Here the symbolism is both practical and dramatic. It is practical, because the Shostakovich's monogram shares the same last two notes with Bach's, and thus facilitates harmonic and thematic development. Schnittke's combination is dramatic for two reasons: firstly, because Bach used his own musical monogram in one of his last (if not his very last) compositions, the last fugue of the Art of Fugue. It is thus a figure marked by mortality, if unintentionally so. And secondly, Bach constituted a tremendous father-figure for Shostakovich, a hallowed reservoir of musical techniques and aesthetic purity to which Shostakovich would return up to his very last works; this heritage would continue with Schnittke's own works, in which the spirits of both Bach and Shostakovich loom large.

The last, most theatrical element of the Prelude is its second musical "voice." While the actual stage should present only a single unaccompanied violinist, slowly unfolding a dirge-like Andante, another violin should begin to play about halfway through the piece. Schnittke writes that this part can be played either live by another amplified violinist, or else prerecorded and played back on tape; but in either case, this second part must remain invisible, like an omnipotent, omnipresent apparition. Schnittke's imagery is useful here: "The B-A-C-H theme appears as a kind of 'objective voice,' greater than all the previous material, absorbing everything into itself, including the D-S-C-H motif. A sort of 'return to origins' takes place."

Yet this "return to origins" is anything but a suggestion that Shostakovich is Bach's equal, or lesser. Rather, Schnittke wanted to avoid comparison in favor of a kind of musical genealogy, a tracing of inextricable creative roots in the face of human transience--an almost Catholic statement of consubstantiality, of the son "within" the father. Schnittke's position within this statement is also noteworthy: following Bach the devout Christian and Shostakovich the determined atheist lies Schnittke the uneasy Jewish Catholic, sealing an eccentric but extraordinary artistic trinity.

(AllMusic)

Please take note that the audio AND the sheet music ARE NOT mine. Change the quality to a minimum of 480p if the video is blurry.

Original audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7vzQ94nbEA
(Performance by: Clifford Benson and Lydia Mordkovitch, violins)
Original sheet music: http://en.scorser.com/I/Sheet+music/300177089.html

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