Simply because one doesn't associate Schnittke with a cappella choral music, this disc is a genuine ear-opener. Minnesang (1981) is a 15-minute fantasy around thirteenth-century secular texts—essentially lighthearted—which make enjoyable reading, but are difficult to hear as such in the composition. The music as such reinforces my conviction that Schnittke's least effective vein is a rather immobile harmonic flow which is too romantic in tone to embrace the energizing naivety of more minimalist rhythmic structuring. I find the result in Minnesang uninvolving, despite its consistently industrious counterpoint and the brief power of its main climax, gravitating onto pure octaves. For evidence that the composer is not exclusively committed to such a manner you have only to turn to the Choir Concerto (1984–5).
This massive four-movement work could scarcely be more different from Minnesang, since Schnittke's decision to set devotional but far from pallidly pious texts by a tenth-century Armenian poet has led to implacably chordal music involving total immersion in a style that pays particularly explicit homage to the Russian choral tradition, not least its nineteenth-century manifestations culminating in Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. There's no lack of harmonic progression here, but for my taste, and despite moments of undoubted grandeur and profundity there is still a lack of harmonic tension, such as a composer who normally wrote in this style might (at his best) achieve. The Concerto doesn't seek to exploit a great diversity of textures, despite its 43 minute length, and I think that your tolerance of its uniformities will depend on how moved you are by its atmosphere. I found the serenely sustained ending of the whole piece beautiful in the extreme, without being won over by all that precedes it. I can't (yet) shake off the suspicion that the concerto has something of the exercise about it.
Fortunately, the performances of both works are outstandingly good. The Danish National Radio Chorus display phenomenal stamina and consistent tonal refinement, while the acoustic has a suitably ecclesiastical resonance.'