Schnittke Week – Hommage à Edvard Grieg, Symphony No. 8 (UK Première), Concerto Grosso No. 2 & (K)ein Sommernachtstraum

by 5:4

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Minimme

thank you so much for making this wonderful music week available to all – it was a very interesting read too 🙂

5:4

@sparkswillfly The recordings were simply taken from radio broadcasts, & I didn't create .cue files for them, so no, sorry! Glad you've enjoyed the Schnittke posts 🙂

sparkswillfly

Thank you a lot for sharing wonderful music and keeping up a great blog! Hard work, and I think its appreciated by quite a lot of people!

Thanks for the Schnittke posts. Do you know if there are any .cue files for the Schnittke records you've shared?

maready

Thanks very much for the entire Schnittke series, both for sharing the broadcasts and for your, as always, fascinating analyses and reflections. Thanks in particular for this broadcast of the 8th Symphony. I haven't yet heard the 9th, but it's frightening even contemplating where Schnittke might have gone after the 7th and 8th. The first movement of the 8th is a perverse and terrifying piece on its own, but it's that icily depersonalized slow movement that really chills my spine. Very nice description of this symphony in particular and thanks again for the broadcast; the acoustic is much better than the studio recording (Chandos?) that I have.

5:4

@Andrew – Thanks for your comment, & for the kind words • i was a little disappointed at the quality of some of the recordings (not sure what's happened to them over the years), but the performances were all outstanding, so hopefully that makes up for it •

Andrew

Just wanted to say huge thanks to you for putting up such a treasure trove of Schnittke's music. Quite a bit here that I don't know at all and a few more unusual pieces in amongst the more well known works like the Piano Quintet and the Concerto Grosso No. 1. I will be dipping into a fair bit and enjoying it over the next few days and weeks, I think.

Thanks again. Your hard work here is very much appreciated in this Schnittke enthusiast's house.

Christopher

Simon, I’ve been discovering the symphonies (yes, I know!) of Malcolm Arnold of late. Insofar as he’s remembered at all, Arnold tends to be pegged as a joker (Tam O’Shanter, et al.) and shameless populist (the film scores, his co-orchestration and conducting of Deep Purple’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra), but I’ve noticed interesting parallels between his and Schnittke’s nine numbered symphonies, particularly in terms of a similarly lacerating, “My life’s increasingly shit, so why should I pretend otherwise?” honesty from no.6 onwards in both cases, albeit that Arnold provides by far the “easier” listen. The closest comparator to Schnittke 8 is probably the psychologically hollowed-out soundworld of Arnold 9, but possibly the more disturbing listen is Arnold 7: on setting out to write affectionate portraits of his children (one per movement), Arnold finds himself unable to summon up anything nice to say about them, and instead ends up writing some of his most wantonly violent music.

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