Alfred Schnittke - Concerto Grosso Nos. 3 & 4 (Riccardo Chailly)

Information

Composer: Alfred Schnittke

• (01-05) Concerto Grosso No. 3
• (06-09) Concerto Grosso No. 4 / Symphony No. 5

Ronald Brautigam, piano
Viktor Liberman, violin
Jaap van Zweden, violin
Jap Spronk, oboe
Jan Piet Knijff, harpsichord
Robert Waterman, violin
Gerrit Jan Leuverink, viola
Saskia Boon, cello
Ruud van den Brink, piano

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Riccardo Chailly, conductor

Date: 1991
Label: Decca

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Review

Decca have sportingly given the competition 18 months' free run with Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5. But fine though the Gothenburg/Jarvi performance is, the new recording surpasses it.

In Schnittke's world expressive urge and structural constraint will never unite in total wedded bliss, but in the Fifth Symphony (for short) the thing they produce is certainly bigger than the both of them. I won't rehearse the description I gave in my review of the BIS issue, save to say that it progresses from Stravinskian concerto grosso, through Mantovani-with-a-nervous-breakdown pastiche (based on the teenage Mahler's unfinished Piano Quartet) to full-blown tragic symphony echoing archetypes from Mahler's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. The Concertgebouw, for whose centenary the work was composed, are on superlative form, and Chailly meets every interpretative challenge head-on. I particularly admired his pacing of the finale, which keeps the full force of horror at bay by a series of delaying tactics until a final paroxysm which can soberly be described as blood-curdling.

The quality of the invention places the Fifth Symphony far above the punk-expressionism of some of Schnittke's work (and that of his imitators). In my judgement it stands a real chance of outliving the Zeitgeist within which it was born. The Concerto Grosso No. 3, on the other hand, probably needs historical background knowledge of the kind so expertly and sensitively supplied in Gerard McBurney's insert-note. Here the jumping-off points are Bach (Brandenburg Concertos and Beethoven (Fourth Piano Concerto), and if the superb Concertgebouw performance does not wholly allay my doubts about the musical quality of the piece, this remains a superior coupling to the orchestral study Pianissimo offered by BIS. Both works are as magnificently recorded as they are played. In sum, if a single Schnittke CD is all your collection will run to, I would recommend it be this one.

-- Gramophone

More reviews:
https://www.allmusic.com/album/schnittke-concerto-grosso-no-4-symphony-no-5-concerto-grosso-no-3-mw0002032436
https://www.amazon.com/Schnittke-Concerti-Grosso-Symphony-Concerto/dp/B00000E4NN

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Alfred Schnittke (November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Soviet and German composer. Schnittke completed his graduate work in composition at the Moscow Conservatory in 1961 and taught there from 1962 to 1972 Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. Later, he created a new style which has been called "polystylism", where he juxtaposed and combined music of various styles past and present. As his health deteriorated, Schnittke's music started to abandon much of the extroversion of his polystylism and retreated into a more withdrawn, bleak style.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Schnittke

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Riccardo Chailly (born 20 February 1953 in Milan) is an Italian conductor. He studied with Franco Ferrara and became assistant conductor to Claudio Abbado at La Scala at the age of 20. Chailly started his career as an opera conductor and gradually extended his repertoire to encompass symphonic music. He was chief conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (1982-88), the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (1988-2004), and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (2005-16). He is currently music director of La Scala (2015-) and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (2016-). Chailly has an exclusive recording contract with Decca.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riccardo_Chailly

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