Compositional strategies in Alfred Schnittke s early polystylism

Transcription

1 University of Iowa Iowa Research Online Theses and Dissertations Summer 2016 Compositional strategies in Alfred Schnittke s early polystylism Solomon Fenton-Miller University of Iowa Copyright 2016 Solomon Fenton-Miller This thesis is available at Iowa Research Online: Recommended Citation Fenton-Miller, Solomon. "Compositional strategies in Alfred Schnittke s early polystylism." MA (Master of Arts) thesis, University of Iowa, Follow this and additional works at: Part of the Music Commons

2 COMPOSITIONAL STRATEGIES IN ALFRED SCHNITTKE S EARLY POLYSTYLISM by Solomon Fenton-Miller A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in Music in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa August 2016 Thesis Supervisor: Assistant Professor Jennifer Iverson

3 Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL This is to certify that the Master's thesis of MASTER'S THESIS Solomon Fenton-Miller has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Master of Arts degree in Music at the August 2016 graduation. Thesis Committee: Jennifer Iverson, Thesis Supervisor Robert Cook Nathan Platte

4 ABSTRACT The early polystylism of Alfred Schnittke demonstrates a gradual movement away from strict serialism towards a more mimetic music of quotations, allusions, aleatoric techniques, and tonal styles. This thesis investigates three pieces from 1968: film music for The Glass Harmonica, Serenade for Five Musicians, and Violin Sonata No. 2, Quasi Una Sonata. The first piece is analyzed as a clash of two ideas, the transcendent and the grotesque, which are exhibited in the music s allusions to J. S. Bach and the presence of twentieth-century aleatory and atonality. The various technical features of Serenade and Violin Sonata No. 2 show the importance of dodecaphony and motivic atonality as unifying procedures. Temporal and pitch indeterminacy are also prevalent but it is perhaps the fleeting tonal references that hint at how important appropriation of older styles would be for Schnittke s later music. ii

5 PUBLIC ABSTRACT The Russian composer Alfred Schnittke ( ) is most associated with polystylism, a term he coined to describe the combination of musical quotation, stylistic allusion, and original material. Schnittke s music contains surprising shifts from Bach-style chorales to excerpts of Beethoven to twentieth-century atonality and jazz. This thesis examines three early pieces by the composer: film music for The Glass Harmonica, Serenade for Five Musicians, and Violin Sonata No. 2, Quasi Una Sonata, all from The first piece is interpreted as a clash of two ideas, the transcendent and the grotesque, which are exhibited in both the narrative and the music. The technical features of Serenade and Violin Sonata No. 2 show the importance of modern compositional procedures. These pieces demonstrate that Schnittke was experimenting with references to the past while still unifying his serious music with systematic techniques from the present. iii

6 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Examples..v 1. Introduction...1 Background... 3 Literature Review Approaching Schnittke s Music The Glass Harmonica...22 Film Plot The Transcendent The Grotesque Film Narrative and Polystylism Serenade...50 Overview of Serenade One: Dodecaphony Two: Temporal Indeterminacy Three: Pitch Indeterminacy Four: Quotation Five: Stylistic Allusion Technical Balance in Serenade Violin Sonata No. 2 (Quasi Una Sonata)...76 Overview One: Dodecaphony Two: Motivic Atonality Three: Pitch Indeterminacy Four: Quotation Stylistic Allusion Technical Balance Conclusion References iv

7 LIST OF EXAMPLES Example 1-1, Schnittke s Film Work from the 1960s... 9 Example 2-1, The Craftsman, 2:24 in The Glass Harmonica Example 2-2, The Yellow Devil, 3:40 in The Glass Harmonica Example 2-3, Scene analysis of The Glass Harmonica Example 2-4, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, I, mm Example 2-5, Young Boy in Crowd, 2:44 in The Glass Harmonica Example 2-6, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, I, mm Example 2-7, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, II, Example 2-8, Transformation of informant, 14:31 in The Glass Harmonica Example 2-9, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, II, Example 2-10, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, III, mm Example 2-11, Couple at home, 5:48 in The Glass Harmonica Example 2-12, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, III, mm Example 2-13, Husband s eyes, 6:15 in The Glass Harmonica Example 2-14, Citizens dance around statue, 9:35 in The Glass Harmonica Example 2-15, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, III, mm Example 2-16, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, III, mm Example 2-17, Citizen s face in a window, 13:13 in The Glass Harmonica Example 2-18, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, IV, mm Example 3-1, Chart of compositional techniques in Serenade v

8 Example 3-2, Matrix showing all permutations of Serenade s tone row Example 3-3, Matrix showing row segments in Serenade Example 3-4, Serenade, Mvt. I, R. 10 and 11, row P9: [9,10,4,0,7,6,5,3,2,8,1,11] Example 3-5, Serenade, Mvt. II, R. 1 and Example 3-6, Serenade, Mvt. III, R Example 3-7, Serenade, Mvt. III, R Example 3-8, Beginning of Serenade, Mvt. I, R Example 3-9, Serenade, Mvt. III, R Example 3-10, Serenade, Mvt. III, R Example 3-11, Symphony No. 6, op. 173, Alan Hovhaness Example 3-12, Serenade, Mvt. II, R Example 3-13, Serenade, Mvt. II, R Example 3-14, Serenade, Mvt. III, R Example 3-15, Polymorphia, Penderecki, R Example 3-16, Serenade, Mvt. III, R Example 3-17, Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1, mm , key of D-flat Example 3-18, Serenade, Mvt. III, R Example 3-19, Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 8, mm Example 3-20, Serenade, Mvt. III, R Example 3-21, Serenade, Mvt. III, R Example 3-22, Serenade, Mvt. III, R Example 4-1, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm vi

9 Example 4-2, Violin Sonata No. 2, matrix used in mm highlighted Example 4-3, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm , violin part Example 4-4, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-5, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-6, Berg, Violin Concerto, mm , solo violin Example 4-7, George Perle s motivic cells in Bartók s string quartets Example 4-8, Cell x in Bartók, String Quartet No. 4, I, mm Example 4-9, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-10, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-11, Violin Sonata No. 2, beginning of m Example 4-12, Violin Sonata No. 2, m. 14, piano Example 4-13, Violin Sonata No. 2, second half of m Example 4-14, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-15, Violin Sonata No. 2, m Example 4-16, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm , Example 4-17, Webern, Symphony op. 21, Mvt. II, mm Example 4-18, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-19, Beethoven, Variations and Fugue in E-flat Major, m Example 4-20, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-21, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-22, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-23, The Glass Harmonica Suite, I, mm vii

10 Example 4-24, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm viii

11 1 1. Introduction According to Peter Schmelz, the premiere of Alfred Schnittke s Symphony No. 1 on February 9, 1974, in Gorky, USSR, was the event that put polystylism into practice. 1 The symphony combines quotations from popular songs, hymns, jazz, and classical works with serial, aleatoric, and strictly tonal music. 2 Evidently, it was an altogether shocking experience for the Soviet musicians and music devotees who attended. The Gorky Worker, an official party newspaper, stated that the symphony was innovative in form only, describing satanic evil without showing any positive way out. 3 Other contemporary reviews were mixed and the board of the Composers Union heavily criticized the symphony. Future performances were limited until 1986, when it was finally performed in Moscow and then in England, establishing itself as one of Schnittke s most recognized and remarkable compositions. 4 But what led up to the First Symphony s development and Schnittke s new compositional approach? How have scholars made sense of music that seems so persistently disjunct? In this thesis, I take up these questions by studying several of Schnittke s pieces from the late 1960s, all examples of music that anticipated 1 Peter Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw, (Oxford University Press, 2009), Christopher Mark Segall, Triadic Music in Twentieth-century Russia, (PhD diss., The City University of New York, 2013), Alexander Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1996), Alex Ross, Connoisseur of Chaos: Schnittke, The New Republic, September 28, 1992.

12 2 Symphony No. 1 both historically and stylistically: the film music for The Glass Harmonica (released in 1968), Serenade for Five Musicians (1968), and Violin Sonata No. 2, Quasi Una Sonata (1968). Schmelz characterizes Schnittke s early polystylism as a gradual move away from strict serialism towards a more mimetic music of quotations, allusions, aleatoric techniques, and tonal styles. He cites Schnittke s quote from 1964: It seemed to me that there was something not quite satisfactory with those techniques: the pretensions of the people who create it reached such an extreme that you might think that it guaranteed quality. 5 By identifying and analyzing the specific compositional strategies in these pieces, I will nuance Schmelz s trajectory of Schnittke s music. I interpret the film music of The Glass Harmonica as a clash between two opposing styles: the transcendent and the grotesque. For Serenade and Violin Sonata No. 2 I demonstrate the pervasiveness of dodecaphony and motivic atonality and the very limited use of tonal references, among other techniques. In this chapter I review Schnittke s biography and compositional trajectory, discuss the existing scholarly literature on Schnittke and analytical approaches to collage music more generally, and provide a summary of the main arguments and chapter outlines for the thesis. 5 Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw, 244.

13 3 Background Alfred Schnittke was born in 1934 in the city of Engels, USSR. 6 His father, Harry, and his mother, Maria were non-practicing, ethnically Jewish, Volga Germans. 7 Harry worked as a newspaper writer in Engels and Maria taught German. The family was ardently communist but faced growing anti-semitism during and after World War II. In 1945, Schnittke s father took a job for a Soviet newspaper in Vienna and the family moved a year later. Alfred showed an interest in music from a young age. He played the balalaika and mouth-harp at home even though his father didn t support these activities. When he was seven, he auditioned at the Central Music School in Moscow for gifted children but World War II began and he had to return to his parents. Thus, it wasn t until he was twelve in Vienna that he was able to take music lessons. His teacher, Frau Ruber, was a professional pianist who lived above his parents flat. Alfred was a quick learner and already knew he wanted to become a composer. He attended opera performances, concerts, and many free chamber recitals where he was able to hear the music of Mozart, Wagner, Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, and Stravinsky. The Schnittke family returned to Moscow in 1948 where Harry found work. Alfred began studying at the October Revolution Music College with the help of a recommendation from a family friend. He studied piano and then in 1950 began 6 Ivan Moody and Alexander Ivashkin, Schnittke, Alfred, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed Jan. 20, Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, 13.

14 4 private lessons with Joseph Ryzhkin, a well-known theorist. Ryzhkin taught him harmony, form, and composition, including the study of some newer music. Schnittke composed many pieces modeled after the music of Rachmaninov and Rimsky- Korsakov. His music was good enough that he was accepted into the Moscow Conservatory in That same year brought great change to Soviet culture when Nikita Khrushchev became First Secretary of the Communist Party. Censorship of the arts was diminished, part of a process now called the Thaw. 8 As Schmelz explains, this period saw a new freedom in literature, visual arts, music, and film that broke the boundaries of socialist realism. Young artists were able to work more abstractly, catch up on Western developments, and include aspects of social commentary in their art. 9 Nonetheless, musicians still worked in a restrictive environment compared to the West. Schnittke s experience as a young composer was often a complicated balance between artistic desire and official pressure. Schmelz describes the music of Schnittke, Andrei Volkonsky, Arvo Pärt, Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina, and others as unofficial, meaning music that was neither officially condoned nor outright banned. 10 These composers were all salaried members of the Union of Composers, under the Ministry of Culture. The Union controlled performances and publishing rights, policing the activities of its members but not usually banning music outright. 8 Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw, 3. 9 Ibid., Ibid., 20.

15 5 Schnittke generally fared better than his colleagues but was still under a considerable amount of pressure to conform to certain unspoken aesthetic doctrines. For instance, his Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra was allowed a successful Warsaw performance in 1965 but then criticized at an official discussion later that year. The unofficial composers often resorted to smaller clubs and homes for performances of their more innovative pieces. Volkonsky was the first of these unofficial composers to employ serial techniques. As a student in 1953, he was deemed too modernist and expelled from the conservatory, ostensibly for possessing scores by Schoenberg and Stravinsky. 11 The young composers were never quite sure how far they could push the aesthetic envelope while still being tolerated by the administration. Schnittke, several years Volkonsky s junior, was afforded a little more freedom. In his biography of Schnittke, Alexander Ivashkin details how the Moscow Conservatory composition teacher, Evgeny Golubev, supported Schnittke s creativity and advised him to write with variation. 12 Beginning in 1954, Schnittke had access to scores by Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, and Stravinsky. 13 He studied serialism but didn t often utilize the techniques. Schnittke said that at first dodecaphony seemed to me an extraordinarily easy method of composition. 14 His 11 Frans C. Lemaire, Volkonsky, Andrey Mikhaylovich, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed February 20, Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, Ibid., Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw, 233.

