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Western audiences have yet to come to terms with Alfred Schnittke, the most important 20th-century Russian composer after Shostakovich. For self-appointed critics, he is an easy target for analytical deconstruction. We tend to ignore the surface passion and emotional impact of his music, preferring to bestow on it such glib labels as "collagist", or "polystylist". I am not the only writer to have found Schnittke's music at times hilarious, contradictory, or just bizarre. The combination of borrowed stylistic fragments, arcane orchestration, and apparent navety is an effective foil to those wishing to unmask Schnittke's unique musical personality.
In Russia, it is rather different. There, they dismiss the analytical posturing of the west and surrender to passion. Professor Alexander Ivashkin, curator of the Schnittke Archive in London, remembers a concert in the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow where a capacity crowd of 2,000 was swelled by an enthusiastic mob trying to get in without tickets. "One door was completely smashed. Eventually they called in the mounted police to try and disperse the crowds."
This incident has become a sort of historical emblem that is frequently cited as an example of Schnittke's heroic popularity. But it was no freak of circumstance. His concerts may not have always required the cavalry but they regularly attracted a pop-concert fanaticism. Ivashkin remembers that "in Soviet time they wanted...