Credits:

Schnittke (1934-1998)

Description:

Born in the Soviet Union to a Jewish-German father, Schnittke received his early musical education in Vienna and later in Moscow, where he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory’s composition course in 1961 and was appointed an instructor at the conservatory in 1962. His main source of income at the time was composing film music, and by 1984 he had written music for more than 60 films. The “Suite in the Old Style” at the beginning of this album is adapted from various film scores, but the style of the music is classical (if one listens to it without preconceptions, it is quite difficult to determine the date of composition), and like Shostakovich’s works of the same period, it is truly “mass appealing” music It is exactly what it sounds like. Sometimes performed with piano and violin, here we hear an orchestral version of Spivakov’s own arrangement. The other works on the album have an