16 6 work at the Moscow Conservatory was more influenced by Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Kodály, and Orff. Schnittke wrote many chamber pieces at school, including six preludes, variations for piano, a suite for string quartet, and various other songs and choral pieces. His graduation piece was the oratorio Nagasaki. Schnittke submitted the piece to a festival for young composers organized by the Union of Composers. It was subsequently criticized for being too formalist, perhaps because it includes tone clusters that represent the explosion of the atomic bomb. 15 Despite the absence of an official aesthetic decree during the Thaw, the Union of Composers director, Tikhon Khrennikov, led the organization in a very strict and conservative manner. Soviet composers still needed financial support from the state during the Thaw, and were thus subject to the unpredictable and changing whims of the officials and boards serving under the Ministry of Culture. Schnittke and his colleagues were free to some extent to follow their artistic and creative interests, and had some exposure to Western modernist and even avant-garde music and discourses. However, they had to continually calculate their innovations and creative directions against both overt and subtle official pressures and expectations. Schnittke continued as a postgraduate student at the conservatory in His cantata Songs of War and Peace was successfully performed in 1960 and praised by 15 Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke,

17 7 Shostakovich, who called it a remarkable work. 16 This and Schnittke s electronic piece Poem about Space led to a positive reappraisal by the Union and he was commissioned to write an opera for the Bolshoi Opera. That opera, The Eleventh Commandment, was never performed because of its musical language, and the Union of Composers never accepted Schnittke as an official member. Instead, he began teaching part-time at the conservatory in 1961, though never as a full professor because of his turbulent relationship with officials. 17 In 1963 Luigi Nono visited the Soviet Union as a member of the Italian Communist Party. 18 He met with several of the younger Soviet composers, including Schnittke, and discussed contemporary Western practices. Schnittke was impressed and began to write strictly serial music, composing the pieces Music for Chamber Orchestra and Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra in These works were never performed domestically but were both successful abroad and eventually published. Through the mid-1960s Schnittke began to build a reputation for being an expert on modern Western music. He gave lectures on Stockhausen and Henri Pousseur and was criticized at least once by more conservative professors for teaching dodecaphony Alfred Schnittke, A Schnittke Reader, ed. Alexander Ivashkin, trans. John Goodliffe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), xv. 17 Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, Schnittke, A Schnittke Reader, xx. 19 Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, 87.

18 8 Despite his interest in serial and other avant-garde Western music, Schnittke didn t remain a serialist for long. He began to see disadvantages in the technique: It seemed to me that I was writing a sort of new, complicated form of hack-work. Of course, if you start the composition from only calculations then it is possible to substitute them for that real creative work that is connected with vagaries, with torments, with the incomprehension of how to proceed further, and with finding true solutions. 20 Schnittke began experimenting with aleatoric devices in his 1965 Dialogue for Cello and Seven Performers and then again in his 1966 Violin Concerto No. 2. The latter is based on a telling of the Biblical Passion in which instrumental groups represent characters in the story. 21 Schnittke s written narrative describes the violin soloist as Christ, the strings as the twelve disciples, and the solo bass as Judas. At the same time, Schnittke began to supplement his meager teaching income with outside work. Film composition was not under the jurisdiction of the Union of Composers and was subject to fewer official constraints. He wrote his first of sixty-six film scores in 1962, averaging three to four projects per year. 22 Table 1 shows films on which Schnittke worked in the 1960s. Despite this rather large output, he remained ambivalent about composing for films: when I was writing mainly film music (although I liked writing it and much of the work was very interesting) for fifteen years, I naturally still felt it to be my secondary task 23 The film work was perhaps more 20 Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw, Ibid., Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, Schnittke, A Schnittke Reader, 22.

19 9 important for his serious composition than he would admit. In fact, many of Schnittke s other pieces from the 1960s and 1970s contain material adapted from this work. 24 Title Year Introduction 1962 Aim the Barrage at Us 1963 Adventures of a Dentist 1965 Just a Little Joke 1966 The Commissar 1967 The Angel 1968 House and Owner 1968 Day Stars 1968 Used Cartridge Case 1968 The Sixth of July 1968 The Night Call 1968 The Glass Harmonica 1968 The Waltz 1969 Sick at Heart 1969 A Ballerina Abroad 1969 Example 1-1, Schnittke s Film Work from the 1960s The music for The Glass Harmonica was written in the mid 1960s, at the same time as the Concerto No. 2 (1966), Violin Sonata No. 2 (1968), and Serenade (1968). These pieces show the first signs of polystylism quick stylistic shifts, quotations, and musical allusions. Schnittke actually popularized the term polystylism himself, using it to describe his music and that of others in a 1971 essay. 25 He said that in the beginning, I composed in a distinct style, but as I see it now, my personality was not 24 Jean-Benoit Tremblay, Polystylism and Narrative Potential in the Music of Alfred Schnittke, (PhD diss., The University of British Columbia, Canada, 2007). 25 Schnittke, A Schnittke Reader, 87.

20 10 coming through. More recently I have used many different styles and quotations from many periods of musical history, but my own voice comes through them clearly now. 26 Though it is counterintuitive, Schnittke was in a sense saying that he created his own voice by appropriating material from many sources. He divided polystylism into two parts. The first he called the principle of quotation, by which he meant either exact quotation from another piece or partial quotation of some musical aspect, such as chord structure or form. The second is the principle of allusion, which he considered a more general borrowing of style such as used in neoclassicist pieces from the early twentieth century. Schnittke cited Zimmermann s Die Soldaten, Slonimsky s A Voice from the Chorus, and Berio s Sinfonia as examples of the successful use of polystylistic techniques. The last of these he considered to be particularly effective: [Berio s Sinfonia is an] apocalyptic reminder of our responsibility for the fate of the world expressed through a collage of quotations, that is of musical documents of various epochs, reminding one of cinema advertising in the 1970s. 27 Schnittke also began to prominently use the cryptogram BACH in his early music. This procedure involves employing musical ideas that correspond to words or names. BACH stands for B-flat, A, C, and B-natural in German musical notation. 28 This 26 Allan Kozinn, An Eclectic Mix, through a Contemporary Prism, The New York Times (22 May 1988), II, Schnittke, A Schnittke Reader, Paul Griffiths, "Cryptography," The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed May 28, 2016.

21 11 particular cryptogram, which references the music of J. S. Bach, has a long history of use by composers such as Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Arnold Schoenberg, and Arvo Pärt. 29 Schnittke situates himself in this line of composers by featuring the motif. Additionally, as will be apparent in later analysis, the BACH cryptogram can be flexibly incorporated into both traditional and modern compositional contexts. Schnittke s Symphony No. 1 from 1974 is one of his most aggressively polystylistic pieces. It is a mix of various styles and techniques, even including directions for the performers to exit the stage and return while playing a funeral march. 30 Schnittke continued with his Piano Quintet from 1976, which combined nontonal music with waltz and other popular styles. 31 He was at the successful premiere of his Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1977) in Vienna, during his first trip abroad in years. The piece juxtaposes Baroque form and style with highly chromatic sound clusters and sections of popular music. Schnittke s international reputation had been established by the early 1980s and official Soviet distaste towards his music begin to soften. 32 He traveled more and gave lectures inside and outside of the Soviet Union. His music also began to pull away from the disjunct shifts of his early polystylism. His Second and Third String Quartets ( "B A C H," The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed May 28, Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, Moody and Ivashkin, Schnittke, Alfred. 32 Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke, 162.

22 12 and 1983) are derived from quoted material but remain more consistent in style. And his later Second (1979), Third (1980), and Fourth (1983) Symphonies are polystylistic like his first but not as bombastic. Ivan Moody describes the Fourth as absorbing [Schnittke s] quoted material into the foundations of his own language. 33 Literature Review Alfred Schnittke became popular in the West suddenly. Richard Tiedman, writing for Tempo in 1992, explained that, Little more than a decade ago he was the province of specialists in the contemporary Soviet composers; over the last ten years the swing of the pendulum to the other extreme has been total. 34 While it is true that Schnittke became known in the West fairly quickly, English-language scholarship on Schnittke began slowly in the 1990s and then started to expand after about There is one biography, one collection of writings, and several books on Soviet art music after In the literature review below, I will focus on analytical research which includes only a few dissertations and a handful of published articles. Ivan Moody and Hugh Collins Rice provide two early overviews of Schnittke s composition. In a short article for Tempo from 1989, Moody situates Schnittke as the heir of Shostakovich: recent works have proved polystylism to be an efficient generator of that kind of alienation, expressed in ironic manipulation of various 33 Moody and Ivashkin, Schnittke, Alfred. 34 Richard, Tiedman, The ascendancy of Alfred Schnittke has been phenomenal, Tempo 182 (1992), See Ivashkin, Schnittke, and Schmelz.

23 13 stylistic elements, which Schnittke has taken over from Shostakovich. 36 Moody comments on the interrelated musical gestures of the Concerto Grosso No. 1, which serve as connecting points between quotations. He also gives an introduction to Schnittke s symphonies, mentioning how the first was radically disjunct and the others progressively more unified. In the following issue of Tempo, Hugh Collins Rice identifies the BACH musical cryptogram (pitch classes B-flat, A, C, B-natural which represent the letters of J. S. Bach s name in German musical nomenclature) and a few of its transformations in the second violin sonata. Rice says that procedures of this sort allow all the thematic material to be presented in all possible guises, and a complex network of resonances and relationships is established. 37 He also lists several quotations in Schnittke s String Quartet No. 3 (1983), from Lassus, Beethoven, and Shostakovich. Rice says that it is mainly the juxtaposition of material from Lassus Stabat Mater with chromatic tetrachords that give the piece a polystylistic identity. Ten years later, scholars began to approach Schnittke s music through more extensive analysis. Peterson s 2000 dissertation, Structural Threads in the Patchwork Quilt: Polystylistics and Motivic Unity in Selected Works by Alfred Schnittke, focuses on shared pitch-classes in the motives of several late polystylistic compositions. She explains that while the issue of unity may seem foreign to the conception of such 36 Ivan Moody, The Music of Alfred Schnittke, Tempo New Series 168 (1989), Hugh Collins Rice, Further Thoughts on Schnittke, Tempo New Series 168 (1989), 13.

24 14 works, Schnittke s music consistently uses motivic elements which cut across varying stylistic layers to form deeper level connections. 38 Peterson, as do many other Schnittke scholars, is searching for connections within a style of music that doesn t provide many. She demonstrates the effectiveness of pitch-class set analysis for Schnittke s music on several excerpts before more fully studying Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1977) and No. 3 (1985). In Schnittke s Concerto Grosso No. 1 she identifies set classes [0,1,3] and [0,1,4] as common trichords which appear often throughout the piece. 39 Peterson says that these are unifying elements but also admits that they are not the most audible or stylistically diverse components of the composition. 40 In the Concerto Grosso No. 3 Peterson shows how most of the themes are dodecaphonic. She also indicates the importance of several basic sets but spends most of her time on the appearance of the BACH cryptogram throughout the piece, calling it the structural thread in the piece. 41 Gavin Dixon presents several narrative readings of Schnittke s music in his 2007 dissertation. He frames his analysis using the concept of dialogue as developed by Mikhail Bakhtin. In a polystylistic work, this means that various styles serve as voices that interact with each other. 42 The exact meaning of these voices requires 38 Kirsten Peterson, Structural threads in the patchwork quilt: Polystylistics and Motivic Unity in Selected Works by Alfred Schnittke (PhD diss., University of Connecticut, 2000), abstract. 39 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Gavin Thomas Dixon, Polystylism as Dialogue: A Bakhtinian Interpretation of Schnittke s Symphonies 3, 4, and his Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5 (PhD diss., Goldsmiths College, 2007), 44.

