Listeners accustomed to the uncompromising spikiness characteristic of much of Alfred Schnittke's music may be astonished by the luminous sweetness of his Twelve Penitential Verses for mixed voices a cappella, written in 1988 to celebrate the millennial anniversary of Christianity's arrival in Russia. This stylistic departure seems to have been as much a surprise to the composer as to anyone. He wrote that when he was copying out his final draft, "I realized that they could only have been so and not otherwise. This is ...
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Listeners accustomed to the uncompromising spikiness characteristic of much of Alfred Schnittke's music may be astonished by the luminous sweetness of his Twelve Penitential Verses for mixed voices a cappella, written in 1988 to celebrate the millennial anniversary of Christianity's arrival in Russia. This stylistic departure seems to have been as much a surprise to the composer as to anyone. He wrote that when he was copying out his final draft, "I realized that they could only have been so and not otherwise. This is beyond any doubt, but it confused me, as well, as if I had not copied my own work, but someone else's." That's not to say that these are examples of chaste euphony. These are, after all, penitential texts and involve a fair amount of anguished dissonance, but Schnittke's language here has an emotional transparency that's immediately gripping. Many of the pieces have an archaic quality, with simple chant-like melodies spun out over vocal drones. The anonymous 16th century Russian texts...
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