Alfred Schnittke

Three Sacred Hymns

The conductor Valery Polyansky tells how, after conducting Schnittke's Faust Cantata in Moscow in 1983, he asked the composer to write something for him and his choir. At first, Schnittke was not willing to do so. Then, at some point, composer and conductor met again at the Pushkin Museum, and Polyansky repeated his request. The very next day, Schnittke approached the conductor, called him a 'horrible guy' and handed him the manuscript of the Three Spiritual Songs - Schnittke had apparently woken up in the middle of the night and composed them! Initially, he had intended to set the entire traditional Russian Orthodox devotion, consisting of six or seven pieces, to music. But Schnittke was at that time considering the setting of texts by Gregory Narekatsi, an Armenian monk and poet of the tenth century, which was to find expression in the creation of the choral concerto. Therefore, he wrote music only for three prayers, which are at the center of the Russian Orthodox faith. --------------------------------------------------------- The 'Drei Geistliche Gesänge' ('Three Sacred Hymns') were composed in 1983. The Russian conductor Valeria Polyansky had requested an a cappella work for his choir, and though at first Schnittke seemed reluctant, he apparently woke in the middle of the night and wrote down these three pieces, and handed the manuscript to Polyansky the following day. The work was only published posthumously. Certain melodic figures and scale passages bind the three pieces together, as does the harmonic plan. The first piece uses the two choirs antiphonally and in strict canon, one measure apart, the first choir singing in E-flat major, the second choir a minor third lower in C minor; the second piece, a dramatic supplication rising from piano to fortissimo in a single brief arch, is in C minor; while the third piece, the most harmonically varied of the three, is in E-flat major. (Paul Hillier)