25 15 interpretation. For instance, a quotation from the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 would represent Bach s voice whereas a generic Baroque chorale might represent the institution of the church. Dixon s analysis of Schnittke s Fourth Symphony approaches the work as the composer s perspective on various religious traditions. 43 He identifies four themes that represent the Orthodox, Jewish, Lutheran, and Catholic religious traditions. These themes are all structured in a form based on the prayers of the rosary (evidenced partly by an interview that Schnittke had with Alexander Ivashkin) 44. The rosary structure highlights Schnittke s fundamental commitment to Catholicism at this point in his life. Yet the combination of all four themes at the symphony s end represents his acceptance of their basic unity. Dixon concludes that The ending of the [Fourth Symphony] demonstrates that the work s multi-levelled stylistic heterogeneity is intended to highlight deeper spiritual unities. 45 Jean-Benoit Tremblay s 2007 dissertation takes a strongly narrative approach to Schnittke s Symphony No. 1, Moz-art à la Haydn, and Concerto Grosso No. 1. Tremblay posits that when listeners are confronted with stylistic jumps they will instinctively attempt to resolve them by construction of a narrative. 46 Tremblay offers possible readings for each piece, backed up by extensive study of Schnittke s manuscripts, 43 Ibid., Schnittke, A Schnittke Reader, Dixon, Polystylism as Dialogue, Tremblay, Polystylism and Narrative Potential in the Music of Alfred Schnittke, ii.

26 16 letters, and other writings. Some of the readings are based on programmatic sketches from Schnittke s private collection while others are entirely of Tremblay s own construction. He extrapolates narrative explanations from the music s many quotations, allusions, and stylistic shifts. For instance, in Symphony No. 1 Tremblay identifies nine stylistic features that he says need to be explained. 47 These features include popular music quotations, allusions to jazz and Baroque music, excerpts of Beethoven s Fifth Symphony, and a dodecaphonic series that provides the basis for the third movement. Tremblay narrates the piece as a struggle between the artist and the banal, each section representing various battles. He says that whether the composer had, or did not have, a program in mind for the symphony at the time of composition is irrelevant. Listeners will feel the need for one anyway. 48 There is some tension here between Tremblay s manuscript research and his focus on listener experience. The latter presents an intriguing perspective on polystylistic interpretation while the former seems to privilege an official interpretation based on a reconstruction of the composer s intentions through Tremblay s access to Schnittke s personal papers. Ivana Medić s two articles from 2008 and 2010 follow a similar strategy. Her first from the journal New Sound argues that the various quotations and stylistic sections in 47 Ibid., Ibid., 75.

27 17 Schnittke s First Symphony have narrative purpose. 49 She says that this symphony expressed the composer s protest against the devaluation of art and music. 50 Improvisatory sections follow more structured and tonal themes and thus, according to Medić, depict Schnittke s frustration and resignation at the state of contemporary music. The final movement, which contains no improvisation or aleatoric music, is a resolution of the tension from the previous movements as the artist overcomes the cacophonous sounds of everyday life. 51 Medić s second article, published in Slavonica, is I Believe in What? Arvo Pärt's and Alfred Schnittke's Polystylistic Credos. 52 Here she is concerned with polystylism as an expression of religious faith for two Soviet composers. She discusses the Credo movements from Schnittke s Requiem (1975) and his Second Symphony (1979), contrasting the two. In the Requiem she concludes that the layers create an eclectic synthesis that does not contribute to the liturgical narrative. 53 In the Credo from Symphony No. 2 she connects various stylistic sections with the text. The only movement based on a twelve-tone row corresponds in the text to Christ s death. This contrasts with his resurrection in a section of dense polyphony that depicts people running over one another in excitement Ivana Medić, The Dramaturgical Function of the Improvisatory Segments of Form in Alfred Schnittke s First Symphony, New Sound 32 (2008), Ibid., Ibid., Ivana Medić, I Believe in What? Arvo Pärt's and Alfred Schnittke's Polystylistic Credos, Slavonica, 16/2 (Nov. 2010), Ibid., Ibid., 106.

28 18 Most recently, in line with Peterson s work, Christopher Segall has approached Schnittke from a more purely analytical perspective. His 2013 dissertation examines, among other things, Schnittke s use of major and minor triads in his atonal works. He argues that Schnittke used triads in such a way as to intentionally avoid tonal function. In looking at Schnittke s music from 1974 to 1985, Segall identifies successions of triads based on four neo-riemannian relations. These include common roots with different modes (P), third-related harmonies (R and L), and chords with a common third but roots a semitone apart (SLIDE). Segall shows examples of these relationships in Schnittke s Hymn II, Requiem, and Piano Quintet. He says that his analysis allows the triads to be understood without recourse to polystylism, a historicizing practice under which Schnittke s triads have typically been subsumed. 55 Elsewhere Segall follows the descriptive approach of Rice in studying Schnittke s use of musical cryptograms. This technique, which Schnittke used in more than a dozen works, involves the encoding of names into notes, often of performers or composers. For instance, in the piece Klingende Buchstaben (1988), Schnittke converts the first name of his friend Alexander into the notes A, E, A, D, and E (using the musical letters of the name only). 56 He then used these ordered sets as the basis for motivic material, often in a serial context. 55 Christopher Mark Segall, Triadic Music in Twentieth-century Russia (PhD diss., The City University of New York, 2013), iv-v. 56 Christopher Mark Segall, Klingende Buchstaben: Principles of Alfred Schnittke's Monogram Technique, The Journal of Musicology 30/2 (2013), 253.

29 19 Approaching Schnittke s Music Clearly there are different approaches to analyzing music that is so aesthetically disjunct. The struggle of writing about twentieth-century music was addressed by Robert Morgan in a 1977 article in which he identifies music that doesn t fit into traditional analytical frameworks: pieces with aspects of chance, improvisation, serialism, quotation, and allusion. The scholar seems left to describe the surface of this music in a way that is unsubstantial. Morgan says that our whole notion of what analysis is, or should be, may require rethinking. 57 J. Peter Burkholder s answer is to create a typology for classifying musical borrowing. He presents twelve ways that Charles Ives used existing music, stating that seen in the context of a long tradition of musical borrowing, his approaches can be understood as continuing this tradition building on rich precedent, rather than breaking radically with the past. 58 His labels include common terms such as variations, paraphrase, and medley, but also patchwork, collage, and cumulative setting. 59 Burkholder gives primary analytical significance to Ives quotations, which seems like an appropriate and insightful approach to the music. He reveals the depth and breadth of Ives s borrowing practices without resorting to sweeping generalizations. 57 Robert P. Morgan, On the Analysis of Music, Critical Inquiry 4/1 (1977), J. Peter. Burkholder, The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing as a Field, Notes 50/3 (1994), J. Peter. Burkholder, All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses of Musical Borrowing, Yale University Press (2004), 3-4.

30 20 Catharine Losada s approach to twentieth-century collage music is to focus on connective musical material Her research shows the techniques by which composers Luciano Berio, George Rochberg, and Bernd Alois Zimmerman made convincing links between disparate source materials. 62 These include overlap, whereby a shared pitch or textural technique links disjunct elements; chromatic insertion, meaning moments of newly composed, intense chromaticism that blur the transition between quoted materials; and rhythmic plasticity, the technique of matching tempo or rhythmic patterns to smooth transitions. Losada also names a separate process called chromatic complementation in which various quotations and motifs do not share pitch material but gradually fill up pitch or pitch-class space until it is saturated. 63 Losada finds unifying aspects in the repertoire but she is careful to caution that disjunction clearly constitutes one of the irreducible aesthetic dimensions of these pieces. 64 I prefer to study Schnittke s music through an historical perspective, as Schmelz does in his extensive survey of Soviet music during the Thaw. My analysis considers compositional strategies individually without relying on a unifying narrative unless one is explicitly provided, as in The Glass Harmonica. When possible, I also situate each technique in the context of music with which Schnittke would have been familiar. 60 Catherine Losada, The Process of Modulation in Musical Collage, Music Analysis (2008), Catherine Losada, Between Modernism and Postmodernism: Strands of Continuity in Collage Compositions by Rochberg, Berio, and Zimmermann, Music Theory Spectrum (2009), Losada, The Process of Modulation in Musical Collage, Losada, Between Modernism and Postmodernism, Losada, The Process of Modulation in Musical Collage, 326.

31 21 Finally, I use Schnittke s own terms, quotation and allusion, to categorize his musical borrowing. Although Schmelz does not engage in detailed analysis, his overall characterization of Schnittke s early music largely agrees with this thesis. That is, these three pieces show evidence of a move away from serialism towards more aleatoric and mimetic techniques. 65 Nonetheless, I will nuance Schmelz s comments on each piece. In the second chapter, I offer a more specific interpretation of opposing styles in The Glass Harmonica (1968), the transcendent and the grotesque, which correspond to very distinct compositional strategies. The third chapter will contain an analysis of five techniques in Serenade for Five Musicians (1968), of which dodecaphony is perhaps more than just a necessary crutch for Schnittke. 66 Finally, the fourth chapter focuses on five techniques in Violin Sonata No. 2, Quasi Una Sonata (1968). While dodecaphony is not extensive in this piece, motivic atonality based on the BACH motif does provide another sort of systematic unification. 65 Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw, Ibid., 251.

32 22 2. The Glass Harmonica The Glass Harmonica (1968) opens with this caption: Although the events of this film are of a fantastic character, its authors would like to remind you of boundless greed, police terror, the isolation and brutalisation of humans in modern bourgeois society. Long ago a craftsman created a magical musical instrument, and called it: The Glass Harmonica. The sound of the instrument inspired high thoughts and fine actions. Once the craftsman came to a town whose citizens were in thrall to a yellow devil. The craftsman appears in the first scene, as shown in Example 2-1, waving his hand in front of the shining glass harmonica. Music begins: celesta and organ playing a slow chorale based on the B-A-C-H motive (B-flat, A, C, B-natural). A group of citizens stands and listens. They appear in all shapes and sizes, some crudely drawn while others have detailed, expressive faces. Red orbs float out from the instrument and one transforms into a rose in the hands of a young man. Suddenly, though, the music stops and a low brass call warns of a new character the yellow devil (shown in Example 2-2). This suited man takes the craftsman by the shoulder and leads him off down a darkened street. The glass harmonica lays destroyed under the yellow devil s feet. There is no dialogue in The Glass Harmonica and the images change abruptly in style and tone, leaving the narrative somewhat confusing. The film, in fact, was created at the end of Khrushchev s Thaw, a period from the 1950s to the mid-1960s when Soviet censorship and repression was reversed. In her book, Soviet Animation and the Thaw of the 1960s, Laura Pontieri traces the shift in Soviet animation during the 1960s. She

33 23 says that directors departed from the fairy-tale worlds of Stalinist animation and attempted to bring the audience in contact with a reality that had specific referents in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev. 67 Example 2-1, The Craftsman, 2:24 in The Glass Harmonica 67 Laura Pontieri, Soviet Animation and the Thaw of the 1960s: Not Only for Children (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), 55.

34 24 Example 2-2, The Yellow Devil, 3:40 in The Glass Harmonica The 20-minute film was conceived by director Andrei Khrzhanovsky in the mid 1960s with the help of several contemporary Russian artists, including Schnittke. 68 The group targeted an intellectual (and adult) audience through complex images and symbols, many borrowed from famous works of art. Pontieri says that the film signified a rejection of the official style that Disney represented during the Stalin years. 69 Khrzhanovsky was, in effect, exploring the limits of the Thaw s freedoms at a time when the Thaw was ending. Khrushchev was replaced as Premier in late 1964 and 68 Ibid., Ibid., 148.

35 25 Leonid Brezhnev took over as General Secretary, ending many of the cultural and political reforms. 70 The artistic council at the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow asked for multiple rewrites of the script in order to make it more acceptable. Changes had to be made to soften the tone of the film and remove any direct references to Russian life. The council was also worried how audiences would interpret the many dark and disturbing scenes. It was eventually shown once for a small audience and then banned until the late 1980s. 71 Part of the official misgiving about the film was due to its depiction of satirically grotesque scenes and characters. The main antagonist is the yellow devil, represented by a suited man with a bowler hat, black gloves, and mismatched eyes. He serves as the governor of a bleak town. Khrzhanovsky situated the story as warning against boundless greed but there is a secondary and counter-establishment reading of authoritarianism versus the artist. 72 In this case, the craftsman represents the dissident artist in Russia, forced to struggle against a repressive government that keeps citizens in a state of moral degradation. Schmelz considers the musical opposition in The Glass Harmonica to be an allegory with two clear sides: aleatory and serialism representing the evils of modernity and the tonality of J. S. Bach as the saving grace of tradition and 70 Denis Kozluv and Eleonory Gilburd, The Thaw: Soviet Culture during the 1950s and 1960s, (University of Toronto Press, 2014). 71 Pontieri, Soviet Animation, Pontieri, Soviet Animation, 149.

