WHAT ARE SOME OF THESE DECISIONS? // Alfred Schnittke - Gogol Suite // Composer Reaction & Analysis 

13:25 “It sort of feels like an album… and each song is quite different”. You are absolutely right. This suite was written based on music to theatre performance after the books of Nikolai Gogol, russian novelist. Each movement represents different short stories. For instance, Chichikov is main character of Dead Souls novel, The Portrait and The Overcoat are short stories

Schnittke definitely has a sense of humor, but he can also be deathly serious as well. I mentioned Shostakovich was a big influence and he had a similar temperament that loved the stark contrast between the emotional extremes of humor and heaviness. I do think Shostakovich tended towards a darker, more satirical, cynical humor, while Schnittke tends to be more genuinely jovial. I think that plays into his wide-ranging influences and more postmodern view in which all these styles are things to play and have fun with, and he very much does in this piece. He does have works that are more coherent than this or the Concerto Grosso no. 1, but the whole postmodern/polystylistic thing is one of the things that makes him pretty unique. If you want to hear a serious and more coherent Schnittke I do think the Piano Quintet would be a great next listen. It was written for the death of his mother and you can definitely hear the grief in it. Humor definitely has a place and long history in classical music. Haydn was a notorious musical jokester, perhaps most famously in his Symphony 103 where he inserts a bassoon fart at the end of a movement. Mozart had a lot of light, humorous pieces as well. Even the typically very serious Beethoven has The Diabelli Variations, which starts out very humorous/playful and only gets more serious towards the end. It's rather a shame that humor is something that's downplayed a lot in the teaching and perception of classical music.

Whatever one might say about Schnittke generally, this particular suite is absolutely in the spirit of Gogol's writing (as others have noted). "Ridiculous" is 1000% apt for Gogol. The "descending and sinking into the mire" is exceptionally Gogolian (and Russian) as well.

4:20 I'm hearing Haydn's Symphony No. 94 (second movement) here.

I'm currently sick with covid so I'll be saving the full listen for when I'm feeling better, but I wanted to drop in to provide a little context for this since I've listened through most of Schnittke's oeuvre and was the guy who recommended the last track (his Concerto Grosso no. 1) you heard from him. Similar with Shostakovich (Schnittke's fellow countryman and perhaps his biggest influence), Schnittke's work can be divided into two broad categories of "concert" works (intended to be heard/played in concerts) and "commercial" works (intended to accompany films and plays). Schnittke's writing differs between them, with the latter generally being more accessible and the former generally being more experimental. This Gogol suite belongs to Schnittke's commercial works, composed for a stage adaptation of Nikolai Gogol (I'm not sure which novel/story). It's probably Schnittke at his funnest and most playful, but still with an experimental edge. I haven't seen the play it was written for, but Gogol himself was notorious for combining dark humor with a kind of proto-surrealism, so a pretty good fit for Schnittke's artistic temperament (Shostakovich himself had written music for an opera adaptation of Gogol's The Nose). Personally, I generally prefer Schnittke's concert works, and even for his commercial works I prefer Peer Gynt to this (though it's much longer and written to accompany a ballet), but I think between this and his Concerto Grosso no. 1 you've gotten a nice selection of these two sides. Maybe his Cello Concerto no. 1 or Piano Quintet would be great to hear his more emotional/dramatic sides.

Kudos to your subscriber that recommended this. I'd known Schnittke by name (for having written one of the few viola concerti) but not really by music. This was fun, and I will listen to it a few times more.

this goes really well with Gogol writings, they are as bizzare and macabre as this, especially his short tales from the Ukrainian cycle which I highly recommend as Ukrainian myself, really disturbing folkish horror tales mixed with some goofiness and endless humor so typical to our people.

Thanks for doing this :) The suite form reflects Schnittke's indebtedness and fondness for Baroque era forms and ideas. His wonderful use of the harpsichord is the most obvious instrumental call back, but there's lots of contrapuntal use, fugue-like multilinear piling up, or the canon-like call-and-response (particularly at that spot you noted, where 3/4 and 4/4 were playing against one another while the piano maintained an ostinato). His amazing Concerto Grosso no. 1 is one of the most complete expressions of that (also featured prepared piano in a spooky way). For me, a very large part of why I like Schnittke is that connection back to the Baroque sensibility about music. Rodion Shchedrin as well, who followed Shostakovich's example and composed set of 24 Preludes and Fugues. I like to imagine that Schnittke's impatience with "classical" music is a critique of post-Baroque mis-steps.

Gogol is all about sarcasm, satire, absurdity and even mysticism, and the music tries to reflect it.

He is not trolling here: Gogol is a writer of the absured, Schnittke's music here seems to reflect this very well. Throwing something in that you would not expect, like some man's nose leaving his face and having a life of its own.

The passage you were looking for that is especially squiggly is in Mvmt VII "The Ball" at 18:47. Perhaps the world's only virtuoso Flexatone passage :) Also, I only heard this piece for the first time last night and as I said there, I have not experienced such completely musical delight in a piece in a long time. That part with the speakers, and the text from Gogol, brings him factually into the piece, and his spirit seems essential.

Please review his choir concerto. I’m no expert, but I feel like it’s definitely one of his more mature works

Absolutely LOVED THIS!!! Yes, amazing :)

Well... at least you keep referring to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (as a personal negative, but still 😊) Wonderful analysis of a very fun ("amusing") and exciting piece! And as always, I'm particularly enjoying when you get excited in a personal appreciative way.

You should check out Schnittke’s 1st cello concerto or his viola concerto if you get a chance!!

It's the first time I listen to Schnittke. He sounds like a Shostakovich v2.0. Is that a valid analogy?

Schnittke seemed like such an edgelord haha. I’ll always remember when he programmed a rendition of Silent Night and he harmonized the melody with tritone (from the tonic) in the bass, and violins often diverge into minor 2nds or minor 9ths. Like, he took this timeless, innocent pretty tune and made it “spooky” with funny sounding dissonances.

Yeah. Sounded like a variation on the famous "Beethoven's 5th" theme there in the beginning. Very playful take!

Haven’t watched yet but I’m curious. I’ve heard the composer’s name because I’ve heard Carla, the violinist of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, talk about him. Color me intrigued.

It's the prepared piano in the Ukrainian folk song. Easily a stand-out piece. Certainly feels like Schnittke stopped being strictly satirical and got earnest for a bit. Notably, Gogol was Ukranian, so that connects and motivates the inclusion, I suspect.