He Knew He Was As Good As Gone
Speaking of Schnittke, I went to a performance a couple of nights ago of his Piano Quintet (along with some of pieces as well - Mahler's Piano Quartet in a minor (the one movement), Schnittke's "Mahler Scherzo," and Shostakovich's 3rd String Quartet) by the Spectrum Concerts Berlin (an association of players-of-chamber-music at the Chamber Music Hall of the Philharmonie (featuring, this concert, the strangely-familiar-to-me-looking Janine Jansen (someone help - who does she look like?)). The Piano Quintet is the obvious highlight, although it's hard to be too excited about a piece that is so unrelentingly despairing.
The Mahler + Schnittke's Mahler-extension worked really well as a preperation for the Quintet - though Mahler's own movement is something of a throwaway (interesting, perhaps, because it's first theme wound up in one of his symphonies, didn't it (the 5th, maybe?)?), but Schnittke's Scherzo is certainly a cousin of his Quintet, in the way that it worms its way around and through the tonal world that is initially established. I'm no Scnittke scholar, but I do think that he, at least in these two pieces, found a very effective utilization of what is essentially a post-Romantic vocabulary - as much as one finds oneself hearing searing clusters of notes, the tension and incise of those highly abstract-and-dissonant gestures are only hightened by the eventual return to the common-practice idiom. (Though, I would mention, that it's writing sentences like that that makes me generally wary of ever actually writing much about "music" on the ol' blog here.)
With that, then, I am aware that there is some opportunity to interpret the last movement (though the piece is played without pauses) of the Piano Quintet as being hopeful, what with the potential "happy" connotations of its tonal gestures and all, but to me, especially as the snippets of that-which-has-come-before surface throughout the passacaglia, there is actually little room for release-of-tension or capitulation of the previously unhappy. Such that the returns-to or reminders of common-practice tonality become de-stabilizing. Also with it's dare-I-say-Feldmanian refusal to leave it's texture, tempo, and atmosphere throughout - where even the waltz is only a minor variance in pace and procession, the piece remains very (post-)Romantic in its this-is-how-I-am-saying-what-I-am-saying-ness. I think this was a good performance - it was hard to applaud too much, initially, since the music is genuinely despair-inducing.
After half time - which included free box wine (and no matter how fancy and/or award-winning the box wine is (though I think the award was for the box and not the wine), it's always, as Frank Sanchez will tell you, box wine) - through the first three movements of the Shostakovich (and, did you know? The British don't refer to Schostakovich pieces as "Shosty 6 (or whatever Symphony number)" but rather as "Shost 6" - or do I only say "Shosty" because Nate (our resident Shostakovich Fachidiot) started saying "Shosty K" in the fashion of Burgess's Alex saying "Benjy Brit" and in fact no one outside of the mild interesters says Shosty (I'm suddenly at a loss to remember (5 + 5 + 5... + 5... - 5) what Americans say to refer to Dmitri K )) I was wondering what it was doing on the program. It sounds like pretty typical Shostkovich String Quartet fare to me - in fact, I think it's a good example of how/why Shostakovich invites the kind of fanaticism that has infected Nate since he was, what? 16?: I think to differentiate this Shostakovich from a lot of other Shostakovich, it requires an attention to detail and nuance that I think not everyone gets the bug to devote.
But with the fourth movement of the Shost SQ-3, it became apparent what it was doing there. That's a great movement of music - clearly a cut above the three movements that precede it. Also rather "sad" but effective music. I guess any given Mahler-Shostakovich-Schnittke programming will work well enough, given the obvious affiinities the composers had for each other, but it was nice to end up having a concert that worked so well, despite it's generally depressing outcome. (As positive a depression as one might have evoked, I suppose.)
The Mahler + Schnittke's Mahler-extension worked really well as a preperation for the Quintet - though Mahler's own movement is something of a throwaway (interesting, perhaps, because it's first theme wound up in one of his symphonies, didn't it (the 5th, maybe?)?), but Schnittke's Scherzo is certainly a cousin of his Quintet, in the way that it worms its way around and through the tonal world that is initially established. I'm no Scnittke scholar, but I do think that he, at least in these two pieces, found a very effective utilization of what is essentially a post-Romantic vocabulary - as much as one finds oneself hearing searing clusters of notes, the tension and incise of those highly abstract-and-dissonant gestures are only hightened by the eventual return to the common-practice idiom. (Though, I would mention, that it's writing sentences like that that makes me generally wary of ever actually writing much about "music" on the ol' blog here.)
With that, then, I am aware that there is some opportunity to interpret the last movement (though the piece is played without pauses) of the Piano Quintet as being hopeful, what with the potential "happy" connotations of its tonal gestures and all, but to me, especially as the snippets of that-which-has-come-before surface throughout the passacaglia, there is actually little room for release-of-tension or capitulation of the previously unhappy. Such that the returns-to or reminders of common-practice tonality become de-stabilizing. Also with it's dare-I-say-Feldmanian refusal to leave it's texture, tempo, and atmosphere throughout - where even the waltz is only a minor variance in pace and procession, the piece remains very (post-)Romantic in its this-is-how-I-am-saying-what-I-am-saying-ness. I think this was a good performance - it was hard to applaud too much, initially, since the music is genuinely despair-inducing.
After half time - which included free box wine (and no matter how fancy and/or award-winning the box wine is (though I think the award was for the box and not the wine), it's always, as Frank Sanchez will tell you, box wine) - through the first three movements of the Shostakovich (and, did you know? The British don't refer to Schostakovich pieces as "Shosty 6 (or whatever Symphony number)" but rather as "Shost 6" - or do I only say "Shosty" because Nate (our resident Shostakovich Fachidiot) started saying "Shosty K" in the fashion of Burgess's Alex saying "Benjy Brit" and in fact no one outside of the mild interesters says Shosty (I'm suddenly at a loss to remember (5 + 5 + 5... + 5... - 5) what Americans say to refer to Dmitri K )) I was wondering what it was doing on the program. It sounds like pretty typical Shostkovich String Quartet fare to me - in fact, I think it's a good example of how/why Shostakovich invites the kind of fanaticism that has infected Nate since he was, what? 16?: I think to differentiate this Shostakovich from a lot of other Shostakovich, it requires an attention to detail and nuance that I think not everyone gets the bug to devote.
But with the fourth movement of the Shost SQ-3, it became apparent what it was doing there. That's a great movement of music - clearly a cut above the three movements that precede it. Also rather "sad" but effective music. I guess any given Mahler-Shostakovich-Schnittke programming will work well enough, given the obvious affiinities the composers had for each other, but it was nice to end up having a concert that worked so well, despite it's generally depressing outcome. (As positive a depression as one might have evoked, I suppose.)
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