36 26 freedom. 73 I find evidence for slightly more distinct themes in both the film s narrative and music: the transcendent and the grotesque. I will show how Schnittke s compositional choices complemented the film s narrative through these themes. Although the story in The Glass Harmonica is disjunct, it still has clear ideas, characters, and plot points. Schnittke s music functions as a representation of transcendence and grotesqueness, enhancing the story. Film Plot The craftsman, holding a fantastical glass harmonica, gathers the town citizens by the central clock tower. He plays his instrument but is interrupted and arrested by the governor. An informant exposes a young man as one of the craftsman s sympathizers and is rewarded with a coin. One young boy watches in despair. The townspeople dismantle the clock tower as commanded by the governor. Next, a couple are shown fighting over money and turn into wild animals. The governor calls all the citizens together but this time they have transformed into monstrous creatures that dance and fight in a frenzy before exhausting themselves. Finally, the young man appears with a new glass harmonica which transforms the citizens into beautiful people. The governor is defeated by a young boy holding a rose and the citizens remake their clock tower. Example 2-3 shows my scene analysis of this film. Here I have indicated the basic musical features and sound effects that correspond to plot elements. I have also 73 Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw, 273.

37 27 classified the scenes into themes of the transcendent and the grotesque. The devilish governor, the informant, and the corrupted citizens act out grotesqueness while the craftsman, the young sympathizer, the little boy, and the rehabilitated citizens represent transcendence and goodness. These characters have limited depth but are also easy to categorize. The music alternates very clearly between the two major themes. Time Description Music and Sound Theme 00:00 00:43 01:17 02:24 02:58 03:25 04:16 05:09 05:33 08:44 Titles, images of faces, and the black hand with gold coin Violin and sparse accompaniment, wind echo sound effect Grotesque Titles and image of GH (glass harmonica) GH theme on celesta Transcendent Images of dystopian city and clock, mechanical drum calls citizens together Craftsman stands at center and plays GH Devil takes the craftsman away GH is destroyed, boy covers eyes, a good man is taken by the police after being accused by informant Clock tower is dismantled, citizens move like insects Boy left alone in open square, picks up rose Scene with the couple fighting, animal transformations and monsters Drum beat starts by devil, calls everyone together Wind sound effect, drum, other effects GH theme on celesta, organ, flute, and then vibraphone Sound effects of drum beat, loud hits and percussion Dissonant sound effects and warble, big beats GH theme with effects and mechanical noises, wind noise Rising gestures in woodwinds, GH theme Effects in perc, instruments, electronic squeeks Demonic march-type with many effects Grotesque Transcendent Grotesque Grotesque Grotesque Transcendent Grotesque Grotesque

38 28 10:03 10:34 Boy holding rose climbs street towards the sun Brass, strings, bells and vibe Transcendent Scene after the revel, everyone asleep, various transformations Various effects Grotesque 11:26 Butterfly awakes, people awake grotesquely GH theme Transcendent 12:29 Sun shines at top of street, young man returns with GH, faces begin transforming GH theme with countersubject Transcendent 13:18 Society is transformed Baroque dance theme Transcendent 14:28 Redemption/transformation of informant Dance Transcendent 15:34 People flying upwards Rising sequences in music Transcendent 16:34 17:28 Statues, young musician alone taken by devil, sad faces, GH broken again Snake rattle, effects Grotesque Boy picks up rose, devil retreats, rose passes from hand to hand, citizens remake clock Harp ostinato and effects Transcendent GH theme, ends on brass 18:38 Clock is complete chord Transcendent 19:13 Credits with images Dance music in winds Transcendent Example 2-3, Scene analysis of The Glass Harmonica The Transcendent The protagonists in The Glass Harmonica fight the evils of authoritarianism and greed. They do this through a process of transcendence: the ability to go beyond, especially in a spiritual sense. 74 The craftsman, for example, is able to transcend base inclinations and inspire high thoughts and fine actions in corrupted citizens by 74 Ferdia J. Stone-Davis, Music and Transcendence, (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2015), 1.

39 29 playing the glass harmonica. His music eventually succeeds in purifying the grotesque forms and actions brought on by the governor. Schnittke s music represents this idea by referencing the music of J. S. Bach: a chorale tune using the BACH cryptogram and Baroque-style dance that is consonant and tonal. Bach s music came to signify transcendent greatness after its resurgence in the nineteenth century. For instance, the biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel ( ) said that Bach s works could only be mentioned with a kind of holy worship. 75 Albert Schweitzer calls Bach s Passions transfigured and made immortal by the spirit that breathes through them and says that Bach is thus a terminal point. Nothing comes from him; everything merely leads up to him. 76 More recently, the scholar Roger Scruton has connected the transcendent with the experience familiar from the world of chamber music and from the instrumental works of Bach. 77 I will demonstrate the transcendent through reference to Bach in two scenes from the film, one near the beginning and one at the end. My examples come from The Glass Harmonica Suite, a 2003 arrangement by Frank Strobel. The glass harmonica theme is shown in Example 2-4. It is first heard during the opening titles and then again as played by the craftsman at 2:24 in the film. The citizens are surrounding the musician and the theme is doubled by organ and celesta. The soft 75 Bruce Ellis Benson, Creatio ex improvisatione: Chretien on the Call, from Music and Transcendence, (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2015), Albert Schweitzer, J. S. Bach Volume I, trans. Ernest Newman, (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1966), Roger Scruton, Music and the Transcendental, in Music and Transcendence, ed. Ferdia J. Stone- Davis (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2015), 83.

40 30 and bell-like ring of the celesta has an immediate connotation of godliness. The word celesta, incidentally, comes from the French for heavenly. The organ contributes sustain and perhaps also an association with the church. The theme is in G minor and its harmony is strictly functional. The G in the bass of the vii chord in measure 3 might either be a non-chord tone or the 9 th of an F#9 chord. The harmonic rhythm of the passage speeds up in its second half and ends with a V7-I cadence. The smooth voice leading and functional harmony would fit in a Baroque chorale except for some strange doublings like the two leading tones in the D7 chord in measure 7. In fact, Schnittke was making an obvious connection to Bach by incorporating the letters of his name into this theme. The German note names for B-A-C-H are B-flat, A, C, and B-natural. These notes appear in order in the top line of Example 2-4. Example 2-4, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, I, mm. 1-9

41 31 As the craftsman plays his glass harmonica, red orbs float out from the instrument and pass by the faces of many citizens. The meaning of these orbs is unclear they seem to somehow represent the goodness of the musician. A young boy peeks out from the crowd (see Example 2-5) just as a new melody enters. Example 2-6 shows this lyrical section in the flute and vibraphone. The organ lightly holds harmony underneath with I and V chords. The flute begins by outlining a G minor chord with the addition of a colorful A-flat. The major seventh interval in the flute adds interest and foreshadows dissonance to come. One red orb floats towards a young man and as he touches it, it turns into a red rose. During this process the vibraphone plays an ascending line that ends as the young man smells the flower. This line is also simple and diatonic, passing through the notes of a G chord and ending on a D6. The choice of flute and vibraphone seems to fit the fleeting character of the red orbs. Suddenly, a brass dissonance erupts sforzando: D, G, A-flat, and D-flat in the trombones and tuba. The yellow devil has come to take away the craftsman and the young man.

42 32 Example 2-5, Young Boy in Crowd, 2:44 in The Glass Harmonica Example 2-6, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, I, mm. 8-14

43 33 The second, extended depiction of transcendence in the film occurs near the end after the young man returns with a new glass harmonica. He climbs down from a staircase in the sky and plays the instrument, transforming the monstrous citizens back into beautiful people. The citizens hold hands and walk together in a stately courtyard as the dance theme from Example 2-7 is heard at 13:18. This theme is in the same key and has an almost identical harmonic progression to the glass harmonica theme. The last five measures follow a circle of fifths progression: G to C to F to B-flat to E-flat and then ii-v-i. The flute is accompanied by steady quarter notes in the strings. Here there also seems to be some connection to the Baroque, perhaps a dance in 3 with heavy ornamentation in the graceful melody. Example 2-7, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, II, 9-16 Depictions of refined life and happy people continue, surrounded by classical architecture. There is one other interesting transformation. The crouched informant who hoards gold decides to give his money and coat to a beggar, depicted in Example 2-8. The music here (Example 2-9) is another variation on the glass harmonica

44 34 progression but now in the flutes and clarinets. This time the rising thirds signify the informant s moral redemption and physical transformation as he grows in height and stands up tall. Example 2-8, Transformation of informant, 14:31 in The Glass Harmonica Example 2-9, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, II, 17-24

45 35 As demonstrated, all of Schnittke s pure music has an unmistakable stylistic affinity. It is always in 3/4 meter and the pulse is never hidden. The harmony is simple and tonal and the voice leading conventional. Three of the previous examples even have the same basic chord progression, only differing in melodic material and instrumentation. Most of the melodic movement is stepwise, singable, and presented in high instruments such as flute and celesta. These features contrast sharply with the next theme. The Grotesque The yellow devil is obviously a source of evil in The Glass Harmonica. But this evil distinctly represents itself with certain images: distorted humans, monsters, and wild movement. Wolfgang Kayser s book addresses what it means to be grotesque. He traces the history of the term from its origins in Roman ornamentation to the paintings of Bruegel, fiction of Kafka, and the modern surrealism of Dali. Kayser ultimately declares that the grotesque is the estranged world. 78 By this he means the ambiguous way in which grotesque artwork seems like the natural world and yet is also totally alienating. Kayser explains that the grotesque instills fear of life rather than fear of death. 79 The key feature of such visual art is the transformation of the human form into something more animal-like. Literature similarly deals with absurd and horrifying 78 Wolfgang Kayser, The Grotesque in Art and Literature, trans. Ulrich Weisstein (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963), Ibid., 185.

46 36 transformations. Grotesque art often engages as a satirical device in opposition to authority. 80 Consequently, its use in The Glass Harmonica must have been particularly troubling for the studio council. The film uses art styles that mimic pieces by Bosch, Bruegel, and Arcimboldo, all known for their grotesque paintings. 81 The frenzied scene beginning at 8:44 features a whole range of animals, monsters, and half-human creatures that run around in wild ways. This grotesqueness is almost the total opposite of the optimism inherent in socialist realism. The director Khrzhanovsky was making a political statement that was thinly disguised by his criticism of bourgeois greed. But how does Schnittke s music relate to the grotesque visuals in The Glass Harmonica? Esti Sheinberg provides a good framework. Sheinberg says, in the musical grotesque, then, the exaggerations are often applied to anthropomorphic sound-analogies, in accordance with a possible conceptual projection of the human body on the soundscape. 82 Music that is comfortable for a particular listener or performer in terms of range, pitch, speed, dynamics, and density will be considered human. If a number of these factors are exaggerated or distorted then the music becomes grotesque. Additionally, forms of music that can be described physically, such as dances and marches, will become grotesque when they are similarly altered Pontieri, Soviet Animation, Ibid., Esti Sheinberg, Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich (Burlington: Ashgate, 2000), Ibid., 231.

47 37 The Glass Harmonica pairs Schnittke s score with images that already have their own meanings. But despite being directly associated with grotesque imagery, I will show using Sheinberg s definitions how Schnittke s score embodies the grotesque in purely musical terms in three scenes from the film. First, an indoor scene at 5:32 portrays the house of a husband and wife who were seen previously dismantling the clock tower. The wife is drawn with an exaggeratedly long body. She walks in and must immediately prop up a broken table. The husband sits down and looks through a keyhole to see the informant from the beginning of the film with his hoard of gold. The husband gains extra pairs of eyes with each look of astonishment at the money. Eventually one gold piece rolls free and escapes through the keyhole to fall at the wife s feet. She transforms into a hippopotamus in front of her greedy husband. He attempts to attack her but then runs away in fear. Finally, he transforms into a rhinoceros and charges into his wife, leaving the room in disarray. Schnittke s music is closely synced with the action onscreen, sometimes even acting as a series of instrumental sound effects. Examples 2-10 shows the short passage in piccolo, xylophone, and piano as the table of objects and stolen clock tower parts begins to tip. The piano triplet and xylophone glissando correspond to the exact moment that the wife props up the table, shown in Example The strings also enter at the 2/4 bar on a sustained B-flat in all parts.

