Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, Andrey Chistiakov - Alfred Schnittke: Sketches (2011)

Posted By: Designol

Date: Oct. 9, 2022

In 1978 Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) wrote the incidental music for a production of The Inspectors Tale, an adaptation for stage of Gogols Dead Souls. It was to have been directed by Yuri Lyubimov, but the Soviet government banned the production. A suite was assembled from the score by Gennadi Rozhdenstvensky, and two leading colleagues of Schnittke - Gubaidulina and Denisov contributed a jointly composed march, which opens this CD. In 1985 the music was choreographed, the ballet, called Esquisses was performed at the Bolshoi. Schnittke composed a number of new pieces for this production. The characters in the action are all from Gogol, but in addition to The Dead Souls, we meet Tchitchikov, Major Kovalyovs Nose, and Ferdinand VIII from Notes of a Madman. A passage from the book is recited in his piece, and is read by the conductor on this CD. The music is a poly-stylistic, with a huge orchestra (2 electric guitars, flexatone, prepared piano with coins inserted between the strings), quotations from Beethoven, Haydn, Tchaikovsky - all with a sense of devilish mischief which suites ideally the grotesque nature of many of Gogols characters.

This sequence of sardonic and acidulous sketches dates from the late 1970s. They were written for the 1985 Bolshoi ballet Esquisses. The choreographer was Andrei Petrov . The music is intended to complement music Schnittke wrote in 1978 for a theatrical production of Gogol’s The Inspector’s Tale (after Dead Souls). This latter music ultimately emerged, with Gennadi Rozhdestvensky’s intervention, as The Gogol Suite.

The 22 items are each pretty short. They’re really satirical little vignettes where wit is in solution with corrosion. The music is sometimes raucous in the manner of Ibert and Satie. At other times there are tasty little knockabout visits by Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Beethoven (Symphony No. 5 – Fate motif), Tchaikovsky (Swan Lake), Mozart and Chopin (Pas de deux – tr. 15) references are dropped and capitalised upon along the way. The harpsichord is a frequent visitor but in a slightly less intense fashion than we may be accustomed to from the use made of the instrument in Shchedrin and Weinberg. French cinema music of the 1950s and 1960s is also evoked. Schnittke wrote more than his fair share of film scores as we know from Capriccio (Vol. 1; Vol. 2), Olympia and CPO. There’s an electric guitar (solo and bass), flexatone, piano (prepared with coins between the strings) and other percussion some of it ‘outlandish’. There’s even a Russian speaker in Ferdinand VIII (tr.11). The Barrel Organ (tr. 18) creaks and wheezes charmingly. But this is a work that also makes free with the sinister and grand guignol.

This sequence of short sound-picture is boldly recorded and serves well to tickle the ear and please with fantastic dances that lampoon authority. This is not necessarily a disc only for Schnittke fans.

The notes are by Marina Chistiakova and have been fluently translated by Derek Yeld.

Review by Rob Barnett, MusicWeb-International.com

Alfred Schnittke at Allmusic
Alfred Schnittke at Wiki

Tracklist:

01. March: The Swan, the Pike and the Crayfish (01:54)
02. Overture (01:20)
03. The Childhood of Chichikov (02:21)
04. The Portrait (06:24)
05. Major Kovalyov (00:43)
06. Morning. The Disappearance of the Nose (01:30)
07. In Search of the Nose (01:31)
08. Despair (01:52)
09. The Nose is Found (02:19)
10. The Overcoat (02:16)
11. Ferdinand VIII (01:08)
12. The Civil Servants (02:29)
13. The Barrel-Organ (02:09)
14. The Unknown Woman (01:22)
15. Pas de deux (03:32)
16. The Debauch (01:28)
17. The Sabbath (02:01)
18. The Barrel-Organ (01:08)
19. Spanish Royal March (01:40)
20. The Ball (05:59)
21. The Testament (05:17)
22. March: The Swan, the Pike and the Crayfish (01:33)

- rec. January 1996, Mosfilm Studios, Moscow

EAC log

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 1 from 15. November 2010

EAC extraction logfile from 20. August 2011, 11:20

Alfred Schnittke / Sketches

Used drive : Optiarc DVD RW AD-7203A Adapter: 4 ID: 1

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\FLAC\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -T "COMMENT=Ripped by GFox" -5 -V %s

