Schnittke String Quartet No. 3

[Belle]

I've been listening to this String Quartet this morning. Right away I smiled when I heard the Beethoven reference as the main subject, and there's also a parody of Renaissance terpsichore in that first movement. Love the glissandi and the surface serenity in some of the phrases. So much to explore with this beautifully crafted work!! I'm only at the first movement - multiple listenings of that with the score on U-Tube. Already I can hear that this is a highly original voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuOn47MORQ

[Lance]

Sue, have you heard his Suite in the Olden Style yet? QUITE the contrast!

[some guy]

You might be interested in another Beethoven allusion, in Kancheli's Vom Winde Beweint.

That doesn't come until the second movement, but it comes right at the beginning of that. It's upside down, at first, which is a bit of a tease. The rhythm is similar, but the pitches go up instead of down at first. So when the pitches go down, as they do in the Beethoven being cited, the sneaking suspicion is quite nicely confirmed.

Also, there's another Schnittke that uses a Beethoven bit from yet another piece, uses and, also teasingly, then simply quotes. Oh, it's fun. That's in The Inspector's Tale, which is quite a rollick through and through.

This thread called up an old memory of mine. When I was a kid, I noticed that a lot of Dvořák's music sounded like Beethoven. Nothing specific, just a general sound and some ways of developing material that are very like the German composer would have done had he started out with Bohemian or Moravian motifs. Nothing that is, except the obvious nod to the same Beethoven piece that Schnittke quotes in The Inspector's Tale.

That comes in Noon Witch.

[Belle]

Sue, have you heard his Suite in the Olden Style yet? QUITE the contrast!

Thank you for this; I listened to it yesterday and liked it very much.

[diegobueno]

Excellent discovery! This piece was new to me.

I just listened to it and found it very engrossing.