48 38 Example 2-10, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, III, mm Example 2-11, Couple at home, 5:48 in The Glass Harmonica

49 39 The accented piccolo A-flat6 is piercing, appearing near the top of the instrument s range. It is played simultaneously against an A-natural in the xylophone. Here the player is asked to improvise the rhythm as the A is played faster and faster into a tremolo. Then, the xylophone has a glissando downwards while the piano enters on a 32 nd -note triplet. The piano is not playing distinct pitches but rather chord clusters that jump from three octaves down and then back up again. All three instruments are at a dynamic of forte or fortissimo. Consequently, these two measures have extremes of range, speed, dynamic, and dissonance. The scene continues when the husband sits down at 5:49 and looks through the keyhole. He watches in amazement as the informant opens a box of gold. The glittering of coins corresponds to the beginning of Example Here the woodwinds play quickly-moving, chromatic lines in a quasi-canon with entrances staggered by a sixteenth note. The pitches used are A-flat, G, F-sharp, F, and E, all in the same register (A-flat5-E5). The strings also accompany with a sound mass that covers all 12 pitches, each player on a different pitch.

50 40 Example 2-12, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, III, mm The woodwinds and strings create an extremely dense texture at a soft dynamic. But it isn t just random dissonance: A-flat is the defining pitch. Each line begins with

51 41 this note and the oboes hold it over the course of a few measures. The effect is of hearing a high A-flat that dissolves into a buzzing flurry of chromatic lines. This micropolyphonic mass is stratified above the more complete sound mass in the strings. Visually, the grotesqueness of this scene is signified by the transformation of the husband s eyes from one pair to three as shown in Example Musically, the overlapping lines convey the same idea of seeing double. As the husband s eyes multiply, so do the woodwind parts. The saturated pitch space and rapid sixteenth-note entrances convey a sense of uncomfortableness and a loss of perspective. The husband has become greedy by seeing all of the informant s gold. Just as the listener is overwhelmed by the many voices, so is the husband overwhelmed by the corrupting money. Example 2-13, Husband s eyes, 6:15 in The Glass Harmonica

52 42 The second grotesque scene begins abruptly at 8:44 after the husband and wife finish fighting in their home. I call this scene a frenzied revel. The governor beats his drum to assemble all the citizens of the town. All sorts of animals, humanoids, and other creatures rush towards the central square, marching wildly. Once there, everyone gathers and dances in front of a statue of a black hand holding a gold coin. Some creatures chase each other while others fight. Much of the imagery is modeled after the art of Lenica, Goya, and Bruegel. 84 Example 2-14 shows the dance around the statue. Example 2-14, Citizens dance around statue, 9:35 in The Glass Harmonica 84 Pontieri, Soviet Animation, 150 and 165.

53 43 Bass drum and cymbal provide a constant 2/4 march beat at an allegro tempo. The rest of the orchestra is heard sporadically with various figures and gestures. At times it seems as if a coherent melody will develop but then this dissolves into fragments. Example 2-15 contains a passage from 9:32 in the film during which a mass of moving and unrecognizable creatures fall over each other in a quick burst. Next, an assortment of dancers stand around a gigantic statue of a black hand holding a gold coin. It seems as if the transformed citizens are worshipping the statue in some sort of ceremony. Example 2-15, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, III, mm

54 44 At this moment, the piano is played by striking the string with a mallet, creating a more percussive and less piano-like sound. The tenor saxophone has triplets and then a high trill on a G-sharp. The clarinet plays a fast, chromatic descending line and then an accented, triplet figure that ends with a two-octave leap. Notice the variety of sound created by only five different instruments in the span of three measures. The full range of both woodwinds is used and the dynamic is always loud, with the saxophone ending on a glissando to a punched and sforzando B-flat. The clarinet and saxophone do demonstrate a pitch class set relationship. The trichords that begin in the saxophone are inversionally related and share the same (014) prime form. The chromatic descending line in m. 330 emphasizes the half-step interval contained in this set. The final triplet in the clarinet also contains the same intervallic relationships. Example 2-16 shows the solo violin and contrabass part with percussion from 9:43 in the same scene. The corresponding film images are of several stick-like dancers moving up and down, including one man with two heads. A female figure without a face dances in a large cage. Obviously, the strings are presenting some extremes of range and quick oscillations between high and low notes. Here also, the (014) set defines the music s character. The contrabass leaps down from C-sharp to D and then up from G to F-sharp. These major sevenths and those in the violin are contained within the set (they invert to half steps). The final triplets in this example have slightly

55 45 different prime forms but do exhibit the same major seventh or minor second intervals. Example 2-16, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, III, mm An additional, interesting factor is how the metrical pulse is temporarily undermined by these two parts. The C-sharp to D in the contrabass begins in sync with the bass drum but then goes out of phase in its second and third iterations. For many listeners the beat will be obscured. The violin has a quarter note triplet for three bars

56 46 which also conflicts with the percussion. Since a march is traditionally associated with human movement, these moments of ambiguity in the meter may give the listener a sense of unease. The third grotesque scene in The Glass Harmonica begins at 12:29 when the town s citizens turn into beautiful people through the power of the new musician. This young man, who appeared in the film s opening, is seen climbing down a road from the sky. He is carrying the glass harmonica and he walks to the tune of Schnittke s theme music for the film. The glass harmonica theme is recognizable from the one heard previously, but unlike in the film s beginning, it has been altered. Various citizens faces appear: some are monstrous while others are made out of fruit that resemble Arcimboldo paintings. Example 2-17 depicts one such citizen in a window. The faces transform into beautiful humans, one by one. As each face changes, the piano enters with a seven-note chord, shown in Example 2-18 with arrows. The piano chords are jarring because they are accented loudly against the soft strings. Additionally, they were not present in the same theme music earlier in the film. These clusters contain the same pitches as the string chords below them but with additional material. For instance, the cluster on the second beat of Example 18 shares F, A, and C with the strings but adds B-flat, D, E-flat, and G-flat. Notice how similar the prime form of each cluster is. They all fit diatonically within the key of G minor (when considering the G-flat as an enharmonic F-sharp). Each engulfs the simpler F major, E-flat major, and D major harmonies of the glass harmonica theme.

57 47 The piano represents the last vestiges of a transformation away from the grotesque. The dense and loud cluster chords give way to the melodious glass harmonica. Example 2-17, Citizen s face in a window, 13:13 in The Glass Harmonica

58 48 Example 2-18, Excerpt from The Glass Harmonica Suite, IV, mm Film Narrative and Polystylism Schnittke s polystylistic music for The Glass Harmonica complements the disjunct plot and images. Two major themes in the narrative of the film, the transcendent and the grotesque, are represented in different ways by the music. The first communicates a sense of godly transcendence by referencing J. S. Bach both by appropriating aspects of Bach s composition and by featuring the BACH cryptogram. This music is tonal, metered, singable, and smooth. The theme of the grotesque is

59 49 represented by music that is inhuman in nature. At these moments, large leaps, loud clusters, extremes of register, and other experimental procedures are prominent. The relationship between modern and traditional compositional techniques is simplistic but also has an extremely powerful effect on the musical narrative. The contrast between tonality and atonality is not only one of consonance and dissonance. The tonal moments directly reference Bach and when, for instance, the chorale is repeated with added cluster chords, the listener can easily make a connection to a process of transformation and transcendence.

60 50 3. Serenade After The Glass Harmonica and very shortly before Violin Sonata No. 2, Schnittke composed the 10-minute Serenade for clarinet, violin, contrabass, percussion, and piano (1968). It was written for the clarinetist Lev Mikhailov and his ensemble: violinist Alexander Mel nikov, bassist Rustan Gabdulin, pianist Boris Berman, and percussionist Mark Pekarsky. 85 These musicians premiered the piece at a festival for contemporary music in Vilnius and Kaunas, Lithuania. 86 They also played it several times in Moscow but only in small, closed venues where it would escape wider attention. The musicians found the work to be innovative, especially in the way it incorporated short quotations from famous compositions. Boris Berman recollected his experience in a 2001 interview with Peter Schmelz: We rehearsed and we had great fun, and of course it also had a lot of unusual stuff...first of all the first movement which was written in these little blocks of snatches of music, and we could vary it, and of course the snatches of music, it was all from Schnittke s movie music. And then there was also playing inside of the piano. And another thing which was quite novel at that time were the sudden interruptions of the music by little quotes from Tchaikovsky s Piano Concerto [and] Violin Concerto, the Sonata Pathetique of Beethoven, and Coq d Or of Rimsky. And the idea was these things are appearing for a very short time and appear simultaneously, so the audience doesn t really have time to figure out what they hear, just something definitely, painfully 85 Peter Schmelz, Listening, Memory, and the Thaw: Unofficial Music and Society in the Soviet Union, , (PhD diss., University of California, Berkley, 2002), Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw, 251.

61 51 familiar,...this was another kind of thing which I remember which struck me as novel. 87 Schnittke himself thought Serenade was a first step towards his Symphony No. 1. He said that it was one of his first polystylistic experiments, and in its technique for example the polyphony of tempos in the second movement it already clearly prepared the Symphony. 88 Serenade differs from Schnittke s later polystylism in two substantial ways. First, the piece s triadic material is limited and never really exhibits extended tonal function while his music after 1972 dwells on tonal mimicry. The Symphony No. 1, for instance, is full of long (and short) tonal passages. The second movement begins with a Handel-like concerto grosso, there are sections of waltz, can-can, and march music, and the symphony ends with fourteen measures of Haydn s Farewell symphony. 89 Second, As mentioned earlier, Schnittke avoided these systemic approaches in his composition after Schmelz describes Serenade as a transitional piece that was a bridge between aleatory and polystylism that still contained serial moments. 90 He calls the dodecaphony in Serenade a crutch that was necessary for Schnittke to help structure his newly free use of aleatoric techniques, quotations, and allusions. Certainly the piece features many aleatoric techniques and several distinct borrowings but the 87 Schmelz, Listening, Memory, and the Thaw, Dmitriy Shul gin, Godi neizvestnosti Al 'freda Shnitke: besedis kompozitorom, (Moscow: Deiovaya Liga, 1993), Tremblay, Polystylism and Narrative Potential in the Music of Alfred Schnittke, Schmelz, Listening, Memory, and the Thaw,

62 52 dodecaphony in Serenade, while not strict, is more than simply a limited structural device. Example 3-1 shows five compositional techniques that I have identified in Serenade: dodecaphony, temporal indeterminacy, pitch indeterminacy, quotation, and stylistic allusion. In this chapter I will give an overview of Serenade and then focus on individual techniques. I will show examples and offer comparisons to other music, when appropriate. I do this in order to provide historical context for Schnittke s compositional practice. Finally, I will talk about the balance of techniques in Serenade. Compositional Techniques Dodecaphony Temporal Indeterminacy Pitch Indeterminacy Quotation Stylistic Allusion Movements I, II, III I, III II, III I, III III Example 3-1, Chart of compositional techniques in Serenade Overview of Serenade Serenade s first movement begins with a solo, fortississimo clarinet glissando followed by the full ensemble in a clash of sounds. There is no discernable pulse and each part is largely independent. Solo tubular bells intersperse the thick texture several times before a short succession of statements from each instrument. The movement ends with a final, loud block of fragments and then a fortissimo cluster on the bells along with a high, pianissimo C#5 in the clarinet. This note is held out and slowly crescendos into the next movement.

