Musical Time Travel With Schnittke

The 16 works that have been heard at the Alfred Schnittke festival's five concerts to date might best be described as a journey through European music as filtered and transformed through the composer's brain.


Virtually everything Schnittke writes has in it citations, or at least echoes, from the music of earlier composers. Starting with a brief imitation, for example, of Bach or Mozart or Shostakovich, the Russian composer inevitably takes off in a direction all his own, twisting and turning the underlying theme with one or another uniquely personal device. More often than not, the listener is left spellbound, wondering just where the composer will lead him next.


The inaugural concert on Oct. 2 opened with Yury Bashmet's eloquent reading of the "Viola Concerto," a somber piece with allusions to the music of Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler and Alban Berg.


Valery Polyansky and the State Symphonic Capella of Russia followed with an altogether stunning performance of the massive and complex "Third Symphony," written in 1981 for the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig. Drawing on a whole array of Germanic sources, from Bach to the present day, the work continues to startle and amaze, particularly in its long allegro movement, which might well bear the title, "A Wild Ride with Mozart."


More fine playing was to be heard Friday, when the Russian National Orchestra, under the direction of German conductor Frank Strobal, 28, coped brilliantly with the technical demands of the "Fifth Symphony," Schnittke's moving tribute to Mahler.


Earlier the same evening, Gidon Kremer, probably the most interesting violinist at work in the world today, pitted himself against the orchestra in the brutally demanding "Concerto Grosso No. 6" -- a first performance in Russia -- and, as an encore, offered the brief and poignant "Madrigal" composed on the death three years ago of Schnittke's close friend and collaborator, Russian violinist Oleg Kagan.


The level of inspiration, though not of performance, descended to some degree Sunday evening, when Gennady Rozhdestvensky and the State Symphonic Capella turned to two works more likely to appeal to performers than to concert audiences -- the repetitious, soporific "Fourth Symphony," based on liturgical music from both Russia and the West, and the raucous "Concerto for Piano Duet," which apparently draws its inspiration, though not its substance, from the concerto writing of Franz Liszt.


Following these somewhat grim proceedings, the evening did manage to reach a happy conclusion with Rozhdestvensky's arrangement of the marvelously bizarre dances and interludes that Schnittke wrote for a 1983 television film of Gogol's "Dead Souls."


Monday brought the composer's wife, pianist Irina Schnittke, to the Conservatory's stage for a probing exploration, in the company of six string players, of her husband's chamber music.


Played for the first time anywhere, Schnittke's "Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano" turned out to be a brief foray into dark neo-romanticism, interrupted by a half-crazed scherzo of thoroughly modern idiom. Violinist Mark Lubotsky, to whom this work, like its two predecessors, is dedicated, bore the lion's share of playing, which he carried off with both beauty and precision.


The high point of Monday's concert, however, was the Russian premiere of Schnittke's 1992 "Piano Trio," a work in two kaleidoscopic 12-minute movements, each grounded in the music of early 20th-century Vienna.


Of all the composer's recent creations, this is the one that seems most likely to achieve a permanent place in the classical repertory.


The Schnittke festival continues until Oct. 15 with another concert by the State Symphonic Capella, led again by Valery Polyansky.


The program will include the composer's "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra" -- with Dmitri Khudoley as soloist -- the orchestral version of his early "Quintet for Piano and Strings," and his cantata titled "The History of Doctor Faustus."


The Russian National Orchestra returns for the final concert Oct. 19, when an all-star cast of soloists -- Mstislav Rostropovich, Gidon Kremer and Yury Bashmet -- join with the orchestra in the world premiere of Schnittke's "Concerto for Three."


Although some tickets for the Oct. 15 concert are no doubt still available at the Conservatory box office, 13 Ulitsa Gertsena, the finale Oct. 19, with Rostropovich on stage, has long been sold out.


However, with luck, seats for the night featuring Rostropovich might possibly be found either through a ticket agency or at the Conservatory entrance on the evening of the concert.


The festival, which has drawn large and enthusiastic audiences, forms a part of celebrations being held this year in New York, London, Paris and Hamburg in honor of the composer's 60th birthday.