2010/01/01 by Tim Sullivan · 1 citation
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paper · doi:10.1353/pnm.2010.0003
openalex publication_date 2010/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/05
Structural Layers in Alfred Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 3 Tim Sullivan Alfred Schnittke's music, while performed often, has not received a great deal of attention from the theoretical community. This is no doubt due to some commonly held views about his compositional methods. "Polystylism," a term Schnittke coined, is loaded with con notations that imply lack of organization: musical collage, patchwork mixing of styles, chaotic jumbles of quotations, etc.—and some of his works embody these very qualities. Nonetheless, as a longtime fan of Schnittke's music, I have always felt that structural order lurked below the chaotic surface. This essay seeks to uncover the structure of one of Schnittke's middle-period works, the Concerto Grosso No. 3 (1985).1 Like many of Schnittke's mature works, the Third Concerto Grosso contains numerous quotations and allusions, ranging from recogniz able snippets of melody to general stylistic imitations. Schnittke 22 Perspectives of New Music provided some information about the sources for these polystylistic elements: The year 1985 was a jubilee five times over: five musical masters from different times were born in either 1585 (Heinrich Schütz) or 1685 (Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel, Domenico Scarlatti) or 1885 (Alban Berg). Many events took place in their honor, and my composition was a small part of it. It begins "pretty" neo-classically—but after a few minutes the museum explodes and we stand with the fragments of the past (quotations) before the dangerous and uncertain present.2 This description might lead us to look for quotations of the "five musical masters," and to expect certain stylistic allusions—and to some degree, Schnittke obliges. But again, these are merely surface considerations, and questions remain about the structure of the work. In fact, Schnittke's "description" is much more; the keys to the construction of the work are the "five musical masters." The basic elements of the work are laid out below, with emphasis on the distinction between tonal and atonal materials (and the threshold between them); this stratification is suggested in Schnittke's description, and will be of considerable use in the last section of the essay, concerning the overall structure of the piece. Basic Materials tonal material Schnittke described the opening of the first movement as "neo classical," though it seems to refer more to the Baroque concerto grosso tradition. This stylistic allusion is both general and perhaps also specific: in the first few measures, the rhythm, melody, and pitch center (although the mode is different) are very similar to Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 (Examples 1 and 2). Another allusion, more subtle, is also worth mentioning. Throughout the five movements of the work, two triads dominate every tonal passage: G minor and D major. Of course, the beginning of Berg's row for the Violin Concerto outlines a G minor triad followed by a D major triad (Example 3).3 While this relationship might seem tenuous at present, it will become more plausible as we delve into the deep structural layers of the piece. Incidentally, this sort of "role reversal" Alfred Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 3 EXAMPLE 1 : SCHNITTKE, CONCERTO GROSSO NO. 3, FIRST MOVEMENT, MM. 1-7© Copyright 1988 by Edition Peters. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 24 Perspectives of New Music EXAMPLE 2: BACH, BRANDENBURG CONCERTO NO. 3, FIRST MOVEMENT, MM. 1-7 Alfred Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 3 EXAMPLE 3: BERG'S ROW FOR THE VIOLIN CONCERTO (using an atonal quote to generate tonal material) is common in Schnittke's music, so much so that we will find another example in this work. The "fragments of the past" that Schnittke mentioned occur at the beginning of the fourth movement, and predictably include several important tonal elements. The allusion to J.S. Bach in the first movement now gives way to direct quotation: the B-A-C-H mono gram, followed by the subject from the Cjf minor fugue from Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier, ending with the subject from the F minor fugue from the same book (Example 4). Two features of the passage relate directly to the tonal center of G minor: the D pedal held over...