63 53 Movement two contrasts strongly with the first. It has a thin texture and a slow tempo without meter. The clarinet plays throughout with piano accompaniment on a variety of colorful effects. The other instruments enter sparingly for only a few moments. The rhythmic density and dynamic increase and then subside before a final crescendo into three, fff dissonant chords in the piano s lower register. The third movement is the longest and most varied. It begins with a short introduction that alternates between bass drum with cymbal while the full ensemble plays in between. Shortly thereafter, the pianist strums loudly up and down on the piano strings. This creates a steady pulse, similar to the sound of brushes on a drum set. The clarinet features prominently supported by a complementary violin line and pizzicato bass. This gives way to a quasi-return of the first movement s fragments. The instrumentalists enter one by one in a slow buildup of dynamic and texture. Eventually a large climax is reached and the full ensemble continues to a short cadenza. The cadenza begins with a solo in the tubular bells. This is followed by the full ensemble at a soft dynamic accompanied by a constant drum beat. The texture eventually thins out and the piece ends with a few notes from the contrabass and clarinet. One: Dodecaphony Dodecaphonic techniques appear in every movement of Serenade. As mentioned in the first chapter, Nono s 1964 visit inspired Schnittke to study twelve-tone and serial procedures as seen in the music of Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern,

64 54 Alban Berg, Igor Stravinsky, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Pierre Boulez. Although he later rejected serial approaches, the influence of these composers is evident in Serenade. Schnittke manipulates a single tone row in Serenade, sometimes building it up in a process of near completion, sometimes juxtaposing complete transformations, and sometimes incorporating rhythmic aspects. Example 3-2 shows the dodecaphonic pitch materials that appear in the piece. I 9 I 10 I 4 I 0 I 7 I 6 I 5 I 3 I 2 I 8 I 1 I 11 P R 9 P R 8 P R 2 P R 6 P R 11 P R 0 P R 1 P R 3 P R 4 P R 10 P R 5 P R 7 RI 9 RI 10 RI 4 RI 0 RI 7 RI 6 RI 5 RI 3 RI 2 RI 8 RI 1 RI 11 Example 3-2, Matrix showing all permutations of Serenade s tone row The Serenade twelve-tone row is introduced in the first movement in progressively larger fragments played by the tubular bells. The row is emphasized because the bell part consists of solo breaks from the ensemble. At these points, R. 2, 4,

65 55 6, 8, and 10, the music is marked senza tempo and forte or louder. The first interjection at R. 2 consists of three long notes: B, C, and F# or [11, 0, 6]. The second at R. 4 is five notes: [0, 1, 7, 3, 10]. The third is seven: [6, 7, 1, 9, 4, 3, 2]. Example 3-3 shows the full buildup highlighted on a nonstandard matrix consisting of only the prime and retrograde forms of the tone row. Interjections Matrix (Prime and Retrograde Only) P 11 P 0 P 6 P 2 P 9 P 8 P 7 P 5 P 4 P 10 P 3 P 1 First - R. 2 P R 11 Second - R. 4 P R 0 Third - R. 6 P R 6 Fourth - R. 8 P R 2 Fifth - R. 10 P R 9 P R 8 P R 7 P R 5 P R 4 P R 10 P R 3 P R 1 R 11 R 0 R 6 R 2 R 9 R 8 R 7 R 5 R 4 R 10 R 3 R 1 Example 3-3, Matrix showing row segments in Serenade As Example 3-3 clarifies, each twelve-tone interjection begins (but does not complete) a prime row from the matrix. The full statement of the row is revealed at rehearsal number 10. Here, as circled in Example 3-4, the series consists of [9, 10, 4, 0, 7, 6, 5, 3, 2, 8, 1, 11] (including the pizz. B in the contrabass at R. 11). Notice in Example

66 how the first pitch class of each interjection (going down vertically) forms the beginning of the P11 row [11, 0, 6, 2, 9, etc.] Additionally, the final pitch class of the full series is 11, revealed at R. 11. These features show twelve-tone row manipulation and a slow procedure of completion as the tone row is introduced. Example 3-4, Serenade, Mvt. I, R. 10 and 11, row P9: [9,10,4,0,7,6,5,3,2,8,1,11] Movement two even more strongly incorporates twelve-tone material. It begins with a slow statement in the clarinet of the P1 Serenade twelve-tone row (same as from the beginning), starting on C#. Example 3-5 shows the first two measures of movement two with pitch class numbers above their corresponding notes in the clarinet. Notes that are part of the row are circled in red.

67 57 Example 3-5, Serenade, Mvt. II, R. 1 and 2 Here the long notes are almost all part of the series with the exception of pitch classes 10 and 7. The piano also mirrors many of these pitches. The grace notes ornament the dodecaphonic melody. In the first measure especially, C# appears again and again despite the series having progressed beyond that pitch class. The repetition of C# as a momentary pitch center also demonstrates that the row is freely expressed. Likewise, in later statements some row members are missing from otherwise complete series. After one full statement of the I4 (inverted) row form at R. 4, both parts increase in rhythmic activity. The contrabass and violin enter and exit with short segments of the series. Eventually the energy level builds to R. 5 where all parts trill on different pitches. The clarinet continues with a dense and leaping line that is based on the P0 row transposition. The contrabass has an unrelated pizzicato chromatic rise and fall while the piano plays a few sforzando [0, 1, 5, 6] chords. The final ff chords of the movement are not dodecaphonic.

68 58 The clarinet, violin, and contrabass parts in the first measure of movement three are shown in Example 3-6. Here the violin plays the P1 form of the Serenade twelve-tone series and the clarinet has its retrograde. The contrabass is also playing a twelve-tone aggregate but one that is a series of ascending perfect fourths. Chromatic completion melodies like these appear sporadically throughout. Interestingly, at R. 22 the exact music from the beginning of movement one is repeated but this time without the tubular bells and their row-based pitches. Example 3-6, Serenade, Mvt. III, R. 1 At the very end of the piece there is one last and more complex serial procedure. The whole ensemble enters at R. 24 with a constant eighth-note pulse in the percussion. The first note of each rhythmic group is a note from the P1 transposition of the Serenade row: [1, 2, 8, 4, 11, 10, 9, 7, 6, 0, 5, 3]. In Example 3-7 the first four of these pitch classes in the clarinet part are labeled. Each part begins on the C# and continues

69 59 the same series. The note heads with x s are indicated to be played without pitch, as seen in the clarinet. The other instruments have parts without note heads. The violin and contrabass play with the back of their bows while the pianist strums rhythmically on the inside of the piano. Example 3-7, Serenade, Mvt. III, R. 24 The serialism in this section is created through the combination of the twelvetone row with rhythmic groupings consisting of the same number of notes as the current row pitch class. So, for instance, the series in the clarinet begins 1, 2, 8, and 4 and the motivic groupings begin with a single note, rests, and then two consecutive notes, rests, and then eight, etc. The clarinet s motivic grouping pattern matches its pitch classes in this way but the other instruments have groupings based on other row forms. The violin s motivic grouping is an inversion of P1, the bass has a retrograde of P1, and the piano has a retrograde inversion. All of these instruments play the same pitch series P1, while the motivic grouping and rhythmic partitions depend upon other

70 60 formations of the P1 row, including inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion. The actual note lengths are not serialized, only the number of notes in a grouping. The movement ends after each instrument has played one full iteration through the twelvetone series P1 and its own assigned rhythmic series. Although Schnittke was not writing strictly comprehensive twelve-tone music in Serenade, the piece shows evidence of tone row completion as a compositional process, various row transformations used as melodic material, and the extension of matrix and row logic to condition motivic groupings and phrasing. The same row appears as a unifying device throughout every movement. Two: Temporal Indeterminacy The second compositional technique, temporal indeterminacy, occurs in movements I and III. The beginning of Serenade, as shown in Example 3-8, has a distinct character. The music consist of fragments, delineated by brackets in the score. Some are highly chromatic and linear, others have short repetitions, and some feature triads and recognizable chord progressions. It is worth noting that a few are similar to the grotesque music in The Glass Harmonica.

71 61 Example 3-8, Beginning of Serenade, Mvt. I, R. 1 The score contains instructions for performance. Schnittke indicates that all the instrumentalists play independently of one another. 91 The performers make short pauses between the bracketed groups at their own discretion. The durations above each fragment, given in seconds, indicate estimates of length. In Serenade, the musicians continue from fragment to fragment until they hear the bells, beginning for the first time at R. 2. At that point, they immediately cease to play. If a performer reaches the end of their material before the bells enter then they begin again from the first fragment. There is no tempo coordination between the parts and despite all being in simple meter, no pulse emerges. Each performance will have a different sound depending on the tempos and pause lengths chosen made by the performers. 91 Alfred Schnittke, Serenade (Wien: Universal Edition, 1972), 1.

72 62 A slightly different kind of temporal indeterminacy occurs midway through the third movement of Serenade. Example 3-9 shows a series of fragments at R. 13 when the dynamic has just reached mezzo forte. At R. 14 the contrabass enters and the music becomes forte and louder. The technique here is a little different from that in movement I: no tubular bell interruptions and no looping of units. Otherwise the fragments have similar content and are connected by performer-determined pauses. The first fragments are mostly stepwise but as the music progresses these give way to more rapid single-note repetitions, glissandi, and trills (seen at R. 14). Eventually each part contains similar material: large leaps, triplet rhythms, and dissonant, repeating chords. Example 3-9, Serenade, Mvt. III, R

73 63 One last example of temporal indeterminacy is shown in the tubular bells in Example Here the performer may determine both the length of pause between fragments and the pitches played. Stem lengths of the notes implies a sort of relative pitch but the score is marked ad libitum. Rhythmically, most of the measures contain 32 nd note values with a couple triplets and 16 th notes. Example 3-10, Serenade, Mvt. III, R. 23 Many twentieth-century composers experimented with indeterminate tempos and pauses. Some even left the ordering of musical phrases up to the performer, such as the mobile form in Stockhausen s Klavierstück XI (1956). 92 But Alan Hovhaness s use of temporal indeterminacy most closely matches Schnittke s in Serenade. Example 3-11 demonstrates how a typical senza misura passage from Hovhaness s 1959 Symphony No. 6 works. Here each instrument has a repeated, independent part and each plays at his own individual speed. Hovhaness employed this technique first in his Lousadzak 92 Paul Griffiths, Aleatory, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed October 1, 2015.

74 64 of 1944 and then in many other pieces. The key characteristic of the procedure is that short patterns occur in different parts without coordination of tempo. 93 Example 3-11, Symphony No. 6, op. 173, Alan Hovhaness 93 Arnold Rosner and Vance Wolverton, Hovhaness, Alan, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed March 23, 2015.

75 65 Three: Pitch Indeterminacy Temporal indeterminacy gives each performance Serenade a substantial degree of variance in terms of tempo and pause length. There is another aspect of chance introduced in the piano at the beginning of movement II: pitch indeterminacy. See in Example 3-12 how the treble piano line at R. 1 consists of a long, curved line. The score instructs the pianist to play a soft tremolo with fingers on the piano strings. The pitch contour is indicated graphically through the rise and fall of the line. This notation is indeterminate because of its imprecision: the curves of the line do not fall on exact pitches. The performer is left to interpret the exact pitches of the glissando. Example 3-12, Serenade, Mvt. II, R. 1

76 66 Another occurrence appears at the end of the movement, shown in Example Here, the pianist scratches the strings with his or her fingernails in a back and forth motion. Pitch is again indicated by a long line, but now in a saw tooth pattern. Could Schnittke have notated this figure with traditional note heads and glissando lines? Probably, but the graphic score leaves the decision of exact notes up to the performer while giving a gestural representation of the relative range of the rising and falling glissando. Example 3-13, Serenade, Mvt. II, R. 6 One last instance of pitch indeterminacy is shown in the piano strumming in Example The performer is instructed to play a rhythmical glissando (no pedal) over the strings of the lower and lowest register with any hard object. 94 The middle point of the two glissandi appears to be D3 but the exact upper and lower ranges aren t 94 Alfred Schnittke, Serenade (Wien: Universal Edition, 1972), 8.

77 67 known. Additionally, the musician makes the choice of what kind of object to strum the piano with. Example 3-14, Serenade, Mvt. III, R. 2-3 For comparison, see Example 3-15, which shows the same technique in Penderecki s Polymorphia from This piece for 48 strings is an early example of the composer s exploration of noise as sound as music. 95 Penderecki pioneered many of the practices for notating sound masses, clusters, and microtonal effects that became popular in the second half of the 20 th century. The graphical glissandi in Serenade closely mirror the style from Polymorphia: single lines placed on a musical staff. Additionally, other indeterminate practices such as missing note heads and blocks of sound are shared between the two pieces. By composing music with 95 Peggy Monastra, Krzysztof Penderecki s Polymorphia and Fluorescences, Music History from Primary Sources: A Guide to the Moldenhauer Archives, ed. Jon Newsom and Alfred Mann (Washington: Library of Congress, 2000), 1.

78 68 indeterminate pitch, Schnittke is putting his music in a dialogue with avant-garde, sound-mass composition. Example 3-15, Polymorphia, Penderecki, R Four: Quotation Serenade features two prominent quotations from well-known pieces, both identified in the Boris Berman quote: Tchaikovsky s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Beethoven s Sonata Pathétique. 96 Both excerpts are very short and appear close to each other in the third movement. Examples 3-18 and 3-19 show that the first measure of R. 17 is a quotation from m. 61 of the first movement of Tchaikovsky s Piano Concerto No. 1. The piano has arpeggios upwards on a series of D-flat major chords. The other instruments also begin playing triads, the violin on D major, the clarinet on E-flat major, and the contrabass 96 Schmelz, Listening, Memory, and the Thaw, 547.

