Dedicated to Victims of War and Terror
Schnittke: Concerto for Piano and Strings;
Shostakovich: Chamber Symphony
Delos #3259

reviewed by Christopher Coleman
recorded at RTHK Radio 4 (Hong Kong), June 2001
for CD Gallery hosted by Emma Liu

Track 2: beginning--complete (3:15 quick cut-off))

 The spirit of Beethoven pervades this disc of Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony and Schnittke's Concerto for Piano and Strings, Dedicated to Victims of War and Terror . I can't listen to either of these works without thinking of the new dramatic sense of struggle, especially harmonic and rhythmic, but also in terms of register, dynamics and gesture, that Beethoven brought to music. This dramatic sense makes significant demands on the listener, causing him to become an active partner in the aesthetic event rather than a passive receiver, and twentieth century composers have accepted this gift from Beethoven with gusto--indeed, some might say altogether too much so. I don't think a listener can casually enjoy these works of Shostakovich and Schnittke, but they will certainly repay the effort spent in concentrating actively on them.

Track 4: fade in 4:05--5:47

In particular, the Chamber Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich is reminiscent of Beethoven's late string quartets. Both composers develop a slowly moving four-note chromatic motive in the context of a largely contrapuntal texture, while making contrasting excursions into more lyrical and dance-like domains. In fact, the Chamber Symphony began life as Shostakovich's Eighth String Quartet composed in 1960, and is simply an orchestration of that piece for String Orchestra. The quartet is dedicated "to the Memory of the Victims of War and Fascism", but given that the four note motive Shostakovich so plaintively develops is based on a musical abbreviation of his own name, it is clear that there is a tremendously important autobiographical aspect to the piece. Here is the beginning of that work; the first four notes of the piece make up the motive based on the composer's name, D Eb, C, B.

Track 1: beginning--fade out 1:18

Most listeners will find the Concerto for Piano and Strings by Alfred Schnittke more demanding and harder to understand at first listening than the Shostakovich. Schnittke, almost 30 years younger than Shostakovich, still wrote music full full of Russian lyricism and rhythmic excitement, but his harmonic language is more complex and dissonant than Shostakovich's, and the musical worlds from which he draws are more diverse. Indeed, at times Schnittke reminds me of Prokofiev gone wild, with touches of jazz and classical and folk music thrown in a musical blender flavored with sound mass, polytonality and other exotic contemporary tastes. Here is part of the allegro from the Concerto to demonstrate this point.

Track 7: complete--leads into track 8 at 3:20, then quick fade out

The performances on this disc, by the Moscow Chamber Orchestra led by conductor and piano soloist Constantine Orbelian, are above reproach. The depth of the string sound is gorgeous, intonation impeccable and rhythm stunningly precise. Orbelian is an excellent interpreter of this music, and has technique to spare as a pianist. All in all, the only problem with this disc is that it is rather short, at only 47 and a half minutes. But given the intensity of the music, perhaps that is appropriate. Let's close now with an excerpt from the very moving end of the Schnittke Concerto for Piano and Strings.

Track 10, as much as possible

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