Alfred Garrievich Schnittke (Russian:
Альфред Гарриевич Шнитке; born November 24, 1934 in Engels, USSR; died August 3, 1998 in Hamburg) was a
soviet composer, pianist, theoretician of music and educator. His music is derived from various traditions: Russian (
Dmitri Shostakovich,
Igor Stravinsky), Germanic (
Gustav Mahler,
Alban Berg), and American (
Charles Ives). On his mother’s side he was of Volga German and Roman Catholic extraction, on his father’s side he was German-Jewish. His sense that his background set him apart from the majority in the USSR was reinforced when, from 1945-…
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