79 69 on E major seven. Notice that only the piano is excerpted. The rest of the ensemble plays a new accompaniment that, while triadic, strongly conflicts with the D-flat key of the original. Example 3-16, Serenade, Mvt. III, R. 17

80 70 Example 3-17, Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1, mm , key of D-flat The Beethoven quote occurs at R. 19 (Examples 3-20 and 3-21) in a threemeasure piano excerpt from the first movement of Piano Sonata No. 8, Sonata Pathétique. The quotation is a version of the movement s main motive as stated in measure 136. Schnittke has paired the excerpt with his own accompaniment that mirrors the diminished quality of the Beethoven chords but is also much more chromatic than the original piece.

81 71 Example 3-18, Serenade, Mvt. III, R. 19 Example 3-19, Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 8, mm Both of these quotations occur during the return of the fragments that begin Serenade. The fragmented section at the piece s beginning included a series of tubular bells interjections. This time, the two quotations take the place of the bells. While both

82 72 excerpts are tonal, Schnittke has written new accompaniments that effectively obscure any tonal function by quickly progressing through all twelve pitch classes. Five: Stylistic Allusion The fifth technique is unique to the beginning of movement three: stylistic allusion. The main style referenced at this moment is jazz music, or the style of music originating in African American music of the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries. 97 To be more specific, I consider Serenade to exhibit modern jazz or bebop of the 1940s because of its fast tempo and experimental nature. 98 Nonetheless, the most distinct characteristics of this style are common in almost all jazz music. These include a percussive beat with a constant pulse, a walking bass line, and a syncopated solo melody. Referring back to Example 3-14, it is clear that the piano provides a constant eighth-note pulse, acting like a bass drum and ride cymbal groove. This is the longest section of music in Serenade that can be tapped to continuously. At the same time, Example 3-14 shows how often the meter changes back and forth between 3/4 and 2/4. Frequent changes, including to 1/4, 3/8, 7/8, and 9/8, continue until R. 6 when 2/4 prevails. Even when the metrical accent isn t clear the percussion never loses its down and up beat pattern as shown in Example Here the placement of the sixteenthnote cymbal hits do not agree with the 2/4 meter but the sense of pulse is never evaded. 97 Mervyn Cooke, Jazz, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999), James Lincoln Collier, "Jazz (i)," The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed., Ed. Barry Kernfeld, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed February 8, 2016.

83 73 Example 3-20, Serenade, Mvt. III, R. 7-8 Starting at R. 3 the contrabass begins a pizzicato series of regular eighth notes that lasts for the rest of the section. This kind of walking line is common to many types of jazz and generally features both stepwise motion and the freedom to depart from the main harmony. 99 Additionally, there is often a rise and fall contour. Example 3-23 contains a representative excerpt of the bass line from R. 5, midway through the jazz section. The pitch collection here is actually quite limited in comparison to the twelve-tone material in the clarinet. But despite not being highly chromatic, it is also not diatonic. The real character of a walking bass is created by the constant rhythm and timbre of the contrabass. Example 3-21, Serenade, Mvt. III, R. 5 The last jazz-like characteristic of this passage is the repeated syncopation in the clarinet functioning perhaps as a jazz soloist. In general, the clarinet avoids entering 99 Gunther Schuller, Walking bass, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed November 12, 2015.

84 74 on a downbeat. Example 3-24 presents an excerpt from R. 6 in the movement. The line is highly syncopated and placed in a high and prominent range in the texture. The quick repetitions from G to A-flat simulate the sort of improvisatory character that a jazz piece would have. When the violin enters (not shown) it places generally longer notes as an accompaniment. Only when the clarinet drops out does the violinist receive more melodic material. Example 3-22, Serenade, Mvt. III, R. 6 Technical Balance in Serenade The preceding analysis demonstrated the presence of five primary techniques in Serenade: dodecaphony, temporal indeterminacy, pitch indeterminacy, quotation, and stylistic allusion. A single tone row appears in all three movements but is also manipulated in various ways, demonstrating that while not strict, dodecaphonic techniques are integral to the piece. A number of passages are constructed to allow independent tempos between the performers and pauses of unspecified length, both processes of temporal indeterminacy. Pitch indeterminacy appears throughout Serenade, often in the form of freely-drawn glissandi but also as various gestural figures. Two tonal quotations stand out against the largely modern and atonal music

85 75 but because of length and context do not have real tonal function. Finally, a long section in movement III exhibits three common stylistic characteristics of jazz music. Considering the balance of these techniques it is clear that the twentieth century dominates. Triadic fragments are few and short and always set against chromatic and dissonant music in other parts. While this piece was written four years after Schnittke negatively commented on dodecaphony, 100 it does seem that he was still engaged deeply with the technique. 100 Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw, 244.

86 76 4. Violin Sonata No. 2 (Quasi Una Sonata) Alfred Schnittke wrote his Violin Sonata No. 2 in 1968, not long after Serenade. It was premiered on February 4 th, 1969, in Kazan, then part of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. 101 Mark Lubotsky and Lyubov Yedlina, both friends of Schnittke, played violin and piano respectively. In fact, the composer dedicated the piece to the two when it was published several years later. 102 Schnittke released an orchestrated version in 1987, attesting to its popularity among his early works. Violin Sonata No. 2 was well-received by the official Russian press. The critic Marina Nest yeva wrote in the 1970 edition of Sovetskaya Muzika that the second violin sonata by A. Schnittke is in our opinion a significant step on the evolutionary path of the artistic consciousness of the composer. 103 The composer Yuriy Butsko said that the piece demonstrated new qualities of the personality of the composer and it marked a turning point away from Schnittke s works of the middle 1960s in which he even lost for a time... the lapidary and emotional brightness of his early work. 104 The sonata has several notable motivic aspects. Foremost are the use of a repeated G-minor chord and its alterations and the BACH (B-flat, A, C, B-natural) motive in many forms. These two ideas are woven throughout what is an otherwise 101 Ibid., Dmitri Smirnov and Guy Stockton, Marginalia quasi una Fantasia: On the Second Violin Sonata by Alfred Schnittke, Tempo New Series 220 (2002), Schmelz, Listening, Memory, and the Thaw, Ibid., 555.

87 77 highly heterogeneous piece. Violin Sonata No. 2 has a slightly greater emphasis on triadic patterns than Serenade. Schnittke borrowed directly and indirectly from several Romantic-era composers. 105 This material is placed alongside or against various aleatoric and atonal music. Much of Violin Sonata No. 2 is organized around particular pitch collections, often highly chromatic and twelve-tone. A clue to the form of Violin Sonata No. 2 is contained in its interesting subtitle: Quasi Una Sonata. Most obviously, the title relates to Beethoven s Sonata quasi una Fantasia, (the Moonlight Sonata). This piece famously blurred the lines between Classical period sonata form and a more improvisatory fantasy. As evidenced by his own commentary, Schnittke was likely referring to Beethoven by using the words quasi una sonata to indicate how his piece both used sonata form principles and eroded them at the same time: This piece is a borderline case of a sonata form. This form is challenged and at the same time appears not to materialize by then the sonata is already over. It is like Fellini s 8 ½. The film sees itself as a narrative on how difficult and impossible it is to make a film. And they don t make the film, but in the meantime the film has already developed and come to exist. For me this sonata is so similar. 106 Secondly, Paul Westwood has noted a connection to Theodor Adorno s 1963 compilation of essays on modern music entitled Quasi Una Fantasia. Westwood argues that Schnittke had read Adorno s essay Berg s Discoveries in Compositional 105 Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw, Alfred Schnittke, Alfred Schnittke Zum 60 Geburtstag: Eine Festschrift (Hamburg: Hans Sikorski, 1994),

88 78 Technique from the book, in which Adorno describes new composers as working in areas instead of with themes and theme groups. The idea is that these modern composers move from area to area without needing a specific plan, hierarchy, or logic. Westwood thinks that the compositional impetus behind the Violin Sonata No. 2 perfectly exhibits these characteristics and Schnittke used the subtitle Quasi una Sonata as an acknowledgment of or a response to Adorno. 107 Schmelz says that Violin Sonata No. 2 is Schnittke s most important piece from the 1960s because of its expanded stylistic vocabulary and the degree of mimetic content it contains. 108 He describes the piece as inherently dramatic even though it has no explicit program, partially because of the shared use of the BACH motif with The Glass Harmonica. This is only somewhat true because the motif is actually reharmonized and used much differently in Violin Sonata No. 2. Additionally, although the piece features much less dodecaphony than Serenade, it is prominently unified by transformations of the BACH pitches as a sort of motivic atonality. This process is certainly quite free, but it is still a systematic procedure of pitch manipulation. I have identified five primary compositional strategies in Quasi una Sonata: dodecaphony, motivic atonality, pitch indeterminacy, quotation, and stylistic allusion. Four of these are shared with Serenade while the other is new: motivic atonality. As in 107 Paul Westwood, Schnittke s Violin Sonata No. 2 as an Open Commentary on the Composition of Modern Music, Seeking the Soul: The Music of Alfred Schnittke, ed. George Odam (London: Guildhall School of Music and Drama, 2002), Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw, 253.

89 79 the previous piece, the triadic aspects are confined to short quotations and distinct but static patterns. In this chapter I will give a descriptive overview of the piece, analyze excerpts representative of each of the five compositional strategies that I have identified, and comment on the overall use of techniques. Overview Violin Sonata No. 2 has the same heterogeneous character as Serenade. Both were composed in the same year (1968) and share a similar mix of surprising textural, timbral, rhythmic, pitch, and dynamic changes. The piece begins with an sfff G-minor chord and then a series of unmetered silences and outbursts. The silences are of varying lengths and include rests, fermatas, commas, and notated pause durations. The outbursts consist of dense, vertical chords and clusters along with a number of short figures. At m. 45 the piano begins a semi-regular chromatic pattern in 2/4. The violin plays leaping sevenths and other dissonant intervals beyond an octave. The energy level lowers at m. 93 with the BACH motive harmonized with a chorale-style piano accompaniment. This leads into a long section of violin glissandi and series of single piano notes, both based on a twelve-tone row. The two instruments play back-and-forth until the 2/4 rhythmic pattern returns, but now in the violin with leaps in the piano. A long ad libitum passage of chromatic tremolos follows and then develops into a slow, chromatic descent in the violin. The chorale returns two more times, interspersed with quotations (Berg, Beethoven, and Wagner) and other apparently freely-composed material based on the

90 80 BACH pitches. The music increases in dynamic and tempo at m. 313 with 16 th and 32 nd - note chromatic lines. An fff G-minor chord in the piano punctures the chromaticism. It is played once, later twice, five times, and then in a seemingly endless pounding (28 times and later 46 times). The violin continues above with rapid and dissonant 2nds, 7ths, 9ths, and their octave equivalents. Finally, at m. 373 the piano ends with a loud, cluster chord. The violin finishes the piece with a cadenza-like solo and final statement of the BACH pitches that die away in a long diminuendo. One: Dodecaphony Violin Sonata No. 2 contains a few prominent instances of twelve-tone technique, though not with the frequency found in Serenade. The earlier piece featured the same row and transformations in every movement. Most of Quasi una Sonata s dodecaphony appears in one main section in the piece and the row forms are transformed but not extended to provide a logic for any process of completion or additional rhythmic relationship. Other twelve-tone statements function more like quotations because they are placed against unrelated material. The longest section of dodecaphonic music is shown in Example 4-1: mm I have annotated the score with the various row forms, red brackets used for the violin and green for the piano. All of the pitch material is related except for the piano right hand which contains 32 nd -note groups in an extremely high register. The violin begins a tone row with the C# after the senza tempo in m. 102 which I label as the prime row, P1: [1, 11, 0, 10, 7, 9, 8, 6, 5, 2, 3, 4]. (Note that PC 11 is actually

91 81 missing in the music in this first statement). This is followed by an inversion of the row, I4, then back to P1, and continuing through different prime and inversion forms. Of special note is the fact that every statement overlaps by one pitch class with the previous entry; perhaps to preserve this dovetailing only the P1, P10, I1, and I4 forms are used. The logic of the piano part is the same but with retrograde and retrogradeinversions. It starts with the RI4 row: [1, 2, 3, 0, 11, 9, 8, 10, 7, 5, 6, 4] in m. 102 and is followed by a chain of RI4, RI1, R1, and R10 row forms. See Example 4-2 for a clear representation of which pitch classes appear in this passage. As the matrix makes clear, the outermost rows that Schnittke uses lend themselves to the overlap of common starting and ending pitch classes. Measures are unique in repeated statements of rows clearly derived from the same matrix. Other instances in the piece are more akin to quotations. The first of such begins right at m. 121, as shown in Example 4-3. This row bears almost no relation to anything in the previous nineteen measures, except that it is also missing the pitch class 11, shown in parenthesis. Interestingly, this row s first four pitch classes are a transposition of the BACH motive - [10, 9, 0, 11].

