Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke 阿尔弗雷德·施尼特凯 (1934-1998), 俄罗斯作曲家。1934年11月24日出生于伏尔加河畔的恩格斯（Engels）。1946年在维也纳接受音乐教育，1953-1961年回国后在莫斯科音乐学院随戈卢别夫( Golubev）学习对位，随拉科夫（Rakov）学习配器（此间曾与中国作曲家吴祖强同窗）。毕业后在该院执教，后加入苏联作曲家协会。1977年创作的《大协奏曲》第一部（Concerto Grosso No. 1）为他带来很高声誉。小提琴家克雷默(Kremer)极为推崇并经常演奏这部作品。他的许多作品都是应知名演奏家和艺术家的邀请而作，其中包括巴什梅特（Yury Bashmet）、古特曼（Natalia Gutman）、罗日杰斯特文斯基、罗斯特罗波维奇等。
 
施尼特凯1988年初次访问了美国，他参加了 Making Music Together 音乐节，波士顿交响乐团首演了他的《第一交响曲》。此后他多次访美。二十世纪八十年代，他的作品在国际上受到越来越多的赞扬，并经常在一些著名的音乐节上演出，获得过诸多奖项，包括1991年获奥地利国家奖，1992年获日本天皇奖和1998年莫斯科的斯拉娃－格洛丽亚奖（Slava-Gloria-Prize）。在十年之内，他的作品被录制了 50 多张专辑。
 
施尼特凯1990年定居德国汉堡，保持了德俄双重市民资格。1998年8月3日逝世于汉堡。
 
施尼特凯是一位风格广泛、精力旺盛的作曲家。一重创作了九部交响曲，六部大协奏曲，四部小提琴协奏曲，两部大提琴协奏曲和其他一些室内乐、芭蕾和声乐作品和四部歌剧。他的作品融合了巴洛克﹑爵士﹑十二音列等许多不同的因素，显得炫丽多彩，还为60多部电影配乐。他的作品全集已由BIS 唱片公司已出版。
 
Upon his emergence in the West in the early 1980s, Alfred Schnittke became one of the most talked-about, recorded, and influential composers of the last decades of the twentieth century. Schnittke was born in 1934 in the Soviet Union to German parents. After living for several years in Vienna, he returned to Moscow to attend the Conservatory from 1953-1958. He returned there to teach instrumentation from 1962 through 1972. Thereafter, splitting his time between Moscow and Hamburg, he supported himself as a film composer. Schnittke composed nine symphonies, six concerti grossi, four violin concertos, two cello concertos, concertos for piano and a triple concerto for violin, viola and cello, four string quartets, ballet scores, choral and vocal works. His first opera, Life with an Idiot, was premiered in Amsterdam (April 1992). Two more operas, Gesualdo and Historia von D. Johann Fausten were unveiled in Vienna (May 1995) and Hamburg (June 1995) respectively. In 1985, Schnittke suffered a series of strokes, but nevertheless entered into the most creative period of his life. From 1990 until his death in 1998, he lived exclusively in Hamburg.
 
A Jewish-born Christian mystic, Schnittke had philosophical theories that permeated his music. According to his biographer Alexander Ivashkin, he believed a composer &should be a medium or a sensor remembering what he hears from somewhere else and whose mind acts as a translator only. Music comes from some sort of divine rather than human area.& (Alfred Schnittke, Phaedon Press 1995).