A story about playing Schnittke.

A story about playing Schnittke.

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"The goal of my life is to unify serious music
and light music, even if I break my neck in doing so". Alfred Schnittke.

One of my all time favourite composers is Alfred Schnittke.
I've first heard his music when i was 14, it was weird and wonderful, unusual and overpowering, I think I wasn't old enough back then to really get into his style.

But a few years later I got to perform his Sonata for Cello and Piano and that was an amazing experience, I'm forever grateful to my conservatory teacher, Galina Vinogradova, who took a risk giving this piece of music to a 19-year old, which was unheard of at that time in exUSSR. Only much more mature performers played it.

It ended up being a completely surreal experience.
I've practised this sonata with the Cello player, who was a teacher in the same conservatory (but in the evening we were colleagues playing in the same restaurants) and he was very talented, and, of course, an alcoholic. :)

Anyway, we really learnt it well and the girl who was turning our pages had to sit with us at all times coz even her job was difficult with all the different time signatures going on etc.

At the day of my State exam the Cello player turned up in the auditorium and he didn't look well, he was pale, his hands were shaken etc.

-What happened? - we asked?
-I got an ampule sawn in, - he explained.

(At the time it was quite widely used treatment for alcoholism, the doctor would saw an ampule with some medicine under a skin and the patient would have to abstain from the drink as it could kill him then).

Obviously being sober for couple of days and dying for a drink with no possibility to have it - didn't do anything for his nerves or physical state.
The reality of playing one of the most difficult cello parts in the world just hit him like a ton of bricks.

As soon as we got on stage, he got lost in his music and started playing total BS, just improvising through.

The girl who was turning pages got terrified and started crying, she didn't know what to do.
I kept playing the actual music.

then I noticed that he "found himself" a few pages later and he started playing right.

Continuing with my right hand, I started turning pages with my left hand and found where to "pick him up" .
My whole life was flashing before my eyes, the strain was unbelievable as Schnittke is this kind of music - if you get lost - you're lost forever.
But also there was a part of me that was totally calm and calculating and I knew that my Diploma depends on this exam.

-Run to him and turn his music to page 8, - I said to the page-turning girl.

And so she did. :)

From then on we finished the 1 part and played the next 2 parts without any accidents.

We got a standing ovation, and speaking to the audience later - they actually didn't realise that anything was wrong at all... ))))) They were just puzzled about me turning pages as opposed to the page-turner. :)

Backstage, I couldn't look at the cello player.

I asked him one question - "why did you decide to stop drinking in time for my exam? you know you play better when you're drunk!"

He didn't have anything to say...

(2 days later he ripped the ampule out and started drinking again. :)))

My teacher ran up to me backstage said that I almost gave her a heart attack with how great I was "under fire". :)

The exam committee of course did see what went wrong with us I still got the highest possible grade... ))


Here's an absolutely amazing perfomance of this sonata, I just love Heinrich Schiff:
Part one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b_VSPxiFk4
Part two http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mB-DcIgoiQ&feature=related
Part three http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct8k_iiF_I8&feature=related


Read about Alfred Schnittke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnittke