Classical Convert

Oh Schnittke, why are you so fickle?

A reason I think Schnittke is awesome (from the concerto grosso no. 2):

Or (from the viola concerto)…

And why he kind of pisses me off (also from concerto grosso no. 2):

Arrrgh! I can’t stand that strident, single-stringed rapidly falling motif which he uses in almost every movement of everything I have by him. It drives me crazy. I love the funky polystylism and weird stops and starts, and even a dash of microtonal whining, but he always ends up pushing it too bloody far. Pretty much every time I hear a Schnittke piece I wonder why I am not listening to it more, why it isn’t one of my favorites - and then it gets really painfully strident and I turn it off because my brain starts crying.

He still kicks arse though.

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.