Schnittke’s Works

The young composer followed the “dangerous path” of avant-garde artistic experiments, which was not encouraged by the authorities. Avant-garde is the most radical trend in the art of the 20th century. The roots of that phenomenon began to declare themselves at the end of the 19th century. The meaning of this trend was a radical renewal of musical vision and artistic language. In the Russian music of the day, it was vividly reflected in the works of Alexander Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev and the early Dmitry Shostakovich.

So, at the certain stage of his creative development, having sufficiently mastered the skills of traditional music composition, Alfred Schnittke decided to comprehend all the secrets of a fundamentally new musical “technology” of the 20th century, which was associated with the ideas of modernism and Avant-garde art.

Art has its own laws: freshness and novelty of expression make up its aesthetic qualities. Schnittke, having clearly expressed himself in tangible, relevant music concepts that affected the most acute universal human problems, felt the need for evolution, which was one of the integral parts of his talent.

While developing his individual style, Schnittke strove for maximum responsiveness of his musical expression. He advanced along the path of a gradual complication of the musical texture.

The First Violin Sonata (1963) became the first avant-garde opus and a kind of springboard to the development of his personal style. The author treasured it despite the fact it did not quite work out, and adapted the sonata for a chamber orchestra in 1968. It can be understood: by “mixing” the Second Viennese School’s experience with the music originated in the art of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, he molded clear signs of his own unique style.

In the first period of his work Schnittke addressed to the inner world of an individual — moreover, a bright, extraordinary, artistic personality. The musician shaped a complex, precise, detailed and, sometimes, virtuous composition technique.

The composer began an account of his work from the First Violin Concerto, composed in 1957, when he was a fourth-year student at the Moscow Conservatory.