Alfred Schnittke

Russia, 1958–1998

Soviet-German composer (1934-1998) who developed polystylism, placing Baroque quotation, tango and twelve-tone writing within a single work, as in the Concerto Grosso No. 1 and his nine symphonies.

MusicRoots documents 3 artists who influenced Alfred Schnittke and 0 artists Alfred Schnittke influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Alfred Schnittke?

• Andrei Volkonsky — Volkonsky's serial breakthrough directly inspired Schnittke's generation — the underground precedent behind his own modernist turn.
• Dmitri Shostakovich — Shostakovich's ironic symphonism was the immediate Soviet inheritance Schnittke's polystylism extended into open collage.
• Gustav Mahler — Mahler's collision of the banal and the tragic is the acknowledged ancestor of Schnittke's polystylism — his unfinished piano quartet completes a Mahler sketch.