It is hard work keeping up with Alfred Schnittke’s changes of style, or apparent changes of style, but this disc satisfyingly couples one of his most perplexing works with one of his richest and most absorbing. The String Trio is a fascinating piece, revealing more and more of itself on repeated hearings. It is, for example, in two movements, but seems on further acquaintance more and more like a single one, a most ingenious expansion or redefinition of sonata form. It was commissioned to commemorate Alban Berg’s centenary, and one of its recurring ideas is based on the rhythm (though not the notes) of Happy birthday to you. This is not, however, one of Schnittke’s jokes; nor is the apparent kinship of one of the themes that are set against it to Gershwin’s “It ain’t necessarily so”. There is much poignancy and anxiety in the piece, and some Shostakovich-like fury and despair, but the melody that remains at the end, rising eerily above the drama but certainly not exorcizing it, is a close relative of the Happy birthday idea in a nostalgically lyrical form. If the work is ‘about’ anything it may be how far genuine rather than false simplicity is accessible to a modern composer, especially one overtly celebrating one of modernism’s heroes. I hope I have not made it sound cerebral; it is a passionate, at times anguished piece, and a strangely moving one.
Another sort of simplicity is the puzzling element in the Concerto for Three. The soloists are not heard together until the very short fourth movement. Instead they have a movement apiece, and despite the presence in each of accompanying groups of strings, all three are monodies, gruffly restless for the cello, eloquently lyrical for the viola, still more intense for the violin. In what sense is the finale, a furious moto perpetuo for all the players, a reply or conclusion to all this? After a minute or so it is abruptly snuffed out by a single chord on the piano (its only appearance in the work). It is weirdly disconcerting, but the initially lyrically expressive, then tongue-in-cheek Minuet was designed by Schnittke to be played as an encore to the concerto and, perhaps, as its true or ‘alternative’ finale. And the Minuet sounds distinctly like an affectionate group portrait of Kremer, Bashmet and Rostropovich, thus insisting that you go back and try to solve the enigma again. All three of the dedicatees play with passionate urgency, and the recording is close but not airless. Berg’s soberly beautiful canon is amplified and coloured by Schnittke’s transcription, not transformed, but at times it rises to a distinctly Russian plangent expressiveness.'