Schnittke Kay & Lt; Trios & Gt; Creation Technique Research

Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998), who is one of Russia’s mostoutstanding contemporary composers, is known as Russia’sgreatest composer after Shostakovich and as contemporaryShostakovich. Schnittke experienced the process of Sovietmusic from closure to thaw, and then to going global. And inthis process, Schnittke’s creative style also experienced aprocess that from imitation and learning in school-days toearly experiments on “Polystylism” in youth, and then toforming his own style. In the music realm, he holds the highestand irreplaceable position both in Russia’s composers and inhearts of Russians.Schnittke，invited by Vienna Alban Berg Foundation,composed his “String Trio” in1985in memory of the hundredth anniversary of Austrian composer Berg’s birthday. This workhad its premiere at concert hall of Moscow Conservatory of Musicin June of that year. In the year of1985, simultaneouslyputting five works on a play, the composer had his mostexuberant creative energy. Also in the same year, he usheredin a creative mature period of “Polystylism”. Compared withother four works，the “string trio” has the least amount ofinstruments and the shortest movement among these works. Andmost of all, just like a forward looking work, there is hardlyany “Polystylism” trace acoustically in it. The mostsuccessful and special point of the work is that the composeruses the concisest materials and strong harmony. Composed ofa series of complicated variation to the original materials,the work performs in theme motivation, tonality harmony, freetwelve-tone and the linear positioning presentation. This workdeeply reflects the composer’s “Polystylism” musical language on the influence of two kinds of culture——Germanyand Russia. Compared with Berg’s atonalistic twelve-tonemusic, this work, keeping Shostakovich’s implied pessimism anddespair in his music, combines much Shostakovich’s romanticstyle.At present, researches on Schnittke from both internal andexternal music fields have made many achievements. There is,however, not a comprehensive and thorough research on his“String trio”. Using musical analysis and historiography ofmusic and related research methods, this paper takes Schnittke“String trio” as research object and strives tocomprehensively analyze the technical characteristics of thework from multiple angles. It includes four chapters. Chapterone firstly clarifies Schnittke’s periods of creation from theangle of historiography of music and then comprehensivelyintroduces the overview of the work. Chapter two and three analyze the work. Beginning with the angle of tonal grouptechnique, Chapter two carries on overall research from fouraspects of theme motivation, tonality harmony, freetwelve-tone and the linear positioning presentation. Based onthe analysis of Chapter two, Chapter three analyzes theintegral structure of the work. On the basis of the above threechapters, the last chapter, having the main innovative points,summarizes the difference between this work and the composer’sother previous works through studying the creative techniquesof “Polystylism”. The difference is that Schnittke didn’tcite or adapt other works directly, but imitated the creationmode of two antecedent composers——Shostakovich and Berg.That reflects higher level of “Polystylism” characteristics.On the basis of studying the creative techniques of“String trio”, this paper aims to reveal the path of thecomposer’s “Polystylism”, thus reaching further and comprehensive understanding of Schnittke’s late style andtechniques. What’s more, giving more visualized and overallpresentation, it’s also a bridge to connect more people withRussia’s modern music. Finally, by further exploring thecomposer’s inner world and more accurately grasping hiscreation mentality, this paper is calculated to provide somehelp for domestic composition and music theory in the future.