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 1:54.59 | 0 | 8608
2 | 1:54.59 | 1:20.57 | 8609 | 14665
3 | 3:15.41 | 2:21.69 | 14666 | 25309
4 | 5:37.35 | 6:24.14 | 25310 | 54123
5 | 12:01.49 | 0:43.23 | 54124 | 57371
6 | 12:44.72 | 1:30.50 | 57372 | 64171
7 | 14:15.47 | 1:31.07 | 64172 | 71003
8 | 15:46.54 | 1:52.53 | 71004 | 79456
9 | 17:39.32 | 2:19.66 | 79457 | 89947
10 | 19:59.23 | 2:16.28 | 89948 | 100175
11 | 22:15.51 | 1:08.69 | 100176 | 105344
12 | 23:24.45 | 2:29.66 | 105345 | 116585
13 | 25:54.36 | 2:09.54 | 116586 | 126314
14 | 28:04.15 | 1:22.51 | 126315 | 132515
15 | 29:26.66 | 3:32.66 | 132516 | 148481
16 | 32:59.57 | 1:28.39 | 148482 | 155120
17 | 34:28.21 | 2:01.53 | 155121 | 164248
18 | 36:29.74 | 1:08.59 | 164249 | 169407
19 | 37:38.58 | 1:40.07 | 169408 | 176914
20 | 39:18.65 | 5:59.39 | 176915 | 203878
21 | 45:18.29 | 5:17.18 | 203879 | 227671
22 | 50:35.47 | 1:33.23 | 227672 | 234669

Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename D:\EAC\Alfred Schnittke - Sketches.wav

Peak level 98.8 %
Extraction speed 0.1 X
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 7FE54C6D
Copy CRC 7FE54C6D
Copy OK

No errors occurred

AccurateRip summary

Track 1 not present in database
Track 2 not present in database
Track 3 not present in database
Track 4 not present in database
Track 5 not present in database
Track 6 not present in database
Track 7 not present in database
Track 8 not present in database
Track 9 not present in database
Track 10 not present in database
Track 11 not present in database
Track 12 not present in database
Track 13 not present in database
Track 14 not present in database
Track 15 not present in database
Track 16 not present in database
Track 17 not present in database
Track 18 not present in database
Track 19 not present in database
Track 20 not present in database
Track 21 not present in database
Track 22 not present in database

None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

End of status report

==== Log checksum 73D0839E077AD77FBCEAAA01B67E4C27CE4A27D4380BFF14C9BA4D15C1C8D053 ====

DR log

foobar2000 1.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2015-09-25 17:09:14

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Alfred Schnittke / Sketches
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR14 -0.10 dB -21.95 dB 1:55 01-March: The Swan, the Pike and the Crayfish
DR14 -3.32 dB -22.31 dB 1:21 02-Overture
DR13 -5.26 dB -32.85 dB 2:22 03-The Childhood of Chichikov
DR15 -3.49 dB -24.91 dB 6:24 04-The Portrait
DR15 -0.10 dB -19.79 dB 0:43 05-Major Kovalyov
DR12 -11.67 dB -30.97 dB 1:31 06-Morning. The Disappearance of the Nose
DR16 -0.92 dB -24.48 dB 1:31 07-In Search of the Nose
DR10 -13.54 dB -29.33 dB 1:53 08-Despair
DR14 -7.73 dB -28.13 dB 2:20 09-The Nose is Found
DR16 -1.63 dB -25.97 dB 2:16 10-The Overcoat
DR13 -9.96 dB -30.44 dB 1:09 11-Ferdinand VIII
DR13 -3.77 dB -24.81 dB 2:30 12-The Civil Servants
DR10 -18.72 dB -33.22 dB 2:10 13-The Barrel-Organ
DR13 -22.34 dB -40.49 dB 1:23 14-The Unknown Woman
DR13 -8.27 dB -29.07 dB 3:33 15-Pas de deux
DR12 -10.89 dB -25.64 dB 1:29 16-The Debauch
DR13 -0.10 dB -22.38 dB 2:02 17-The Sabbath
DR9 -19.37 dB -32.68 dB 1:09 18-The Barrel-Organ
DR14 -4.70 dB -24.41 dB 1:40 19-Spanish Royal March
DR14 -0.10 dB -24.85 dB 6:00 20-The Ball
DR14 -7.97 dB -27.88 dB 5:17 21-The Testament
DR14 -0.56 dB -20.77 dB 1:33 22-March: The Swan, the Pike and the Crayfish
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 22
Official DR value: DR13

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 525 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================

All thanks to original releaser - GFox

More interesting music in My Blog

DOWNLOAD FROM USENET - 14 DAYS FREE ACCESS