Classical Convert

Nielsen Out-Schnittkeing Schnittke

As part of my exciting foray into the compositional world of Nielsen (who is sneaking his way progressively further up my list of favorites every day) I’ve been listening a lot to his symphony No. 6, within which is a remarkably Schnittke-esque, in-your-face blurring of musical styles (or polystylism, as the cool kids call it.) Blurring probably isn’t such a hot description of it actually, it’s more like a smack in the face.

This is the kind of thing Schnittke does (taken from the second movement of his viola concerto):

And here is the section of Nielsen’s 6th symphony:

The Nielsen is even more surprising, in a way, because of the (comparably) reasonably normal tonality preceding the outbursts. It really jumps out at you. With Schnittke you’re always three-quarters expecting (Get it? It’s like half-expecting, but more so) something like that to happen. The Nielsen is one of the most sonically violent passages I know of from that time period - it was written in 1924/1925. I really like it. I love pieces which play off tonal order, versus disorder.