Schnittke A. Concerto № 1 for violin and orchestra. Piano score (Coll. Works. S. 3. Vol. 5b.)

The publication of Alfred Schnittke’s Collected Works is a joint project of the Compozitor Publishing House • Saint-Petersburg and the Alfred Schnittke Archive at Goldsmiths College, University of London. This critical edition is intended for performers, scholars and music lovers interested in Schnittke and his music. Its main purpose is to provide them with access to his scores, which are not readily available in Russia or elsewhere. All the scores have been checked against Schnittke’s manuscripts and existing publications of his music аnd have been edited by leading performers who collaborated with the composer.

The First Violin Concerto, which Schnittke called his “Opus One”, was written in 1956-57, in his fourth year as a student at the Moscow Conservatory. With the exception of the early Sonata No. 0 for Violin and Piano (published for the first time in this edition), it is the first of Schnittke’s many works for the violin. The Concerto was written at the same time as the choruses on poems by Mikhail Lermontov, Mikhail Isakovsky and Alexander Prokof’ev, the Oratorio “Nagasaki” and the Cantata “Songs of War and Peace”. At the time, the young composer was very interested in folklore, as well as in developments in the Western avant-garde; this was the period when Russian musicians finally got the opportunity to become acquainted with the works of Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Boulez, Nono and Stockhausen.

Contents:

Preface
Editorial Notes
CONCERTO No. 1 for violin and orchestra
   I. Allegro ma non troppo
   II. Presto
   III. Andante
   IV. Allegro scherzando
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