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Alfred Schnittke - Symphony No.8 - Concerto Grosso 6 - Stockholm Symphony Orchestra - G. Rozhdestvensky

Posted By: siouxsie55
Alfred Schnittke - Symphony No.8 - Concerto Grosso 6 - Stockholm Symphony Orchestra - G. Rozhdestvensky

Alfred Schnittke - Symphony No.8 - Concerto Grosso 6 - Stockholm Symphony Orchestra - G. Rozhdestvensky
XX Century Classical | 1 CD | Easy CD-DA Rip | APE, IMG+CUE, NO LOG | SCANS | 163 MB | Filesonic
Publisher: Chandos - records

The extraordinary religious feeling of the Eighth Symphony is no doubt a product of the decade of illness that preceded its composition. Schnittke had a series of strokes beginning in 1985 and refused to surrender to them, continuing his career and producing a notable quantity of excellent new music until his death in 1999. The composer acknowledged that this led him into contemplation of subjects beyond this world, and brought to the surface both his Christian faith and his Jewish heritage. This symphony was premiered in Stockholm on November 10, 1994, with Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducting.
The opening movement is in a passacaglia-like form, with see-sawing ostinato theme repeated twenty-two more times, sometimes in variant forms. For the first five repeats, the theme moves from one instrument to another. The sixth through ninth make up a restrained yet passionate climax. The eleventh is fugal. The harmonies change in the fourteenth variations (with a prominent part for harpsichord), moving onto a more mysterious plane. The rest of the movement turns more rarified, ethereal, with higher, more exotic sounds.
The second movement is a little faster and at first sounds like the ostinato of the first movement is continuing. But this turns out to be a related three-note figure that dominates the music. It seems to be witness to strange, sobering events.
The third movement, at nearly half the symphony's thirty-eight minutes, is a Lento, the centerpiece of the symphony. The music recalls the Adagios of Mahler's later works. The music is episodic, with recurrences of an important and very moving theme. Towards the end Schnittke makes a remarkable synthesis in a passage that combines Bruckner, Liszt, Brunnhilde's Annunciation from Die WalkŸre Russian Orthodox chant, and a predominantly Catholic spirituality.
Fanfares from the second movement return to launch the fourth, a five-minute fast movement, a very bleak evocation of Shostakovich's darkest music. The final movement, at two minutes, is essentially a coda. Eerie, otherworldy sounds usher the symphony off the stage in cryptic chords and a fading pedal point.

The hallmark of a concerto grosso (at least as Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke treated the old form) is the emergence of one or more solo instruments from a more impersonal collection of instruments. In this case the instruments are piano and violin. Schnittke wrote his Concerto Grosso No. 6 for the musical Rozhdesvensky family, and it was premiered on January 11, 1994 with Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducting, Vikoria Postnikova, pianist, and their son Sasha Rozhdestvensky, violinist.
The mood of the first movement is determined, ruthless. Attempts to stop the flow of the music are always answered by renewed motion, until the final chord, which sounds equally violent. The main theme sounds like it will be fugal, but does not develop that way.
The second movement adagio is for piano and violin without the rest of the ensemble. The dissonant tritone interval (a major feature of the first movement) recurs here. Efforts of the violin to be more conciliatory fail.
The third movement begins in a driving rhythm that relaxed momentarily until the arising of whirlwind motion. An effort to return to the more optimistic form of forward movement is broken by seven Andante measures for piano. Then the violin enters with a wail, followed by a crushing chord from the orchestra.

Tracks
01. Concerto Grosso No. 6 - I. Andante - Allegro 03:48
02. Concerto Grosso No. 6 - II. Adagio 05:01
03. Concerto Grosso No. 6 - III. Allegro vivace 05:46
04. Symphony No. 8 - I. Moderato 09:22
05. Symphony No. 8 - II. Allegro moderato 04:22
06. Symphony No. 8 - III. Lento 17:39
07. Symphony No. 8 - IV. Allegro moderato - Allegro vivace 05:11
08. Symphony No. 8 - V. Lento 01:51