Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)
Psalms of Repentance
Cappella Amsterdam/Daniel Reuss
rec. 2022, Pieterskerk, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
Pentatone PTC5187028 [40]
The Russian composer Alfred Schnittke enjoyed a brief moment in vogue during the 1990s when his polystylistic music was mistaken for the kind of lightweight, ironic musical pick and mix then all the rage. Nothing could be further from the artistic character of the composer. His irony is the rapier like irony of a Haydn rather the dull, arch, slightly bored version that drenched the cheery nihilism of the 90s. If nothing else, for all the darkness of his music, Schnittke was far from a nihilist. Rather than celebrating that nothing means anything and consequently anything goes, his music celebrates the struggle to find meaning in a fractured fragmented world. In this regard, 1988’s Penitential Psalms are key moment in his work.
Written to commemorate a thousand years since the conversion to Christianity of the Rus (another more contemporary irony lies in the fact that this conversion also covered the area we know today as Ukraine), it also commemorates the thaw in Soviet Communism that allowed that historic conversion to be celebrated at all. Written in the same year as his remarkable composite work where his Symphony No.5 and Concerto Grosso No.4 form one work, the Psalms can be seen as the gateway to the more austere, uniquely powerful world of Schnittke’s late symphonies. Partly this shift can be dated to health problems that saw him in a coma following a stroke in 1985 and partly from creative decisions.
The focus of writing for an a cappella choir seems to have caused the composer to turn toward a simpler more direct style. The number of quotations and near quotations from the work of others drops and the manner is plainer though in both cases it is a result of greater concentration of these methods rather than their abandonment. Schnittke had reached the stage where he realised that very often less is more. His encounter with the Russian orthodox tradition of unaccompanied singing is the most obvious of influences absorbed into the music but, in a way wholly typical of his late style, the references are oblique as though the music was haunted by that of the past rather directly referencing it.
The essence of all of Schnittke’s mature style is that all music evokes associations with the music of the past just as the personality of an individual in the present is shaped by their past experiences. As in wider life, the composer is not always aware of those influences but to a quite remarkable degree Schnittke’s creative method allowed him to submit to those often unconscious influences. This approach gives great emotional depth to his work and these Psalms are a perfect example of how these ideas work in practice.
The final section, sung without text, is a stunning example. The way it nearly but not quite cites the opening movement of Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta creates a strangeness to the hushed, spare writing as though a ghostly presence were being summoned up. This is my own personal, subjective response to this music. Schnittke may not even have intended to almost quote Bartók. But it is wholly typical of Schnittke that he is able to open up a musical vista far beyond the notes on the page. It is also typical of his music that when we get to the end, the experience has added up to rather more than the sum of the parts. I’ll freely admit that this final section brings a lump to my throat every time I listen to it even as I remain only dimly aware of why. As with a stage magician, I understand the technique but I am still taken in every time.
The Cappella Amsterdam seem to me to strike a near ideal balance between a suitably earthy Russian sound anchored in cavernous bass voices and the sophisticated balance and tuning of the best Western choirs. This matters because as in everything else, Schnittke’s attitude toward Russianness is ambiguous and ambivalent. He celebrates the tradition by subverting it, becomes more Russian through looking outward toward European modernism but equally becomes more modern by mining and relying on the traditional music of the past. All of this would sound like the most awful trendy post modernism where it not for the depth of feeling in virtually every note Schnittke wrote. It is almost painfully audible how much he loved the music that influenced him. That depth of passion for music means that his voice is always clear. It is an exceptional feat of discipline to retain oneself whist borrowing and being influenced by so much other music. It is part of Schnittke’s greatness and why, for me, he is the supreme composer for our present era some twenty five years after his death. There are no illusions in Schnittke. Under the shadow of mortality, he faces the chaos of the modern world and its crisis of meaning head on and instead of buckling or evading it, he finds that lost meaning.
Presiding over this work is the notion of redemption. That out of the worst of any situation, good can come. The music enacts this painful, lonely path to redemption with the resources deployed often pared back to a single, isolated, alienated voice. The pain takes the form of wrenching, almost Ligeti like clusters of dissonance that makes the austere moments of plain, consonant harmony, when they are found, resonate overwhelmingly. This is music at the extremes of human experience but always human and always open to the listener. There is nothing obscure about Schnittke’s music. These are songs of longing for a better world expressed from a place of tribulation and doubt and emotionally they are all the more forceful as a result. This is very different from the bland cheeriness of much religious thinking. Schnittke’s faith, certainly as it is evidenced in this work, is always under the severest strain. It is virtually music of faith for the unbeliever.
This recording is very much Schnittke looked at from the point of view of Western Europe where the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Kaspars Putninš, despite not being Russian, sound like they are singing it more from that of the Slavic tradition. As with the symphonies both perspectives are valid and reflect the multifarious essence of Schnittke’s music. Perhaps the rawer emotionality of the Estonian choir will communicate more vividly to the novice listener but there is a lot to be said for the extreme refinement of the Dutch singing. It allows a lot more of Schnittke’s extraordinary vocal effects to be heard where the Estonians, whilst undoubtedly atmospheric, are sometimes a little approximate. It is this element that tips the balance for me in favour of this new recording and it now becomes my recommendation for this remarkable work.
I fondly hope that recordings like this win new listeners to the cause of one of the most significant composers of the twentieth century. A minor gripe is the short running order – the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir found room for some Pärt for example- but in every other way this is a exemplary issue. Whichever version you choose to listen to, be sure to listen to this music.
David McDade
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