Mark Lubotsky is a longstanding friend of Schnittke’s, and he and the composer’s wife Irina gave the first performance of the Third Violin Sonata in October 1994. Their playing is masterly and authoritative. Unlike the music itself, I am tempted to say. This comes from the parallel mental universe Schnittke claims to have entered since his stroke in 1985 but which seems to have led him, by and large, into unselfcritical inconsequentiality. The four movements are at least mercifully concise.
The Third Violin Concerto is more approachable, in that its manic warblings and fake romanticisms are both memorable and individual, while its journeying between tonality and atonality is musically intriguing. To my mind it’s still not a patch on the Fourth Concerto (released on BIS), but it’s certainly worth persisting with. Even more striking is the Concerto for piano and strings. Here Schnittke’s main concern, as quoted in the booklet-notes, was “how to approach banality ... and yet to avoid it ... the real climax, failing to strike a balance between ‘sunshine’ and ‘stormclouds’... shatters into a thousand pieces”. Ralf Gothoni’s superb performance makes the music sound exactly like that, and the recording quality is first-rate throughout the disc.
The Piano Concerto is already available several times over, but the Violin Concerto is not otherwise listed in the current catalogue and the Sonata is a first recording. Here, then, is an excellent issue for the avid Schnittke collector, though newcomers should perhaps start elsewhere in his now extensive discography.'