92 Example 4-1, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm

93 83 I 1 I 11 I 0 I 10 I 7 I 9 I 8 I 6 I 5 I 2 I 3 I 4 P R 1 P R 3 P R 2 P R 4 P R 7 P R 5 P R 6 P R 8 P R 9 P R 0 P R 11 P R 10 RI 1 RI 11 RI 0 RI 10 RI 7 RI 9 RI 8 RI 6 RI 5 RI 2 RI 3 RI 4 Example 4-2, Violin Sonata No. 2, matrix used in mm highlighted Example 4-3, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm , violin part As it turns out, there are two other twelve-tone statements later in the piece that begin with the exact BACH pitches (B-flat, A, C, and B-natural). The first occurs at m. 196 as the top line in a chorale texture in the piano (discussed later). The second also appears in the piano as staccato eighth notes at m. 214, shown in Example 4-4. Both of

94 84 these rows are transpositionally related to the one at measure 121. Example 4-4, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm A final example of dodecaphony in Violin Sonata No. 2 is also a reference to Berg s Violin Concerto (1935). The pizzicato violin part in Example 4-5 contains this rising line that mimics the first row statement at measure 15 in Berg s piece. Example 4-6 shows the original part, also for solo violin. Obviously Schnittke s quotation is much altered from the original and is in fact not even a set of twelve unique pitch classes. Nonetheless, its starting pitches, rising line, and chromatic character are compelling evidence to connect the two pieces.

95 85 Example 4-5, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-6, Berg, Violin Concerto, mm , solo violin Two: Motivic Atonality I use the term motive atonality to refer to a type of freely atonal music that features small motivic cells (pitch-class sets). This style of composition is associated with the pre-twelve-tone music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern and also with other

96 86 composers such as Bartók, Ives, Stravinsky, and Varèse. 109 Essentially, motivic atonality involves the reoccurring appearance of pitch-class patterns that are neither tonal nor dodecaphonic/serial. Bela Bartók s String Quartet No. 4 (1928) is a well-known and relevant example of the use of motivic cells. This piece departs from traditional major and minor keys, instead featuring both a high degree of chromaticism and the incorporation of wholetone, pentatonic, and octatonic scales. 110 George Perle was the first to classify three important motivic cells in Bartók s string quartets, which he labeled x, y, and z and organized according to prime form 111 (shown in Example 4-7). Perle identified these cells melodically and harmonically, appearing either individually or in combination. For instance, Example 4-8 shows two instances of cell x at the beginning of String Quartet No. 4. The motive is introduced both melodically and in a combination of two voices. Example 4-7, George Perle s motivic cells in Bartók s string quartets 109 Paul Lansky, et al., Atonality, Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, accessed March 3, Elliott Antokoletz, The Music of Béla Bartók: A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth- Century Music, (University of California Press, 1984), George Perle, Symmetrical Formations in the String Quartets of Béla Bartók, Music Review 16 (1955):

97 87 Example 4-8, Cell x in Bartók, String Quartet No. 4, I, mm Violin Sonata No. 2 s entirely chromatic BACH motive (B-flat, A, C, B-natural) is also a member of the cell x (0123) set. Although the exact BACH pitch classes are obviously important to create the acrostic reference to J.S. Bach, looking closely through the piece reveals a considerable amount of pitch material based on more generalized chromatic intervals of the (0123) tetrachord. The first instance of the set is shown in Example 4-9, well before the BACH pitches are introduced. Together, the chords contain pitch classes 8, 9, 10, and 11. The two minor ninths in the violin are characteristic of the kind of dissonant expression that is a part of the (0123) set. The set s position is also important: at the beginning of the piece shortly after the reoccurring G-minor triad. The set appears again at m. 96, now as a group of minor seconds in the violin (Example 4-10). The D, E-flat, and C-sharp pairs hint at the 112 Miguel Roig-Francoli, Understanding Post-Tonal Music, (New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2007), 45.

98 88 chromatic character of (0123) but the full set is not completed until the sounding of pitch classes 4 and 5 in m. 98, where the motive is then stated twice. Example 4-9, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm. 1-6 Example 4-10, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-11 demonstrates an even more intense integration of (0123) into the piece. This passage is from the beginning of a long and unmetered section featuring back and forth statements between the violin and piano. Every gesture articulates a (0123) cell. More interesting is the fact that only three sets are used: the BACH pitches, the tetrachord transposed up four semitones (T4), and the one up eight semitones (T8).

99 89 In the example, I have indicated which sets use the actual BACH pitches and which are related by transpositions. Notice that the three sets appear in an orderly cycle over and over. There is some interesting balance here in that the intervals of transposition are always the same. Therefore, the twelve-tone aggregate is generated after every third set. Example 4-11, Violin Sonata No. 2, beginning of m. 178

100 90 There are many more instances of the (0123) set in Violin Sonata No. 2. It is seemingly the most pervasive idea in the piece. Its usage suggests a stylistic connection to free atonal music, especially that by Bartók, that exhibits the same kind of motivic, cell-based composition. Three: Pitch Indeterminacy Just as in Serenade, Violin Sonata No. 2 contains several types of indeterminate notation, indicated by special graphics on the score and often with written performance instructions. Example 4-12 shows two cluster chords at m. 14 in the piano. The short cluster in the bass is followed by a high one between B-flat4 and A5. The performer is directed to gradually release keys of the cluster, mirroring the upward slope on the staff. This passage is unmetered and thus the rate of release and exact range of the lower cluster is not specified. Example 4-12, Violin Sonata No. 2, m. 14, piano

101 91 Another form of pitch indeterminacy is shown in Example Here, in the second half of m. 92 the violin is instructed to play a free note progression accelerating to the highest note. The last eight pitches, with x note heads, are chosen by the performer. The feathered, or sloping, beam of the note group is an indication of accelerating note values (shorter and shorter). Example 4-13, Violin Sonata No. 2, second half of m. 92 The freely curving glissandi from Serenade appear again in Quasi una Sonata and, as pictured previously in Example 4-1, are even more prominent. Another similar glissando at m. 124 ends a solo phrase. The piano drops out of the texture at m. 121 and the dynamic reaches ppp as the violin plays a slow, chromatic line that extends to its highest range. It ends with the faint glissando in Example 4-14 beginning on A#7 and moving up and down before fading upward into nothingness.

102 92 Example 4-14, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm See Example 4-15 for one last and unusual indeterminate figure. The wave-like drawing in the score is marked ad libitum passage with both hands executing (in slow alteration) a chromatic tremolo within the range of the cluster. The music is scored in four staves for piano and marked Cadenza. The extra staves are needed because the tremolo reaches from the very top of the piano s range to the very bottom. The hands alternate while playing small clusters that glide up or down, following the path indicated. The tremolo clusters begin again in the second system from the very highest notes and ascend in nine little tremolo groups before a final ascent and fade to ppp.

103 93 Example 4-15, Violin Sonata No. 2, m. 179 Four: Quotation There are two pseudo-quotations in Violin Sonata No. 2. Both have been altered from their original source but are still recognizable. The first is a quotation from Webern s Symphony, op It occurs at m. 209 in Violin Sonata No. 2, as shown in Example Here the violin begins a fugue-like passage of constant eighth notes which alternate in pairs of two minor seconds or major sevenths, thereby representing 113 Dmitri Smirnov and Guy Stockton, Marginalia quasi una Fantasia: On the Second Violin Sonata by Alfred Schnittke, Tempo New Series 220 (2002): 10.

104 94 the BACH (0123) prime form. The original part, shown in Example 4-17, begins the second variation of mvt. II in the French horn of Webern s symphony. This line has the same rhythm and alternation of interval pairs but the sevenths are not present and the exact pitches are different. Example 4-16, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm , Example 4-17, Webern, Symphony op. 21, Mvt. II, mm

105 95 The second quotation is shown in Example 4-18 at m. 246 of Violin Sonata No These four measures, which repeat several times come from the beginning of Beethoven s Variations and Fugue in E-flat Major, op. 35., Example The Schnittke example contains the rhythm, dynamic, and repeated B-flat pitches but has an altered bass. The new pitches, of course, make up the BACH cryptogram. These two quotations are quite similar to their source material but each has been altered to incorporate Schnittke s BACH motive. Example 4-18, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-19, Beethoven, Variations and Fugue in E-flat Major, m Ibid., 4.

106 96 Stylistic Allusion Violin Sonata No. 2 also includes several distinctive stylistic allusions. They consist of the repeated G-minor chord and related chords, three chorale-style passages that harmonize the BACH motive, and two measures in the style of Brahms. The G-minor chord that begins the piece is shown in Example This opening is followed by another triadic but more dissonant polychord, Fm7 plus A-flatm7. Both of these sonorities appear throughout Quasi una Sonata and always with the same register, loud dynamic, and short duration. They are always played alone, often against very atonal music and never placed in a traditional harmonic context. The only development of the idea occurs at the end of the piece as shown in Example Here both chords are repeated in a seemingly endless succession while the violin plays above with totally unrelated pitch material. If the G-minor chord can be heard as a pitch center it is because of both sheer repetition and its prominent placement at the beginning and end of the piece.

107 97 Example 4-20, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm. 1-7 In a sense then, the G-minor chord is a stylistic allusion to the tonal leitmotif. 115 It is especially distinctive in comparison to the largely dissonant and atonal character of the rest of Violin Sonata No. 2. Because the chord is rarely altered and isn t used in a functional way, it very much like the reoccurrence of leitmotif, which is traditionally short and always recognizable. 115 Ibid., 4.

108 98 Example 4-21, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm As shown earlier, the BACH motive or its transpositions appears in many forms throughout Violin Sonata No. 2. One of these is as the melody of a chorale-style harmonization that is played by the piano at mm. 93, 196, and 205. Example 4-22

109 99 contains the second of these statements. The texture, slow tempo, smooth voice leading, BACH motive, and G-minor chord recall The Glass Harmonica theme (reprinted in Example 4-23). Example 4-22, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Example 4-23, The Glass Harmonica Suite, I, mm. 1-9

110 100 But despite these similarities, the Quasi una Sonata example is very different from the film music. The first two chords in the right hand seem functional: G minor to D major with added notes in the bass. The third chord, a D half-diminished seventh with G bass, no longer makes sense in a traditional context. The passage continues with a series of five-note chords all sharing the (01369) prime form and exhibiting chromatic voice leading. From there the bass moves down, the soprano goes up, and there is a cadential movement from D7 to G with added D-flat in the bass. This temporary sense of tonic disappears when the melodic line continues to an A-flat and the bass jumps down to C (also coinciding with the entrance of the violin). The bass and soprano sound so complementary in this progression because they are exact retrogrades of one another. In fact, both are twelve-tone rows. The inner voices move almost entirely by step and often by half-step. The result is a clever and perhaps ironic combination of the BACH motive, dodecaphony, and triadic part-writing within the chorale texture. G is even implied as a pitch center, especially considering that the violin lingers on the pitch in the next measure (not shown). The last example of a stylistic allusion in Violin Sonata No. 2 is actually only two measures long (Example 4-24). It s a short progression at m. 257 that theorists such as Valentina Kholopova and Christopher Segall have identified as being written in the style of Brahms. 116 The passage is internally tonal in the key of E, as shown by the roman 116 Christopher Mark Segall, Triadic Music in Twentieth-century Russia, (PhD diss., The City University of New York, 2013), 15.

111 101 numerals below. But while the listener expects a very traditional elaborated dominant to E in m. 259, instead they hear an abrupt change to Allegro fff and a dissonant BACH motive. Consequently, the two measures are only a glimpse of functional tonality, distorted almost as quickly as being heard. Example 4-24, Violin Sonata No. 2, mm Technical Balance I have identified five primary compositional techniques in Violin Sonata No. 2: dodecaphony, motivic atonality, pitch indeterminacy, quotation, and stylistic allusion. The dodecaphonic aspects involve one 20-measure passage based on row transformations, three BACH rows including those used in the chorales, and a reference to Berg s Violin Concerto. The piece is also organized around the (0123) set, the prime form of the BACH motive. This set can be found throughout in many unique