A Katz’s memories of encounters with Alfred Schnittke

Anatoly Iosifovich Katz, a Soviet and Russian pianist, composer and teacher, Professor of the Sobinov Saratov State Conservatory, the artistic director of the Regional Philharmonic named after Alfred Schnittke:

“Memory is an unreliable thing. They say Leo Tolstoy remembered even his own coming into the world. My memory is selective: I have a good remembrance of the events, but am completely confused about dates. This is where keeping diaries helps. There are a lot of gaps in my diary; some important events are recorded in a stupid and indistinct way. But every meeting, however brief, with Alfred Garrievich Schnittke was so important for me that I could not help leaving at least a brief record of each of them. There were only a few meetings in total: in Moscow, in Gorky and in Saratov. All meetings with the brilliant composer were impressive and memorable.

Four meetings with Alfred Garrievich, in no way allow me to be his close friend, naturally. He was a pretty private person, an introvert living in his own music world. But I do know his music quite well and think of Alfred Schnittke as my close friend.”

In 1981, in Saratov, before a concert in the Great Hall of the Conservatory, Alfred Garrievich wanted to listen to at least a fragment of the upcoming performance. I didn’t know the charts of “Improvisation and Fugue” by heart, so I was going to play the notes, and I said it frankly. “Yes, of course, ” he said, as if embarrassed. Words cannot describe what I felt. It is a shame to play an unlearned composition in the composer’s presence. But I started playing, made a mistake immediately, stopped, started over, stopped again and said: “Alfred Garrievich, let me play during the concert, I would be better.” “Yes, of course, ” he said again. At the concert I played quite vigorously, but, of course, there were some bad notes.